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66cat389 : Exactly. But my point is that with aluminum's high rate of heat transfer and the engine's high heat output, how effective is the CAI at keeping the air cold?
I would think that the hotter the engine gets, the hotter the air intake tube would get and the hotter the air entering the throttle body would be.
I might be wrong (probably) on this one, but it just seems like common sense to me that rubber is a better insulator than aluminum and would delay the time it takes for the incoming air to reach ambient temps in the engine bay. Which would make the stock setup as good as or better (cheaper too) than an all aluminum intake tube.
First, I agree that the stock intake is as good as the CAIs that are available. For modern cars I think that CAIs are mostly about appearance.
Aluminum
is a much better conductor of heat than plastic or rubber, but with the design of the CAI it isn't really a factor. A round tube is not a very efficient heat exchanger, and the intake air spends very little time in it, so the amount of heat gain is minimal. Also, GM did a pretty good job of design, and the underhood temperatures, while the car is is motion, are pretty close to ambient.