I'm going to put together an el cheapo open cone intake tomorrow and I understand that it is important to unplug the battery for a 20 min to let the PCM relearn the fuel tables. I read that how much of an improvement you see in gas mileage depends on your first 100 miles of driving after that. Any tips on what sort of driving I should do to max my gas mileage?

Just drive normal. Don't jab the throttle and don't run WOT.

Thats good to know, I probably would have nailed it right out of the driveway. I guess I'll have to behave for a while.

x2. I'll have to remember that.

Unplug the PCM before you start this way when your done the time has elapsed and the PCM will be reset.

Don't expect too much. My 100K used car has gotten crappy MPG since day 1. My wife's 04 Monte has gotten 28-29 highway since we bought new. This car gets 24-26. My dad's 96 Bonneville gets 29. I have tried the PCM reset, airing up tires to 35 and actually drove the speed limit on a 400 mile trip. That about killed me. Nope, the car still got 25. I am thinking on a DP and new O2, maybe that will help.

Why do you uplug the battery to reset the
PCM I didnt catch that part?

It resets the fuel trims. You will be increaseing the amount of air into the intake. Therefore your fueling is going to need adjustment. They best way is by a scanner/tuner. But disconnecting the negative battery terminal prior to the project will give it ample time to reset. This way the fuel trims start off from lets say from point zero to make things easy.
Read up this stuff: Read

24-26 is about average for our cars isnt it? (city driving that is) I get that with my N/A GT

yep.

I'm also putting in a cone intake and I was wondering do you disconect the battery or the PCM to reset the fuel trims, or does it matter

i have never been able to get 24mpg city. i can drive like a grandpa and get maybe 20 at the absolute most. or i can drive like an idiot and get 14.

I get 17-19 city/highway but my driving is 60%+ highway and 24-26 on strictly highway trips. My wife's w-body Monte Carlo SS gets 18 city maybe (she's a lead foot) and 28 or so on highway trips when I drive with cruise on of course. I keep detailed gas and maintenance records of all my cars so I know these are acurate.

Im only getting 17 MPG right now, but i blame it on the winter. I always keep it under 3k rpm so i probably should be getting more

I often wonder the state of tune on the PCM when people say they can't get over 23 mpg on the highway when they granma it. I get that runnin around town.

Wonder if those who are getting bad mileage with a stock PCM if a reflash would help. It definately wouldn't hurt.

my gas mileage sucks... like 14-17 at the most, i never do highway driving though and i have a really really heavy lead foot

You know thats a good idea. ill have to invest into a tuner after i get my rims

i average 25mpg on the highway and on the better days 20-22 in the city, my gas mileage goes to crap when i ahve to spank around the rice rockets tho, but its worth it, even konsidering i only run high-test in my forced induction application

I'm hitting 22mpg driving country/city (no highway) and romping on the gas every now and then. That's also with a crappy, half-a** tune running rich.

Ok here are a couple pics. Nothing fancy, but I think it turned out ok. I tried to find a 9" K&N filter around but everyone had to order it, so I just bought some $38 one at Oreiley's. I assume they can't perform much different, air filter design can't be rocket science.





I probably should have paid more attention to the direction that rubber coupler was pointing. It doesn't look so nice with all the print showing.

PS: I know it's a dirty engine. I'll clean it someday.

I think the altitude here plays a roll. Sense I've had the car, I could only get 18mpg in the city. 14 mpg with a lead foot, And the hills diffently don't help. Now when I go to texas for vacation, I get 31 mpg highway....For the new guys, my altitude is about 5k ft above sea level.......

I think it looks good, When I did this I lost 3mpg from stock airbox. But I hate the sound of it on first startup.

I haven't noticed much difference in the sound on startup. I have to open it up 1/2 throttle before I can get much more sound out of it. I was interested in hearing the start up gurgle that lots of people describe. Oh well.

i love the sound on startup! but mine makes all sorts of noises...lol

That setup looks pretty nice

That is the filter I just bought. I decided to get away from KN for th first time!

Well.... it sure is colorful.... and chromey. I can't think of any reason it shouldn't work just fine. Plus it was about $15 cheaper.

Same story, I installed this TODAY. Basically a K&N clone and chrome never sucks so I went with it. After the battery disconnect, I've put 50 miles on the car and the PCM still seems way off.

Possible Thread Jack: I installed the Cone as close as possible to the hood ducts to get a ram air effect. Is this better than running it closer to the headlight?

where did you guys get the tubes from

The pep boys ricer section for chromed aluminum generic 4" diameter pieces. Still hard to find cause most Honda's are 3" diameter. But you can always use Hardware store rubber plumbing pipe.

thanks, not all ricers are hondas, i miss my prelude, wouldn't give up the gtp though!

Same here. The GTP is much nicer than my Prelude, but I did like the Prelude.

Nate and Daniel, your install looks good. The only thing that I would suggest for both of you (and this is purely cosmetic) is to spin the filter around so the seam doesn't show.

my prelude was a 93 vtec with intake, tb, intake manifold, header, dp and a catback exaust. it could take a stock gtp but not a lightly modded one

Unfortunately there isn't a good way to spin the filter so that black stripe dosn't show. It's actually a nice shiny labeled plastic bar that has the manufacturer's name one it, and.... they're on both sides of the filter.

Oh and I just used a 3" section of conduit from Lowe's and used some high temp flat black paint. I will go up to 4" if I ever see some nice cheap material around.

If you want more WOT sound and less cold-startup sound, and not to mention possible better performance, build a CAI box around it.

note: coming soon after it gets above 25*: csc sound clips

How will a box offer more WOT sound? wouldn't it be less cold startup sound and less sound all around.

Nate/Daniel,

Enclose those air filters and then you'll be golden.

Ok, at risk of sounding like a total poser, I don't want to box it in and lose any of the sound I get out of it. I really like the extra engine noise and I don't think I'll have enough money any time soon to mod much else, so I'm sure my HP gains are negligible with just and open cone or CAI.

Once the car is moving the inlet air temp is no different between a CAI and an open cone. I've have done some tests and found that out for my self.

That is true; I remember your testing.
BUT, I still think those couple seconds before fresh air fills your engine bay is very important. The very hot air that initially gets sucked in from the engine bay could likely cause some KR... and ANY KR is going to cause the computer to pull timing for a length of time greater than the KR existed (looks like its 0.7 degrees per second after the knock ceases). Well, thats just a good explaination for one of my experiences:
I always used to have a 4"dia cone filter clamped right onto my supercharger (so equiv to a standard open cone intake, but even better since CSCs aren't furnaces like M90s). And I was struggling with slight KR at launching from a stop with my raised timing (I tried a few ways to combat this: lowering <3000rpm timing tables, and even the stupid way by tweaking KR attack rates).
After I built my fenderwell intake, the problem completely dissappeared, even though per Herc's findings, I did not notice any gains in the upper range.
Just a little story

When I was N/A and had a wizaired, the sound resonated beautifully within the sealed box. When I took the cover off of it, no more resonating. I assume that would happen for lots of CAI setups, unless the wizaired just had that certain quality.