2006 STI - 5033 km - Cracking the Whip! K&N Typhoon Short Ram Intake Installed

UPDATE: Sound clips

Oh, yeah! Woo hoo! Yee ha! Kowabunga! Yippee ki-yay! Scooby-dooby-doooo!!!

Can you tell that I installed the K&N Typhoon intake today? I was able to swap out the stock air box in about an hour just taking my time following the steps provided by K&N and snapping some pictures along the way. I finished just in time before dinner, so I used the trip to the restaurant for a short little test drive. I didn't get a chance to really wind it up on the way there, but boy, on the way back I sure did! My wife laughed out loud because she said I had a huge grin on my face all the way back home....

How different is it now that the K&N is installed? Most noticeably is the sound--and what a sweet sound it is! How can I describe it? When the RPM rises and the turbo starts to spool and hit boost, the increasing amount of air that gets sucked in sounds like a snarly pit bull or an angry slithering snake. The pitch rises higher and higher, winding itself up until you press the clutch in. Then like the crack of a whip you hear the by-pass valve (BPV), shift gears and away you go and it all starts over again. I can't get enough of it!

Installation went smoothly and here are a few notes. This is a picture of the stock air box in the engine bay:


This is the air box is removed. You are looking at the top of the air filter the object in the shadow to the right of it is the MAF:


This is the bottom side of the air filter. You can see how much dirt has accumulated after 5000 km. The MAF is on the left and below that are the two lower bolts that hold the stock air box:


As I mentioned in an earlier post, two little bolts for holding the MAF were missing. I called Lordco and they weren't very helpful. The K&N parts list said "M4 x 8mm" but I had no idea what that meant until I went to Home Depot. "M4" is a metric sized bolt (which is quite small) but Home Depot didn't have any the correct length (8mm). I went to several places including B&J Parts and Machine and PoCo Building Supplies, but only Canadian Tire had a good selection of metric bolts and exactly what I was looking for. This picture shows the difference between the stock bolts and the ones specified by K&N. The stock ones look to be a bit longer, maybe 10 mm:



For the installation I disconnected the negative terminal on the battery. After reconnecting it, the car didn't start until I cranked it the second time. I've already reprogrammed the seat belt chime delete, and I'll also have to set the clock and redo all my radio presets. I'm planning to try to capture what the intake sounds like on tape, and I'll post that up when I do. BTW, someone around here has a red Ferrari Testarossa Sypder. I've seen him twice already: once last night in PoCo and again today on the Plateau. The first time I saw one in person was back in the 1980's on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles.