After over a week with this intake I decided that I have spent enough time with it to write a review. Here goes....
I was going to wait till I had the money to buy the $3,000 plus bimmerworld CSL style intake to for my car but then I came across the AFE intake for our cars. I sent a pm to Harold at HP Autoworks and he shot me back a price that I could not refuse so I decided what the heck and decided to give the intake a try. During the whole ordering process Harold was great and he went out of his way to make sure I had the intake by the weekend so I could use it at the BMW CCA AutoX. Big
to Harold and HP Autowerks!
Install and Fit and Finish:
Everything on he AFE intake is nicely finished and has a real quality feel to it. The coupler where the mass air bolts into is a thing of beauty! Everything on the intake bolted up like it should the only problem were the install instructions that AFE provided were a little less then great. It was nothing really major though as any person will limited mechanical knowledge could be able to figure out how to install it. It took me less then half an hour to get it in there and this was with me really taking my time. I did drop one of the nuts in the black hole that is the engine bay but a quick trip to Lowes the following morning fixed that minor problem.
Performance:
So people in the other threads have discounted this intake saying that heat soak, idle issues, and warranty turned them away. I am happy to say that I have no idle issues at all and this comes after using it in stop and go traffic, on the highway, around town, and an autoX. This was my one big worry with buying this product but no such issues. As far as warranty goes my tech at the BMW dealership was actually the one who pushed me to purchase it.... I can pretty much do any mods I want and he will turn a blind eye and always honor my warranty. Even if you didn't have a Tech and SA as cool as mine it would not be that hard to just swap it back to stock before going into the dealership. Now onto the big question of heat soak... If you look at the intake on the E46 M3 CSL it is also open to the engine bay just like the AFE intake. In fact it is ever more open to hot engine bay air then the AFE intake. I think the only time you will get heat soak is when there is not air flow over the front of the car. Every other time, especially when you are driving fast, I think there is enough air flow going into the intake that will being sucking up cooler air rather then hot air. I have an idea though that I think might make heat soak even less of an issue. As we all know the stock air scoop in the Z4M is not to good at ramming air into the intake whether it be stock or aftermarket. So I was thinking of pairing the AFE intake with the scoop from RPI as then there would def be positive air flow going over the intake. I might even fab up my own intake scoop that is a little larger then the RPI one to gain even more flow. I am still deciding what to do in regards to this so I will let everybody know once I come up with a plan. As far as actual performance goes I am going to have to give the AFE intake a positive review. The biggest difference is in the 1,000 to 4,000 rpm range where as the stock car seems to have a little lag in the is band the car with the AFE intake revs alot more free. I think the best way to describe it is as if you replaced a dirty air filter with a brand new clean one.. it just simply revs better. I am lucky enough to have my brother's M Coupe sitting in the garage right next to mine with which to make comparisons so I can def say this is just not a fluke. The car also pulls harder in the 7,000+ rpm range and overall I can say once the car hard a couple days to adjust to the new air flow it for sure is making a tiny bit more power. Even if it made the same power as stock the sound alone would justify the price of admission.... think CSL intake sound! It makes the car sound like it has an angry lion under the hood trying to break out.
In the end I am happy with my purchase and idk if it helped or not but I did take a first place finish at the BMW CCA autoX I ran with the intake!