GruppeM Ram Air System Intake

[Wrecky_Flowers_]

Originally Posted by OkieSnuffBox

Nope, it's not. We've all literally agree to that multiple times in this thread.

You seem to be arguing that it IS FUNCTIONAL, while the rest of us are saying, If it's functional then provide us with the objective data.

So I think you're missing OUR point.

Going off of Gruppe-M's track record of making functional intakes (defined as intakes that result in increased horsepower and torque) for countless other cars over the last 20+ years, I think it is completely reasonable to expect this one to be functional. I wouldn't get hung up on the "ram air" moniker, as it is only part of the equation and isn't the sole reason for this intake working well. The intake they make for the S2000 would pick up 7-8 whp with a tune, and that motor is almost certainly harder to make power with than the FA24 because of its smaller displacement, lower compression, and generally how well-designed the stock intake and exhaust manifolds were. Time will tell on the FA24 as we don't even have tuning solutions out yet, but I would be shocked if this thing didn't pick up healthy power with a tune.

Having said all of that, I think it's besides the point. This product is not meant for people searching for all-out performance. This product caters to the type of person who would be able to use a Timex to keep time, but chooses to wear an Omega instead, if you get my drift.

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by Wrecky_Flowers_

Going off of Gruppe-M's track record of making functional intakes (defined as intakes that result in increased horsepower and torque) for countless other cars over the last 20+ years, I think it is completely reasonable to expect this one to be functional. I wouldn't get hung up on the "ram air" moniker, as it is only part of the equation and isn't the sole reason for this intake working well. The intake they make for the S2000 would pick up 7-8 whp with a tune, and that motor is almost certainly harder to make power with than the FA24 because of its smaller displacement, lower compression, and generally how well-designed the stock intake and exhaust manifolds were. Time will tell on the FA24 as we don't even have tuning solutions out yet, but I would be shocked if this thing didn't pick up healthy power with a tune.

Having said all of that, I think it's besides the point. This product is not meant for people searching for all-out performance. This product caters to the type of person who would be able to use a Timex to keep time, but chooses to wear an Omega instead, if you get my drift.

Hopes and dreams are all I read here. You are asking us to accept some sort of magical increase in power based on the reputation of previous, also unverified claims of the same for other platforms. If anything, I'd be worried about ruining the MAF signal because it's been moved so close to the throttle body. That distortion due to acoustical effects is well known. It's also the reason for the, what, three or four Helmholtz resonators along the intake plumbing. Those aren't free.

Factory tunes are conservative for many good reasons. Tune first, add the bling, and tune again. Where are those mad gainz now?

But, hey, it's the Rolex of airboxes.

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by NoHaveMSG

I imagine the maf sensor in that GruppeM intake is like...........

Oops, sorry. I read way too quickly. You already covered the MAF issue.

[Midnightsky]

Popcorn? Anyone? lol

[mycrors7]

damn this thread blew up

im 99% sure subaru engineers put a lot more R&D into the OEM intake system than GruppeM has done in the past 6-8 months that this car has been out

there is a reason the factory intake is so well and that the previous generation didnt have many intake solutions that were actually improving the vehicle

modern intakes on vehicles are designed EXTREMELY well and efficiently. Other than maybe a better flowing filter(which is hard to come by too), its going to be very hard to improve it.

does the GruppeM intake make a difference? maybe in the perfect world scenario, on a dyno with fans blasting into those air ducts, sure youll see some gains.

will it make a noticeable difference in a real world application? its hard to answer that until there's solid evidence.

judging by the vw world that i grew up with.. the motor needs to be pulling A LOT of air before an aftermarket intake makes any difference that is worth noting. on mk6 GTI's almost every aftermarket intake on the market was damn near useless up until the big turbo 500whp ranges. all they really did it make cooler, louder noises like most people want. the oem intake was perfectly fine for the most part.

i see the same trend with a lot of modern vehicles. the oem intake system is very impressive.


i agree 100% that this intake is for the guy who wants bling in their engine bay and is likely building their car for show and display purposes rather than track or performance purposes. if youre dumping this kind of money on an intake, you definitely want to show it off.

[Varelco]

Originally Posted by Wrecky_Flowers_

Going off of Gruppe-M's track record of making functional intakes (defined as intakes that result in increased horsepower and torque) for countless other cars over the last 20+ years, I think it is completely reasonable to expect this one to be functional. I wouldn't get hung up on the "ram air" moniker, as it is only part of the equation and isn't the sole reason for this intake working well. The intake they make for the S2000 would pick up 7-8 whp with a tune, and that motor is almost certainly harder to make power with than the FA24 because of its smaller displacement, lower compression, and generally how well-designed the stock intake and exhaust manifolds were. Time will tell on the FA24 as we don't even have tuning solutions out yet, but I would be shocked if this thing didn't pick up healthy power with a tune.

Having said all of that, I think it's besides the point. This product is not meant for people searching for all-out performance. This product caters to the type of person who would be able to use a Timex to keep time, but chooses to wear an Omega instead, if you get my drift.

Not to be blunt but this isn't an S2000, which is also over 20 years old in design, if you are new to this platform then you will not understand that in the past decade of the FA20, intakes were marginal in increasing performance due to how well the optimised the factory intake was, in fact many lost power.


This will be no different. Gruppe-M doesn't have a magic recipe that other manufacturers don't have. The cars you quoted that do gets gains from a Gruppe-M, but they also get gains from the other manufacturers too, it's not unique to them.

[Lantanafrs2]

Very humble observation: the filter looks a little small and too close to the maf and throttle plate.

[Wrecky_Flowers_]

Originally Posted by Varelco

Not to be blunt but this isn't an S2000, which is also over 20 years old in design, if you are new to this platform then you will not understand that in the past decade of the FA20, intakes were marginal in increasing performance due to how well the optimised the factory intake was, in fact many lost power.


This will be no different. Gruppe-M doesn't have a magic recipe that other manufacturers don't have. The cars you quoted that do gets gains from a Gruppe-M, but they also get gains from the other manufacturers too, it's not unique to them.

The S2000 had a similarly-optimized intake from the factory, however there is always room for improvement. The intakes on these cars are no different. Claiming that intakes don't make power on these cars is a bit disingenuous, especially when there is clear evidence that they do. D-Sport also did a comparison of a ton of available intakes for the FR-S and found that most, if not all of them, made considerable power with a tune. Link here: https://dsportmag.com/the-tech/scion...ting-ecutek/9/

Didn't the revolution intake (gruppe m collaboration) make power on the FA20? This seems like an improved version of that design, so deductive reasoning would suggest that it could make power here as well.
According to this thread, it made quite a bit.... https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94390

Again, this intake seems like it would work just as well as any other intake, perhaps slightly better due to the chamber design and the twin air scoops. Once these cars have a tuning solution available for them I am reasonably sure that intakes like these and others will yield healthy gains all over the power band, including in the torque dip. Even without a tune, I am sure modest gains would be realized, but caring about how much power an intake makes without a tune, especially on any car with an engine this size, seems silly to me.

[Wrecky_Flowers_]

Originally Posted by mycrors7

damn this thread blew up

im 99% sure subaru engineers put a lot more R&D into the OEM intake system than GruppeM has done in the past 6-8 months that this car has been out

there is a reason the factory intake is so well and that the previous generation didnt have many intake solutions that were actually improving the vehicle

modern intakes on vehicles are designed EXTREMELY well and efficiently. Other than maybe a better flowing filter(which is hard to come by too), its going to be very hard to improve it.

does the GruppeM intake make a difference? maybe in the perfect world scenario, on a dyno with fans blasting into those air ducts, sure youll see some gains.

will it make a noticeable difference in a real world application? its hard to answer that until there's solid evidence.

judging by the vw world that i grew up with.. the motor needs to be pulling A LOT of air before an aftermarket intake makes any difference that is worth noting. on mk6 GTI's almost every aftermarket intake on the market was damn near useless up until the big turbo 500whp ranges. all they really did it make cooler, louder noises like most people want. the oem intake was perfectly fine for the most part.

i see the same trend with a lot of modern vehicles. the oem intake system is very impressive.


i agree 100% that this intake is for the guy who wants bling in their engine bay and is likely building their car for show and display purposes rather than track or performance purposes. if youre dumping this kind of money on an intake, you definitely want to show it off.

I think you can both have nice parts like this, and also take them to the track and use them. I don't know how this particular community is in that regard, but having an S2000 track car put together with really nice parts is not an especially uncommon thing. Some people have deeper pockets and like having nice stuff that is going to be worth decent money when they part the car out and move on to something else. This is no different to buying a set of Volks to use as track wheels when Konigs or Enkeis would have worked about as well. You could go even further and say this is more functional than the stick-on BS OEM STi "aero" that some people tack onto their cars - I don't hear anyone complaining about that.

As you are suggesting, the OEM intake in this car is very well designed. Subaru's engineers put a lot of thought into designing the intake so that it performed well at all RPMs and didn't cause a significant power restriction. Having said this, there are other factors at play - the intake is designed to make power, but ALSO to not make noise (bummer!), to mitigate the risk of water or foreign material intrusion into the engine as much as possible (so people can drive them through puddles and not pop their engines), reduce heat soak, comply with the emissions goals of the engine, etc. That means it is an inherently compromised design if your goal is to make as much power as possible, which was not Subaru's ultimate goal here. Again, the S2000 is subject to the same logic - well designed intake that works great, but you give up ultimate performance for something that is designed to work in every street car Honda sold, in all situations. A properly-designed aftermarket intake (those cars are very picky in this regard) would yield power gains, but at the expense of the other factors the OEM was working with (noise/emissions/reliability/etc). Another thing to consider is that the OEM intakes on both cars are designed and mass-manufactured to a cost and to be easily serviceable, as opposed to some aftermarket intakes that take up every little bit of room available in the name of performance while making it more of a pain to install and service (replace filters, clean, etc).

The Golf (and any turbocharged performance car in general) is not an apples to apples comparison here because it is totally different in terms of design, and was engineered to work and perform totally differently than the motor in this car. That motor was designed with turbocharging in mind, and thus doesn't benefit very much from an intake (unless you're tuned and seeking to squeeze out maximum performance and response from the motor and turbo). Intakes on those cars largely help with response and add some noise, but are not where you go if you're trying to make power. As the owner of a Mk7, I am speaking purely from experience here, not what I've read on the internet.

Guys, my goal here isn't to convince you all that spending two racks on an intake is a good idea. I am simply trying to have a discussion about the potential of this intake to make power under the appropriate circumstances. No intake for any 4 cylinder N/A car is going to make a noticeable amount of horsepower without a tune, however on the last car and other similar cars they usually pick up power when tuned compared to the OEM intake also with a tune. In the real world, I don't think there are any intakes that would yield a very noticeable improvement in power over stock without a tune, but if you're tuned and switching to a good aftermarket intake you're going to notice the extra WHP and torque. Saying something is useless or worthless with no evidence to support your claim other than purely anecdotal evidence is kind of silly in my opinion. At present, there is no data on the FA24 that shows how well it responds to a properly-designed aftermarket intake as there is still no tuning solution. I am positive that we will start to see some pretty encouraging results from these motors with bolt-ons added to the mix once there is a way to tune them.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Wrecky_Flowers_

I think you can both have nice parts like this, and also take them to the track and use them. I don't know how this particular community is in that regard, but having an S2000 track car put together with really nice parts is not an especially uncommon thing. Some people have deeper pockets and like having nice stuff that is going to be worth decent money when they part the car out and move on to something else. This is no different to buying a set of Volks to use as track wheels when Konigs or Enkeis would have worked about as well. You could go even further and say this is more functional than the stick-on BS OEM STi "aero" that some people tack onto their cars - I don't hear anyone complaining about that.

As you are suggesting, the OEM intake in this car is very well designed. Subaru's engineers put a lot of thought into designing the intake so that it performed well at all RPMs and didn't cause a significant power restriction. Having said this, there are other factors at play - the intake is designed to make power, but ALSO to not make noise (bummer!), to mitigate the risk of water or foreign material intrusion into the engine as much as possible (so people can drive them through puddles and not pop their engines), reduce heat soak, comply with the emissions goals of the engine, etc. That means it is an inherently compromised design if your goal is to make as much power as possible, which was not Subaru's ultimate goal here. Again, the S2000 is subject to the same logic - well designed intake that works great, but you give up ultimate performance for something that is designed to work in every street car Honda sold, in all situations. A properly-designed aftermarket intake (those cars are very picky in this regard) would yield power gains, but at the expense of the other factors the OEM was working with (noise/emissions/reliability/etc). Another thing to consider is that the OEM intakes on both cars are designed and mass-manufactured to a cost and to be easily serviceable, as opposed to some aftermarket intakes that take up every little bit of room available in the name of performance while making it more of a pain to install and service (replace filters, clean, etc).

The Golf (and any turbocharged performance car in general) is not an apples to apples comparison here because it is totally different in terms of design, and was engineered to work and perform totally differently than the motor in this car. That motor was designed with turbocharging in mind, and thus doesn't benefit very much from an intake (unless you're tuned and seeking to squeeze out maximum performance and response from the motor and turbo). Intakes on those cars largely help with response and add some noise, but are not where you go if you're trying to make power. As the owner of a Mk7, I am speaking purely from experience here, not what I've read on the internet.

Guys, my goal here isn't to convince you all that spending two racks on an intake is a good idea. I am simply trying to have a discussion about the potential of this intake to make power under the appropriate circumstances. No intake for any 4 cylinder N/A car is going to make a noticeable amount of horsepower without a tune, however on the last car and other similar cars they usually pick up power when tuned compared to the OEM intake also with a tune. In the real world, I don't think there are any intakes that would yield a very noticeable improvement in power over stock without a tune, but if you're tuned and switching to a good aftermarket intake you're going to notice the extra WHP and torque. Saying something is useless or worthless with no evidence to support your claim other than purely anecdotal evidence is kind of silly in my opinion. At present, there is no data on the FA24 that shows how well it responds to a properly-designed aftermarket intake as there is still no tuning solution. I am positive that we will start to see some pretty encouraging results from these motors with bolt-ons added to the mix once there is a way to tune them.

Our point is that although there most certainly are cars that will benefit from an improved CAI these are not one of them. They come with a very effective CAI already. Adding length and complexity to a simple yet effective design does not make it "better" in any way shape or form with or without a tune. The other point that several of us have tried to make is that calling this thing a "ram air" system is just ludicrous. It is in now way going to provide ram air boost at any speed that these cars will ever be driven at.
You argue that we have " no evidence to support your claim other than purely anecdotal evidence" yet you are doing exactly the same thing to try and support you viewpoint.
Even the TRD intake for the first gen was proven to have no real benefit other than pure bling and that was developed directly by Toyota.
Just pop a higher flow filter in, tune (when you can) for that higher flow and call it a day.
No doubt many will buy this and adamantly state that they can immediately "feel" the improvement in performance but butt dyno measurements are notoriously inaccurate.

[NoHaveMSG]

Originally Posted by Ultramaroon

Oops, sorry. I read way too quickly. You already covered the MAF issue.

I’d still copilot a starship with you.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by NoHaveMSG

I’d still copilot a starship with you.

[NoHaveMSG]

Originally Posted by Lantanafrs2

Very humble observation: the filter looks a little small and too close to the maf and throttle plate.

But it’s high quality so MAF placement doesn’t matter

[CincyJohn]

I would be interested in seeing if it makes any extra HP (dyno-verified) WITHOUT a tune. Because right now, that is the only choice we have.

I don't doubt that it might make a few more HP with a tune. But since almost all of my engine mod choices are cost/value/hassle propositions, this would definitively not qualify as being of interest to me almost regardless of what those tests would show.

Still think that the best bang for the buck, by far, on the first gen was catless headers/OFT tune/e85. I really hope that option becomes available for 2nd gen.