1997 Dodge Ram 3500 Air Intake - Breathe Easy
| 1997 Dodge Ram 3500 Intake engine
Airflow restrictions are something you don't want anywhere on your engine. Incoming air? Exhaust gases? It doesn't matter. One of the first things you want to do to your diesel is free up any spot that blocks the air's path. One great way to achieve this is by installing a cold-air-intake kit. Also, most stock airboxes have a restrictive intake silencer used to cut down on any turbo noise that could annoy passengers. We didn't want silence-we wanted turbo noise! We also didn't want any restriction, so we decided to get a cold-air-intake kit from S&B Filters to install on our '97 Ram 3500 truck.
S&B's cold-air-intake kits are available for Chevy, Dodge, and Ford applications and are said to flow 27-54 percent more air than your stock airbox and air filter (depending on application). The kit will also stop 99 percent of dirt in the process. While your stock air filter uses a paper element to stop dirt, S&B kits have a pre-oiled, eight-layer filter that dramatically increases flow. To round out the cold-air kit, a custom high-volume airbox and an intake tube are also included, as well as all the necessary hardware.
| Here is the stock airbox (left) and the airbox from S&B (right). It's easy to see why S&B claims its airbox flows 40.2 percent better than the stock Dodge airbox.
The cold-air-intake kit was relatively easy to install and took about 30 minutes from start to finish. The instructions were helpful, and we didn't have to hunt for parts that weren't included in the kit. S&B also offers custom engravings for the top of its airboxes (as long as they're tasteful), so we had to get one that said Diesel Power, of course.
After the installation was complete, there were some notable differences in driveability. Throttle response seemed to increase slightly, and a healthy turbo whistle made its presence known-from spooling up until full boost. Having an intake tube that can be drilled and tapped easily is also helpful if propane, water/methanol, or nitrous will be added later. So follow along as we increase our airflow capacity by 40 percent with a cold-air intake from S&B Filters.
