“Wow.” That’s the first thing that came to mind when I walked into the shop area at Arrington Performance. I know many of you here at SVTP probably haven’t heard of Arrington, as they work mainly in the Dodge market, but their shop is also the home base for SVTP Vendor ShopSupercharger.com. They invited us to their Martinsville, VA facilities to perform some baseline dyno testing and to install a few mods on the SVTP 2012 Mustang GT project car. And what facilities they are.
Arrington has a long history in NASCAR and a huge presence in the modern Hemi market. Inside the walls of their expansive building you will find a CNC machining center, several engine dynos, a complete engine assembly clean room, an enormous install shop area, and a SuperFlow chassis dyno. I’m leaving out a lot of other features of the shop, but I think you get the idea. This place is a serious performance shop. Calling Arrington a gearhead’s paradise would probably be a fair statement.
Our travels brought us to Arrington to use their SuperFlow chassis dyno. SuperFlow is widely held as the gold standard of chassis dynomometers. Its extreme accuracy and precision makes it very expensive and sort of a rare find in a consumer level performance shop. All of this performance measuring goodness is located deep inside the Arrington building in its own sound insulated and temperature controlled dyno-cell. The day we were testing it was a comfortable 76 degrees Fahrenheit inside the cell. Good weather for making power if you ask me, and making power was our goal.
We arrived at Arrington with parts in hand ready to work. Our first mod of the day, this should give a hint that we'll have another article posted soon, was an Airaid MXP Intake System. Quality and attention to detail are two attributes that came to mind as soon as I opened the Airaid’s box. The first thing you are greeted by as soon as you cut through the outer tape is a packing inventory that lets you know that every piece that is supposed to be in your kit in-fact made it into the box. Upon further inspection of the componentry I can’t really say how impressed I was by the quality that was displayed by every single piece in the kit. The molded plastic pieces are thick, ridged, and devoid of molding process imperfections such as divots and excess flashing. Even the seam lines are hardly noticeable.
The attention to detail from Airaid can be seen in all of the little touches. They rotate the position of the mass-airflow sensor 90 degrees to place it at the bottom of tube, out of direct sight. This simple movement really cleans up the look of the intake system. It is also a nice touch that they include a plug to fill the hole in firewall left by the optional deletion of the intake sound tube.
The installation of the kit was exceedingly simple, even a Camaro owner likely has the brain functionality necessary to carry it out. If you can look at pictures and read (Camaro owners?) you can install this CAI. You literally just remove the stock intake system and bolt on the handsome Airaid replacement. Once installed you are rewarded with a CAI that looks great, fits properly, and produces more power.
More power you say SID297? Yes, more power indeed. One of the features that make the Airaid MXP Intake System unique is that it is designed with a plastic MAF insert that allows the kit to be installed on a car without a custom tune. However, for those wanting a custom tune you have the option of removing the insert and taking full advantage of the increased tube diameter. For our purposes on this day we decided to see what kind of increase we could realize with just the intake and a stock tune.
As soon as we fired the 5.0 mill over after the install there was an instantly perceivable increase in auditory awesomeness. Put simply, this intake makes the car sound wicked. At WOT you can really hear the engine roar through the Airaid’s massive filter. Around town you’re rewarded with a pleasant increase in volume without it being obtrusive.
But what about the promised power increase you ask? Well we started out this day on Arrington’s dyno getting a rear-wheel power and torque baseline. With only about 1,000 miles on the SVTP GT she managed to put down 362.0 RWHP and 349.7 RWTQ. Not too bad considering the techs at Arrington informed us that their dyno is notoriously stingy.
Ubiquitous glory shot.
Arrington's facilities are truly impressive.
Hemi what?
A little example of some of the work that takes place everyday at Arrington.
Time to get this show rolling.
SVTP invades Dodge territory.
Strapped down and ready to go.
The devil box displaying some graphy thingy. Stock numbers.
Sadly bone stock, sans a JLT Oil Separator.
Airaid includes a packing list to let you know everything you need is in the box.
Contents of the Airaid kit strewn about.
The first step of the install is to get the strut tower brace out of the way.
We then unplug the MAF.
Get the engine cover out of the way.
Now we get the sound tube out of the way.
The sound tube bracket, once unbolted, easily lifts off its mount.
The end simply pulls out of the firewall.
Then remove a big piece of stock plastic.
And we now have all the necessary stock components out of the way.
Nice looking throttle body.
There seems to be a difference in design philosophy here.
The tag on the MXP insert.
The MXP insert.
The insert from another angle. Here you can see the MAF slot in it.
The MAF must be removed from the stock intake, and placed into the Airaid intake tube.
This group of Dodge owners stopped by to see what a MAF looks like.
Now we're ready to start bolting Airaid parts back on.
The filter retention ring, which is designed like a velocity stack, must be bolted to the molded heat shield.
Stainless steel machine screens are used to connect the two parts.
The heat shield assembly fits nicely in the place of the stock airbox.
The silicone connectors are attached to the filter ring and the throttle body.
We then slide the intake tube in place.
All cinched up. You can see the sound tube delete plug here.
Airaid includes a piece of rubber trim to seal the heat shield to the underside of the hood.
The intake is now in place.
Moving the MAF sensor to the bottom of the tube really cleans up the look of the intake.
It look particularly ferocious from this angle.
Homelessness is growing problem for stock parts from the SVTP GT.
Dyno time.
I hate cleaning these wheels.
Time to make some power.
Transparent aluminum wheels may become the next automotive fad. Thanks Mr. Scott.
This dyno is great.
The Airaid intake looks like it should have came on the car from the factory.
After the addition of the Airaid intake system she managed to produce 371.2 RWHP and 357.6 RWTQ.
The 9.2 HP and 7.9 lb/ft increase was spread over nearly the entire RPM range and fairly impressive considering it was produced without the aid of a custom tune.
You will notice in the graph comparing both runs that there is a momentary dip in power at about 4,500 RPM during the run with the Airaid CAI. We believe it may have been caused by a momentary lean condition. The dip was more pronounced in the earlier runs with the intake than the later, more heat soaked, runs. It has been mentioned that the cause could have been a monetarily leaner air/fuel ratio or a change in the cam timing. We’re not prepared to make a definitive statement about it at this time, but we don’t believe that any harm will come of it.
In the end, an intake that provides a 9 HP and 8 lb/ft increase in power that doesn’t require a tune, greatly cleans up the look of the engine bay, adds some gnarly sounds, and is insanely simple to install is a goodie that everyone looking for a little something extra should be interested in. If you fall into that group of individuals you should definitely check out Airaid Intakes and Arrington Performance’s install facilities.
As I mentioned earlier, the Airaid intake adds a distinctive growl to the engine. Likewise, it also slightly changes the tone of the exhaust. See if you can hear the difference in this before and after video:
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Special Thanks To:
Airaid - Be sure to visit Airaid's forum here on SVTP - SVTPerformance.com - Airaid Forum
Arrington Performance and ShopSupercharger.com
StacyStangz Photography
More articles featuring the SVTP 2012 GT are coming very soon.
Any shots taken at the owners of other makes is merely good natured ribbing. If you can't take the joke you probably shouldn't be on the internet.
SID297:beer:
