Mod Description
After a few months and 4000 miles of driving, it's review time for the Sila kitMod Details
PremiumNo Difficulty Mod ID755 Creditevilution For Linkhttps://www.evilution.co.uk/mod/sila-induction-kit-review.htm Copy to ClipboardFor the last 3 months I have been driving my non turbo 451 around with the Sila induction kit fitted. So here is a round up of my thoughts on this product.
Build quality is very good, solid, well welded, perfect fitting and well designed. The pipe is mandrel bent and had a few marks from the bending machine but nothing that would detract from the overall finish of the piece.
The zinc coating is well finished and even and should protect it for a long time.
Fitting the pipe was very easy, 1 bolt and 3 pipe clips later and it was fitted. At no point did it rub on the body work or rattle in the engine bay during driving.
OK, so what do you want to know about 1st, performance, noise or MPG?
Performance
The non turbo 451 isn’t particularly great in the performance section… however…Adding this induction kit seemed to add noticeable extra torque (ignore BHP as that’s numbers for people who don’t know what they are talking about).
There seems to be a little bit of extra kick as you pull away and each gear seems that little bit more usable due to the extra power. It all sounds more powerful too.
Noise
I was never expecting that!
With the turbo 450, 451 and Roadster, you never really hear the induction due to the amount of pipework between the air inlet and the engine. Also, the plastic pipework has a tendency to filter out higher frequencies.On the NA 451 however, with this kit fitted you only have about 16″ of metal pipe between the inlet and the engine and the metal pipe filters out lower frequencies.
What this means is, when you drive in a spirited manner you get this awesome raspy induction noise that sounds similar to a performance exhaust. However, when you drive normally, it sounds like a standard NA 451 so at least you don’t have to put up with the drone from a performance exhaust.
1 thing I found that sounded awesome was as you cruise along, quickly change down 2 gears. Before it actually selects the gears, change up 2 gears. What it does in between is blip the throttle. It sounds really mean.
MPG
Now, this one surprised me nearly as much as the noise. Obviously when you first fit it, you’ll drive like a maniac everywhere to get “the noise”. I know I did and it didn’t do my MPG any favours. After a while you start driving normally again. I was expecting a slight dent in the MPG as more cold air means more fuel.
I was wrong though. Because the process of getting the air into the engine is more efficient, so is the engine. I filled up the fuel tank every 3 days and the MPG never went below the figures I got from the original set up. Consistently seeing around 55mpg with every day driving.
Conclusion
There are a few air box replacement induction kits for the NA 451 and they are all very similar. The addition of the extra silicone feed hose sets it above the rest. It’s not perfect, it could do with a longer radius bend and a foam filter but it’s still better than the competition’s versions and reasonably priced too.
With the induction kit and extra cold feed you are looking at $240 + postage. At the time of writing that equals about £160 but you will probably have to pay import tax on that if you are buying it from a non US state. Import tax seems to vary and for that total cost, expect between £30 and £50 to import it into the UK.
So, if you have a non turbo 451, want an air box replacement induction kit, more torque and want your car to make a better noise when driven fast, you should seriously consider this kit.
Click the banner to buy the kit straight from SmartMadness.