I am just looking for the pros and cons of installing a air intake on a 2002 impala
An after market cold air intake not only looks pretty but also CAN increase performance and give you more mpgs if you get it tuned to make to make up for the increased air intake, you'll also need a improved exhaust system to let the increased air flow escape efficiently
PRO: It looks nice. CON: It does absolutely nothing for performance or gas mileage, and it cost money. IF your car had a carb. then it MIGHT make a difference. But with fuel injected and computer controlled engines, changing the air intake does nothing, but look pretty.
People who only do an air intake modification and claim huge benefits are overstating or imagining the benefits. The only people who will realize an improvement from this modification alone are people who should have replaced their dirty clogged air filters, but they are just gaining lost performance. To realize true gains, you need to re-chip the car and open up the exhaust. Your car is electronically tuned to operate with the stock air intake. Unless you adjust the electronics, you cannot capitalize on the increased air flow. Also, if you imagine the air intake and exhaust system as a connected system, you realize that you must free up the exhaust as well as the intake. Imagine a piece of 4 inch pipe. Now, imagine, that you coupled that to a 6 inch pipe and pointed the big end into the wind. You now have a bigger intake end, but the 4 inch exhaust end still limits the max airflow the system is capable of. It is the same with your intake and exhaust. The major cons I see with an aftermarket intake, other than spending money for little gain, is that it increase your chance of getting contaminants in the engine and I feel most aftermarket mods affect reliability.
