Airaid makes intakes and high-performance air filters, and they wanted to prove that they make some of the best cold air intakes and filtration systems on the market so bad that they invited a few of us here at Stage 3 Motorsports out to their headquarters across town to take a tour of their facilities. Needless to say, they sold us and sold us well. Those guys and gals over at Airaid have something really special going on in every facet of their operation that results in some of the best high performance cold air intakes and filter systems on the market. These intake systems add a powerful punch to your motor while giving you perfect, drop-in fitment in a high-quality design that will last you for thousands upon thousands of hard-driven miles. Airaid is ready to compete with the best that much larger companies have to offer, and they proved it to us in only a few hours.
We jumped in our truck and headed from our Southern Phoenix headquarters to the North Valley area where Airaid's complex resides. Their building is huge and was custom-designed and built specifically for Airaid's sales, technical support, manufacturing, assembly, development, testing, and shipping operations, all of which are carried out in-house. The front lobby is decked out with cold air intakes and high-flow SynthaMax and SynthaFlow air filters and also includes a nice trophy shelf that features two PWA Manufacturer of the Year awards and three SEMA STAR awards. The most noticeable thing about Airaid is their staff, whom we were gradually introduced to throughout the day. They're almost all car people, from their sales staff, to marketing, to manufacturing, to engineering, to distribution. Car people. Not necessarily Mustang or Ford people, but car people with a love and a passion for their particular form of four-wheeled transportation. They all think, feel, and act exactly like other automotive enthusiasts, so they're exactly like us, and their passion helps make their entire operation work magnificently.
National Sales Manager Chris Thomson and Sales Representative Jerry Nuñez led a full tour of Airaid's facilities and took us all step-by-step through the manufacturing process of Airaid's world-renown filters. If the outside of their building was impressive, it's interior is even more so. The ceiling towered above us and had stained and polished wood cross-beams -- "because it looks nice," according to Chris -- along with walls decked out with Airaid's logo. Everything was clean and organized down to a fine scale. The concrete floor was practically spotless while the rows of shelving are all organized with products and build materials in nice, seamless rows of shrink-wrapped filters, boxed cold air intakes, and parts bins. The whole place screams "professional," and we were all still fairly awestruck when we were pulled over to the first station. The first step of Airaid's manufacturing process begins at Airaid's CNC pleating machine that combines cotton, stainless steel mesh (which will be aluminum mesh in the future), and Airaid's own synthetic fiber layers into the filter's actual fabric. The machine is able to control both the number of pleats per foot of fabric, as well as the depth of each individual pleat. That level of control gives it an unprecedented ability to customize fabric for each filter application that Airaid has in mind. Any excess material is cut off at the next station.
The sheet of pleated fabric then goes over to the crimping station where the sheet is rolled into the beginnings of the actual air filter by attaching each end of the pleated sheet to each other. Once successfully crimped, the material is taken over to Airaid's climate-controlled urethane molding room, which is separated by a set of tightly-sealed doors from the main production floor. The pleated filter fabric is then set on jigs and prepped to be set in their body. Tanks of polyurethane sit at the ends of each table and are poured into molds for a specific filter. The fabric, in its particular jig, is set on the liquid urethane that then cures in around 15 minutes and provides both the top and base of each filter. Airaid's polyurethane blend has been carefully formulated to provide excellent strength -- some of their larger and more impressive air filters can flow upwards of 3000 CFM of air while withstanding customized and insanely powerful supercharged and turbocharged applications without collapsing, unlike filters from other companies.
It takes a few minutes for the polyurethane to cure, but once it does, the practically completed filter goes back out on the main production floor to deburr any polyurethane shards that may be left over from the molding process. After each filter is looking nice and smooth, the end cap of every filter is laser engraved with the "Airaid logo and all of its proper oiling information, which helps prevent over-oiling of Airaid's SynthaFlow air filters. The laser zips quickly back and forth just like a household printer and the beams of light carve out lettering in little wisps of smoke. It's remarkably fast and professionally efficient. Any SynthaFlow filter that goes through the laser engraving is then oiled will gradually expand and be enough to cover the entire filter. They often throw way too much oil on or completely douse its entire surface area.
With the filter basically complete, it's sent over to be boxed and/or kitted up into a complete cold air intake system for one of the innumerable air intake systems that Airaid manufactures. Airaid's applications cover an utterly massive variety of years, makes, and models of cars and trucks. The filters destined to be a part of Airaid's huge selection of cold air intakes get paired up with the proper roto-molded polyethylene intake tubing, composite heat shield or box, stainless steel clamps, and other hardware. All of Airaid's components are manufactured in the United States, including the band clamps that are also entirely made out stainless steel, through and through. As we were walking back to take a look at their shipping area, we spotted two small steel contraptions suspended in a latticework of beams. "Those are some of our roto-molds," Jerry said. He asked us if we knew anything about roto-molding and we responded that we had no idea. "Pellets are loaded into the molds and then they're heated and spun. The polyethylene coats the inner wall of the mold." Roto-molding provides an even layer of cross-linked polyethylene over the entire surface area and structure of a particular part, which makes it durable and gives it perfect dimensions every time.
Each and every product that comes out of Airaid's facilities gets a unique serial number and barcode. This meticulous process guarantees shipments arrive and depart on time and can also be used to isolate problems within the manufacturing process, should they occur. Shipping, receiving, and returns are all highly organized and insanely efficient.
We then bounced over to their engineering department and all of us from Stage 3 were like kids in a candy store. High-powered workstations! Amazing design software! A dyno! 3D printer! Complete flow bench! It was a wonderland for the technically inclined and we were beyond giddy. Chris and Jerry introduced us to Keith and Clayton, Airaid's full-time, in-house product engineers and designers who walked us through their world of techno-wizardry. They were currently neck-deep working on goodies for their 2013 Scion FR-S SEMA show car. The process starts with obtaining the necessary data and information before the team starts thinking about a possible intake or filtration system. "We get a lot of that data through the SEMA data exchange," said Clayton, "We have contacts with most of the major manufacturers." To prove it, he opened a file up in SolidWorks, a professional-grade CAD design program, that contained an entire CAD drawing of a 2013 Scion FR-S with everything rendered down to the lug nuts. "We generally know what's going to work before we even see the car," said Clayton. If the necessary data can't be obtained through their usual networks, Keith and Clayton get their hands dirty and bust out their CMM robotic scanner. The scanning device is mounted on free-moving arm and can take in all the necessary information for the part that Keith and Clayton are working on. The process is so exact and accurate that Airaid had the 2011 Mustang 5.0L intake system completed before the car was even released.
Once the extensive data acquisition process is over and done with, the actual design work begins and one of the coolest gadgets in Airaid's arsenal comes into play: their 3D printer. Keith and Clayton design the potential intake system for an application and print each piece in their 3D printer. The printer actually builds each piece right there in their office by laying down layer upon layer of ABS plastic. Each piece of the prototype intake is smoothed out and then glued together for testing fitment in the actual car and truck and for flow-testing in their in-house flow bench in their dyno room. It's amazing to watch. "We work this thing hard," Keith said. While we were there, the printer had just begun to create a brake caliper for another hometown favorite, Baer Brakes. "They're putting a set of brakes on our FR-S, so we're returning the favor with some work," Keith said. Printing the caliper would take about 30 hours, which is a remarkably short amount of time to get a working prototype completed. The printer uses cartridges of ABS filament that looks almost exactly like the plastic wire you'd find at the business end of a weed-whacker. "We run this thing day and night. We even come in on weekends to swap out the cartridges," Keith said.
Chris, Jerry, and Keith escort us over to their dyno and install room which is just as impressive as the rest of Airaid's building. A new lift had just been dropped off and was still in its packaging. At its heart is an engineering grade Mustang all-wheel chassis dyno that's rated up to 750 horsepower. "That doesn't sound like a lot, but we're more interested in real-world results than high numbers," Chris said. This type of dynometer allows them to factor in elements like vehicle weight, drag, rolling resistance, and many other parameters to get real performance data that you'll see on the street or track, not just peak numbers generated under ideal conditions like those of other manufacturers. The dyno can even be set to run through different scenarios and give Airaid an even more complete picture of a particular intake or filter's performance. In the back corner of the room was their flow bench that's used for MAF and carburetor testing, as well as the flow rates for their filters.
We bid Keith adieu and went over to Airaid's conference room to talk shop with Jerry, Chris, and a few of Airaid's marketing and sales staff. One of the key things that we here at Stage 3 have been wondering for a long time is which of Airaid's filters, their oiled SynthaFlow series and their SynthaMax dry filters, were a better choice for a given application. The answer was a little surprising. "They have the same flow efficiencies," Chris said. "Either work. It's just a matter of preference."
"The oiled filters can go a little longer without cleaning," Jerry said. About 25,000 to 30,000 miles. "But they're a little bit harder to recharge."
So, basically this: oiled, if you like oiled; dry, if you like dry. Both filters are capable of pulling out contaminates as small as four microns while generating more airflow than your standard factory disposable filters.
The subject then turned to one of Airaid's more controversial products: their lineup of "PowerAid" throttle body spacers. These spacers have both their hardcore believers and their bitter opponents across the performance parts world, and many customers simply get confused in the mess of the debate. Chris gave us the level-headed, and surprisingly straightforward truth: "They are not a racing product," he said. "They help build low to mid-range torque, that's all." The spacers were never really designed to get extra peak horsepower gains, but are proven to provide extra torque from idle and in low to mid-RPM ranges. The spacers work by adjusting the way air flows through your throttle body and into your intake manifold. Intake air rushes through a partially opened throttle body at about 200 miles per hour. All of that high-pressure, highly turbulent air tends to fill the cylinders near the throttle body more completely than the cylinders farther down the intake manifold. The spacer's helix design spins the air into a vortex that smooths out airflow, lowers its pressure and lets the incoming air fill all of your engine's cylinders more evenly. "Think about it like an X-pipe versus H-pipe," Chris said, "These aren't your Daddy's carburetor spacers." Airaid's spacers offer more subtle performance improvements than an old-school carb spacer that could substantially increase your horsepower. We didn't get to see much of the manufacturing process for the spacers except for their laser-engraving in Airaid's molding room, where a whole rack of PowerAid spacers were being carved up with Airaid's logo, flow direction, and part numbers. With rare exceptions, all of Airaid's PowerAid throttle body spacers will work with their cold air intakes.
To sum up our little adventure to Airaid in a single word: "impressive." Everything about it. From staff, to facilities, to production, to development. All of it was impressive and absolutely professional. As Chris Thomson put it: "The product is the hero." Airaid's filter and cold air intake systems basically speak for themselves quality-wise and all of their intakes (except their "Race" series) are designed to work equally well in bone-stock applications as well as high-performance builds that require extra airflow. "[Other companies have] failed to improve over the years. Airaid has," Chis said. Airaid is clearly ready for prime time and to compete with much larger filter and intake companies through sheer quality alone and their willingness to grow. "When growing a business, you have to reinvest. We're ready to surge forward."
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