The term “dual cone intake” is very offensive to many people. If you mention this term before them, they might criticize you saying that it decreases the longevity of the engine, it barely offers any horsepower gains or it’s pointless. This isn’t all; they have many more things to say about the same.
These comments are true for a naturally aspirated car but not for a car with a turbocharged engine, such as a twin-turbocharged N54 engine. The dual cone intake doesn’t offer a lot of performance benefit to a naturally aspirated car but this upgrade and modification offer lucrative horsepower and torque gain.
In simple words, the dual cone intake n54 will improve the performance of your BMW.
Are dual cone intake and cold air intake the same?
Typically, naturally aspirated car drivers use the term Cold Air Intake or CAI and the N54 turbocharged engine car drivers use the term Dual Cone Intake or DCI. Both are intake systems but completely different.
The dual cone intake n54 and cold air intake are different in terms of how they collect air for your engine.
Talking about a cold air intake is designed to grab the coldest possible air for the engine. The cold air grabbed results in more power. The intake does so by placing the intake filters towards the bottom of the engine bay.
It’s said that air at the top of the engine bay is always hotter than air at the bottom. The reasons are the following:
- Hot air rises
- It is closer to the engine, generating all the heat
When used, the stock air passes through the engine bay through the front grills, into the air box where the filter is located. Then, the air disperses to the two turbocharger inlets that supply air to both of the turbos. As air intake n54 is an enclosed box, it is restrictive in the amount of air that it can feed to the turbos.
This restriction is the reason you need to upgrade and improve the performance of your BMW.
The dual cone intake n54 keeps the intake filter in the same area where the stock box was. The difference is that it removes the box which allows the filter to be exposed to more air. The best thing about dual cone intake is that it has two filters, one for each of the turbos. These filters are attached directly to the turbo inlets.
One misconception about dual cone intake n54 debunked
As the dual cone intake is no longer housed in a box and is directly next to the engine, people think it is not good as it sucks in extremely hot air. But, the fact is that the dual cone intake doesn’t produce any higher air intake temperature at idle or wide-open throttle. This is proved by automobile experts.
The dual cone intake n54 is a cost-effective setup. It results in the greatest horsepower gains, especially if you add it for performance modification to your n54 engine.
