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Rough Country Cold Air Intake (14-18 5.3L Silverado 1500)

Item S114614-53
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$129.95 (kit)

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Ship to: Ashburn - 20149
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      Product Videos

      Hey guys, Adam here with americantrucks.com. And today, we're taking a closer look at and installing the Rough Country Cold Air Intake, available for the '14 to '18 5.3 Silverado 1500. You should be checking this out if you're looking to ditch the factory restrictive airbox and filter in favor for a kit that's gonna give you better airflow, a better breathing engine, overall, a small bump in horsepower and torque, and a better-sounding engine at that. Starting with the key element here, that filter. Now, this one is a washable and reusable oiled filter that is far superior to the factory paper element drop-in filter. And we'll take a closer look at that comparing it to stock a little bit later on in the video. But just know upfront here, guys, that this being a washable and reusable option, it can last up to 100,000 miles. And when it comes time for routine maintenance, pop it off, wash it, reoil it, throw it right back on, and it's as good as new. No need to pick up a new filter every time that routine maintenance comes around.Now, the cotton gauze element is a lot more opened up, it allows for more airflow to come through. And the nice thing about the entire kit, even though it's pulling in a lot more cold air, no tune is required. So right out of the box, you can bolt it up to your motor. No need to pick up a custom tune to make it work. However, a custom tune does maximize its potential, maximize its performance capabilities. So it's recommended if you're looking to get the most out of it, but out of the box, does not require one. Aside from the filter there, the metal tubing here is great for heat dissipation. It's got a black powder-coated finish, so it blends in really nicely with the rest of the engine bay. Now, if you're looking for something that stands out a little bit more, more so than just a red filter if you're looking for a more polished tubing, there are some chrome or polished options in the category. This one's for the guys who want something a little bit blackened out. Now this one is gonna use your factory intake temperature sensor, your MAF sensor, that's gonna bolt right up here. It's got new couplers to make sure it's got a leak-free finish. And it's got an open box for the heat shield. Now, it's got a weatherstripping here that's gonna seal in underneath this hood when it closes to really trapping the cold air still coming in through the fender, still utilizes that factory opening, but it's gonna block out the excess engine bay heat.Now, the price tag for this kit comes in super affordably right around 200 bucks. Most cold air intakes are $300, $400, some are even more. This one here keeps it budget-friendly and it's still super effective. Install-wise, one out of three wrenches on our difficulty meter. Anybody can tackle it with about an hour's worth of time in the driveway at home. Cold air intakes are arguably one of the easiest things that you can do, especially under the hood, for any vehicle, specifically trucks as well. I'm gonna walk you through that entire process here, guys. So what do you say we get started? Tools used for the install include an impact gun, a couple of extensions, small and a larger one, a larger Phillips head screwdriver, a flat-head screwdriver, 8 and 10-millimeter deep sockets, T15 Torx bit, also used a pair of snips, small Allen key, and a 19-millimeter wrench.First couple of steps here, we gotta get our factory intake off. So pop your hood. And we're gonna focus on removing these breather lines here. There's one on each corner of this airbox here. What you're gonna do is basically push up on the gray tab from the bottom and pull back and out, just like that. Do the same thing for both of these. And it's the exact same process. Just flip. So instead of pushing up from the bottom, you're pushing down from the top and popping that off. All right. Now, we've gotta get our sensor harness off. So pull up on this red locking tab. You'll hear it click. Pinch and disconnect. All right. Next up, let's loosen the clamp holding the intake tubing here to the throttle body. I'm going to use an 8-millimeter socket on my impact gun, but you can also use a flat-head screwdriver if that's what you have. All right. So we're not completely removing it, just loosen up that clamp.Next, we're doing the same thing to the clamp holding the tubing to the airbox here. It's right next to our sensor. So just loosen up that clamp as well. And once you have that loosened up, you can just wiggle that tubing right off to disconnect the two pieces. All right. So now you should be able to just lift up on that middle section, disconnecting it from the throttle body, and set it aside. All right. So the airbox is loose, but we do have to disconnect this wiring harness that's on there with a tree clip right there. So just wiggle that back and forth and pull that off. Ours has been taken off a whole bunch, so it's pretty loose. So we can just put that aside. Now, we can get our entire airbox off. Next, we're gonna take off these two push pin clips on top of our shroud. The only thing really keeping this guy in is this bar here. It's got a little bit in the way. We're gonna have to take it off for the install anyway. So what I'm gonna do is remove these two pins, peel back the shroud just to expose this bolt here holding this bar on, and we'll remove the bolt. If you find it easier, you can take the entire shroud off, but it shouldn't be completely necessary.All right. So I'm just using this panel removal tool, pry up on that middle section, just like that, go up underneath, and pull it up in one piece. All right. Now that we have those two out of the way, let's peel this guy up a little bit. Just be careful not to damage it. You wanna get this bolt out of the way with your 10-millimeter socket. All right. So this is still pretty tight. So I'm just going to break this 10-millimeter loose on the body side of the vehicle. So let's just crack that loose. We don't even need to remove it. Just loosen it enough that we can swing this guy out, up and out of the way. At that point, we can lift this entire piece off and set it aside. Now, you have to play the game of getting it around all of the lines there, but once you have it out, let's set that aside. All right. Next up, we actually have to remove this bottom plate that mounts the airbox to the floor here. Now, there are four 10-millimeter bolts, one really in each corner. So just grab your extension and 10-millimeter socket and get all four of those off. It might be a little bit difficult to see at this point, but just know that each of the corners has its own bolt and you can just get all four of them out.All right. Lift that plate up and we're good to move on. So, we got our factory intake off of our 5.3 behind me, and it's on the table next to our Rough Country intake. So I wanna take you through some similarities and differences here, and I'm gonna start with the star player, the filter. Now, obviously, I've taken apart the factory intake, which you don't have to do, but I wanted to expose that factory dry paper element drop-in filter. You can clearly see the drastic difference between the factory one and our new Rough Country. Now, this being a dry paper element drop-in filter and with a flat element drop-in filter, that guy isn't really optimized to bring in the coldest air. It's not optimized for more air volume and it's sure as hell not optimized for filtering out all those micro-particles that you don't want making its way into your engine. This guy here in comparison is a larger 360-degree conical air filter. It's washable and reusable. It's oiled as opposed to dry. And it's a cotton gauze element as opposed to the paper. The cotton gauze element is more opened than the paper element, which is a lot tighter of a filter element.Now, the cotton gauze is going to allow a lot more air to travel through, and it's got that mesh wiring on the outside, along with the oiled layer that's gonna help filter out all those particles. So it's got better filtration and better airflow. And the fact that it's a 360-degree conical filter means that air can come in a lot freely without being restricted to that flat paper element, which has a lot of restriction built into it. Now, when it comes to oiled versus dry, they're within 1% of each other when it comes to performance, at least in the aftermarket, but it's going to be significantly better for airflow compared to the factory dry. Now, if you're looking at a dry versus oiled in the aftermarket category of cold air intakes, just know that oiled filters are typically better for guys looking for the best of both worlds, whereas dry filter guys are maybe people who don't want to do any of the reoiling maintenance when it comes time to wash and reuse it. And people who maybe are located in a dry weather area seeing a lot of air pollution like desert climates, like Arizona, for example, you guys might wanna pick up the dry filter as opposed to the oiled because it won't get clogged up as much and require as much maintenance.But when it comes to performance, they're within a 1% of each other. It's just they have their application specifically around location. Now, when it comes to the rest of the kit here, you can see a drastic difference in the tubing compared to the factory one, which has this absolutely massive sound tube box built in. Now, that's gonna be an airflow restricter along with this flex pipe, whereas this guy here is a metal or a billet aluminum construction, which is good for heat dissipation compared to the ABS or the plastic factory one. This one doesn't have any of those kinks, so airflow moves through that a little bit more freely. It's also got new hose fittings already welded on, and we'll talk about that when it comes time to assemble. The heat shield here is different, very different than the factory one, which is a completely closed heat shield. This one here is an open-ended heat shield so you can easily access that filter and see its condition just by popping the hood. And, of course, when it comes to blocking out the excess engine bay heat and trapping that cold air in, there's a weatherstripping that we'll be applying to the top of that so when you shut your hood, it really seals in. And it's still gonna use that inlet on the passenger side there where that fender opening is to allow air to pass through.With that said, we've got new couplers, we have a couple of new things we want to assemble first. I wanna transfer over our temperature sensor onto our new tubing. Next step, we're gonna take off our factory sensor and transfer it over. Now, yours should have two of the same screw. Ours has been replaced at one point or another. So I have a Phillips head and a Torx screw. So if yours are both Phillips heads, obviously, you should grab a screwdriver. If yours are both Torxs, grab a Torx. So I'm gonna use my small T15 socket to get this guy off. And it's usually just hand-tight, so you should be able to get it off with just the socket. I'm gonna swap over to our Phillips head and get the other one off. Now, when you take this off, you wanna be careful not to damage the sensor. I'm going to pull it straight back, just like that, and transfer it over so it's facing the same direction as it was from the factory. All right. So, now we can put our sensor back in the new slot. It only goes on one way and lines up with the holes. Then you want to grab the new hex head screws included in the kit, thread those guys on by hand at first, just to make sure it lines up. I'm gonna grab this and just get a couple of threads going if you can't do it by hand. Then you wanna drop the other one on, make sure they're both in place before you fully tighten any of them down. Once they're both on, tighten them down.Next, we have two hose fittings. One that goes on the outside, one that goes on the inside. They're both the same. So just grab one of them, and we're gonna throw those on. Now, you're dealing with a plastic fitting here, so you can only go so far by hand. And then once you have that in by hand, grab a 19 wrench and you wanna go two complete turns to make sure it's not overtightened. There's one. All right. There's two. Do the same thing on the other side. Do one more because they're just half turns, a little bit more than half. Next up, let's install our flex coupler that's gonna go from the tubing to the air filter. I'm gonna put a clamp on the end of this guy, and I'm gonna insert that over the tubing. Now, you might need to loosen up your clamp here in order to get it to fit and allow the tubing to flex. So let's see how that fits. It looks like we can get that guy on. Make sure it's seated properly. Grab an 8-millimeter socket, I'm gonna use my impact gun, and we're gonna tighten this down.So next step, we're going to install our coupler again the same way on the opposite side. Now, there are two different ones. There's a tapered one and a straight one. Our straight one's going to be for our 5.3 application. The other couplers are for the 6.2. Grab a clamp, put it on the end here, pop that coupler onto our tubing, and tighten it down. All right. What I'm gonna do is just pop a clamp on the other end in preparation for installing it. Next up, we're gonna put our filter adapter on inside of our heat shield. So you wanna go inside and then you wanna push it out just like that, and then rotate it until the threaded holes line up with those openings. Just like that. Grab the 10-millimeter bolts, along with the split and flat washers, tighten them in by hand. Grab your 10 socket and tighten those down. Next up, let's take our weatherstripping. Start at the corner here and work our way all the way around the heat shield.All right. We've got a little bit of excess, so you can grab wire cutters or something like that and snip off the rest. Next, in preparation for our install here, we noticed that three of these bottom tray bolts have to come out and they'll help bolt down the new airbox. So we're gonna go down here. There's one at the left side on the passenger side, one toward the driver-side top, and there's one down lower toward the front of the vehicle, which may be a little bit difficult to see, but it's just close enough to the other one that you should be able to get it off quickly and easily. I'm gonna go down here with an extension and a 10-millimeter, and get these three off. All right. Let's drop our heat shield on and put these three bolts right back in. All right. Dropping the heat shield on is pretty simple, but if you find it easier to remove or at least shuffle over the support brace, that you can do so with just a 10-millimeter. But you should be able to squeeze this guy in. Dropping it down just like this, pinching it in place. Grab those factory 10 millimeters and put them back through the bottom of the heat shield. Again, the inner one and this bottom one are now more difficult to see, but it's the same exact position as they just were. Grab your socket and tighten them back down. Do the same thing for the inner one.All right. Now we can hit the inner one. Dropping your filter on, you want to make sure that the RC logo is upright so you can read it from the side. Now, I know you won't be able to see it, but that allows you to know that it's installed properly. At this point, what you wanna do is take the top, put it in first, so top-down, swing it over, and attach it to the adapter. Grab a Phillips head screwdriver and tighten that down. Next up, we're gonna take our tubing, feed it under the coolant hoses, attach it to your air filter first. All right. That flex tube should go right on there. And it compresses enough to bring the throttle body coupler over and attach that. All right. With those both installed, make sure your clamp is on properly. Grab your 8 socket and tighten both of them down. All right. Tighten down your throttle body as well. Next up, we're gonna remove the factory breather hose altogether. Push in that gray tab and click it off. Grab the new hose in the kit. Slide that onto the factory fitting and bring the other end over to our new fitting. Next, you wanna bring this guy over to the new fitting, slide that guy right on. All right. Same thing on the other side. All right. Last step here, bring your factory sensor harness back around, plug it into the sensor, push down the red locking tab to lock it in place, and you're good to go.That's gonna wrap up my review and install for the Rough Country Cold Air Intake, available for the '14 to '18 5.3 Silverado 1500. You can get yours right here at americantrucks.com.

      Product Information

      Features, Description, Reviews, Q&A, Specs & Installation

      Features & Specs

      • Improves Airflow for More Power
      • Increases Throttle Response and Performance
      • Black Intake Tube
      • Reusable High Flow Air Filter
      • Simple Bolt-On Installation
      • No Computer Re-Tune Required
      • Not CARB Certified
      • Fits 2014-2018 5.3L Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Models

      Description

      Better Flow for More Power. A simple way to increase the power and performance of your Silverado 1500 is by installing a Rough Country Cold Air Intake. By replacing your Silverado's restrictive stock factory intake with a high flow filter assembly you will see and feel a noticeable increase in rear wheel horsepower and torque. This Rough Country Intake not only improves airflow for an increase in power, but it will also add a rugged appearance to your engine bay with its black finished intake tube.

      No Tune Required. Rough Country engineered their Cold Air Intake to improve the performance of your Silverado without the need of reprogramming your computer. By utilizing flow dynamics, this Intake will increase power using the original factory tune. Even though a re-tune is not required for operation, AmericanTrucks recommends a custom tune to reprogram the vehicles computer (ECU) to get the best possible performance from this Cold Air Intake.

      Reusable Air Filter. The included high flow air filter effectively filters out power robbing particles with its multi layer design. The specially treated media creates a sticky surface to capture microscopic contaminants before they can enter your Silverado's engine and do harm. Seeing that the filter is reusable there is no need to buy a new filter every few thousand miles. You can just clean the filter, re-oil it, and reinstall - saving yourself money in the long haul.

      Simple Bolt-on Installation. Rough Country designed their Cold Air Intake kit to be a direct bolt-on replacement. With no special tools or extra modifications required installation can be completed in under an hour. All parts and detailed instructions are included.

      Not CARB Certified. This Rough Country Cold Air Intake is not CARB certified, therefore it is not legal for use in California or other states adopting California emission standards. Not legal for use on pollution controlled motor vehicles; not intended for highway use.

      Application. This Rough Country Cold Air Intake System is specifically designed to fit 2014-2018 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 models equipped with the 5.3L engine.

      Fitment:

      Details

      Rough Country 10551

      CA Residents: WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov

      Installation & What's in the Box

      Installation Info

      What's in the Box

      • Heat Shield
      • Intake Tube
      • Reusable Air Filter
      • Clamps
      • Hardware
      4.5

      Customer Reviews (183)

        Questions & Answers

        10 More Questions

        Will It Fit My Silverado 1500

        • 5.3L V8 - 14, 15, 16, 17, 18