Installation Time
(approx) 1 Hour
Difficulty Level:
Simple installation for anyone.
FREE 2 or 3-Day Delivery on 10,000+ Items. Details
$149.99 (each)
FREE ShippingSaved - View your saved items
We're sorry. We couldn't save this product at this time.
Get a $30 Prepaid Visa Card!
What's going on, guys? Travis from americantrucks.com. And today, we're checking out in the current most affordable cold air intake that you can throw on your '09 to '13 5.3-Liter Powered Silverado. This is the OG SR Performance Cold Air Intakes, it's one of the oldest options, it's one of the most popular, again because it's the least expensive but it still gets the job done.This is gonna be something that you want if you want to feel better throttle response, maybe pick up some single-digit, maybe low double-digit horsepower and torque gains especially on the low end of the RPM band and that's where that factory paper element really suffers. That translates into better AF mixtures which again translates into better performance. And this thing doesn't even require a tune, so that's really nice, you shouldn't get any check engine lights on the dash when you bolt this thing in.And on that note, this is a full bolt-on kit, you do not have to permanently modify anything on the truck whatsoever. The only thing we're replacing permanently is the breather hose for the crankcase, literally only takes a couple of seconds. And you only need a couple of basic sockets maybe a hand ratchet to get this thing installed. Shouldn't take you more than maybe an hour or two with basic hand tools in the driveway. So for that reason, I'm gonna give the install a very simple one out of three wrenches on the old difficulty meter but you're also gonna be retaining the factory airbox.And then it goes without saying there are plenty more expensive options on the site as well. Honestly, guys, cold air intakes all kind of perform the same job and as far as price points and configurations go, it really does come down to personal preference. Something to keep in mind, a closed element design might provide a little bit more of a performance bump compared to an open element design like this. But honestly, I think SR Performance really hit the nail on the head with how they designed the heat shield on this kit. Super affordable, still really good quality control. This thing slides in like butter and it's gonna insulate that filter quite nicely especially with the hood down.But the reason why I like this intake so much is because when you have the hood up, we're getting rid of all that crappy plastic stuff and again, we're ditching that really ugly factory airbox in favor of this really nice heat shield here. This is made out of steel with a black powder coat. The intake tube itself is polished aluminum. Aluminum is really nice because it's not gonna absorb all that heat, so you shouldn't worry about heat soak as your air is traveling through there into intake manifold.So overall, a best buy if you want something that's gonna provide some modest performance gains for the least amount of money possible. They come in at around $130 price point, so check it out a little bit more on the site. If you guys decide you like the SR Performance more than any of the other options, come back to this video in a little bit, I'm gonna show you guys all the tools that you need to dig out of the old toolbox over there and I'll walk you through the entire install step by step.Okay, before we get started, you'll need a couple of screwdrivers including a flathead as well as a Phillips head, we need a standard drive ratchet with a T15 Torx bit and a couple shallow sockets including an 8, a 10 and a 13, optional but helpful tools include an extension as well as an impact gun. All right, first thing we're gonna do is disconnect our MAF sensor, you have to press down on this little gray locking tab. As you press down on it just gently pull, set the sensor connection aside. Once you've done that, you need to grab your 8-mil socket and loosen up this first band clamp, securing the airbox to our intake tube.Once you've loosened up that clamp, your primary coolant line over here might be connected to this little tab on the intake tube. It's just a little plastic fitting, you just have to grab something like a trim tool or a small pry tool and just kind of pry that out of there.All right, next we're gonna disconnect our crankcase ventilation hose and it's connected to this little resonator box here. This is also just held in with a kind of rubber grommet and a plastic ring, so just gently pull on it in order to release it. Okay, we're almost ready to remove our intake system, all we need to do now is disconnect this clamp securing our intake tube to our throttle body with the same 8-mil socket. Once you've sufficiently loosened up that clamp, you can see it's kind of wiggling around here, you want to go ahead and grab a hold of the intake tube. I like to grab on this little piece here behind this little resonator as well as right here, just gently pull back all the way. There's also gonna be a plastic grommet on top of this resonator here. There's a little fitting on top of the engine there on top of the intake manifold, you also have to make sure you pull that up and out as well when you pull the intake system off. Once you've done that, you want to pull the intake tube away from the airbox with that first clamp that we loosened up and pull the intake tube and resonator assembly out as one piece.All right, now all we need to do is remove our factory airbox, it's pushed into the inside of the fender here but there's not actually any hardware holding it in place. There's also a mounting tray directly underneath the airbox with some grommets kind of keeping this thing situated, all you need to do is kind of gently pull up and out. You can see ours is extremely loose because we do so many intakes. But just apply gentle pressure in order to unseat those fittings on the bottom and remove the intake box as one piece.All right, guys, we've got our factory intake system removed. I wanted to throw them up on the table real quick because we have to do some work to our factory airbox. We have to pull our MAF sensor off of there. Go ahead and grab yourself a T15 Torx bit. While you're doing that though, I wanted to kind of describe some of the comparisons and similarities between the two here, obviously, there really aren't that many to speak of guys. SR Performance really knocked it out of the park with stepping away from all this ugly plastic, all these really ugly tubes and boxes and whatever else and we're also getting rid of that paper element filter inside of here. This honestly doesn't have that many miles on this truck guys and these paper elements they just don't hold up especially if you're doing any kind of performance applications or throwing any other mods on your truck. Eventually, that paper element will quickly become a bottleneck as far as air and fuel mixtures are concerned.That's not gonna be a problem with the new SR system here, we got this nice polished aluminum tube here, a lot more free-flowing and a lot more overall, just a nicer looking than all this crazy stuff here. But the big star of the show is gonna be the high-flow filter that they throw in this kit. It's gonna be moving a lot more CFMs or basically units of airflow through the engine. You're gonna get better throttle response, especially on the low end of things, that's where these paper elements really suffer.So let's go ahead and pop that MAF sensor off of our airbox here. Again, T15 Torx bit with these two screws on either side. They do provide new screws on the new intake tube as you can see on the table there. So you're also gonna need a Phillips head screwdriver to get the new MAF sensor back in place. All right, once you pop the MAF sensor out you can finally discard your factory intake system.All right, we can throw our MAF sensor back into our new intake tube now. And again, like I said, they're providing new Phillips head screws for this. The MAF sensor can only be aligned in these holes one way but you should have a little arrow on here that you can see pointing in towards where it secures to the throttle body. So just go ahead and get these screws threaded down all the way.Okay. You can go ahead and set the intake tube aside, now you can grab your filter. We have to install some adapters and couplers and all that good stuff. This is the plastic adapter that's gonna be used to install this little rubber grommet or fitting if you will, and that's gonna be used to install this little intake tube adapter. So go ahead and set this guy in place. Got four screw holes, they don't have to be oriented in any particular direction. You want to grab the largest band clamp provided in the kit, go ahead and zip that down. Again, 8-mil socket for this one. Once you have that done, grab the rubber coupler like so and stretch it over the intake tube plastic adapter that we just installed and go ahead and throw the first band clamp to secure that to it, zip him down next. Then lastly, you can go ahead and grab the intake tube adapter itself, slide him in place, a little bit of a tight fit. Just press them in all the way. There's a little lip inside of here where this will rest against. And once you seat it all the way, you can grab your last clamp, orient it in the same direction and tighten him down as well. You do have little kind of grooves on this adapter so when you're tightening these down you want to make sure that it lines up nicely.Okay, guys, next we're gonna set up our heat shield here. There is weatherstripping provided in the kit, if it's not already installed, just make sure you set it up where it's meeting this top bracket on the side here and just route it around the whole top, it should fall down on the side. You don't actually need to cut any of it. Then you're gonna install this what they call a bulb seal. This is gonna help insulate our air filter from all that heat inside the engine bay when the hood is down. There's a groove on the inside of here. I'll be honest with you guys, this is kind of a pain to get in place, so just take your time with this, try and press it in there as best you can. Best way to go about this is to try and compress the entire seal so that it's inside of this hole without having a deform too much.All right, guys, we got everything set up here. So the first thing we're gonna do is actually throw our heat shield into our engine bay, so let's go ahead and do that now. Okay, guys, before we throw the heat shield in we forgot one small little detail, not a big deal, we're actually gonna be removing the mounting tray for our factory airbox. You can see one of the bolts that's securing it inside of the fender and engine bay area, there are three of these bolts as well on the rest of the tray, you'll need a 10-mil socket, it's helpful to have an extension as well. Okay, last thing we have to do, remove one of these bolts here from the radiator support, this is a 13-millimeter socket.Okay, now we can finally throw our heat shield in place. You're gonna be reusing two of the bolts for the mounting tray. You got these little two holes here on the bottom of the heat shield, those are gonna line up with those pre-threaded holes where the mounting tray was also located. Once you've done that and you got that secured, you're also gonna reinstall that radiator support bolt through this bracket right here, right next to the weatherstripping.Now the heat shield should be a pretty good fit but I do recommend getting all this hardware lined up and hand tightened first before you drive everything home. All right. Once you have all three bolts lined up and hand tightened, go ahead and drive them home, again 13-mil for the rad support and 10-mil for the bolts on the tray.Okay, now that we have the tray in there, we're ready to throw our whole assembly here for our air filter, we're gonna be sliding the tube through that rubber grommet here in the heat shield. It is a very tight fit you guys and you don't want to push this thing out when you're doing this, so I like to grab some spray here, some lubricant if you will, PB B'laster works quite nicely. Just spray this down a decent amount, get it nice and lubed up, it's gonna make it a lot easier to slide that metal intake tube in here. Also helps to kind of pull up on the lips from the other side. And these are just gonna rest flush like that.All right, we're almost ready to throw our intake tube in place. Before we do that though, we're gonna be replacing this breather hose here, so we have to pull off of the head on the passenger side. There is a plastic lock ring that's holding it onto the head. It's helpful to grab a small flathead screwdriver and you have to pull up on that tab a little bit in order to unseat it. It's hard to show you guys while it's in there but this is that little tab that you have to pull on, you can kind of see how it will unlock it and you can just slide it off like so.All right, and while we're here, before we throw the intake tube in place, we're gonna install the new breather hose. It just slides onto that little fitting where we just removed the factory hose. It's a little bit of a tight fit so make sure you press it on all the way and seat it till it's flush. It is tight enough that you don't need any clamps or any fasteners to secure it as well.Okay, now we're finally ready to throw our intake tube in place. Before you do that though, make sure you install the rubber couplers on either end. Install the band clamps as well. Tighten down the clamps to secure the couplers to the tube. Leave the other clamps a little bit loose. And then one thing as well, they do provide what's called Venturi tube. It's just a little plastic ring, you just slide that inside the intake tube before you throw the rubber grommet on. Once you've done that, all you gotta do is install the intake tube onto the air filter itself. Make sure it's seated all the way and go ahead and slide the other end of the intake tube under the throttle body. Make sure both rubber couplers are seated and go ahead and tighten down your clamps. And again, it's an 8-mil socket for these. It's helpful to have an extension. And go ahead, do the same thing for the throttle body clamp.All right, our intake tube is in place. Now all we have to do is connect our breather hose onto the little fitting on the end here. Again, just slide it in nice and flush all the way. It's not gonna go anywhere, the pressure of the line itself will actually keep it seated and we have to reinstall our MAF sensor connection as well.All right, so once you got the MAF sensor plugged back in, the breather hose is connected, go ahead and do yourself a favor double check that all your clamps, our connections are nice and tight, don't want any lean out codes on the dash there. Go ahead and turn the key over and that should wrap up this very easy install. Enjoy that new power under the hood. That'll also wrap up my quick little review of the SR Performance Cold Air Intake, fitting your '09 to '13 5.3-Liter Powered Silverado. Be sure to check it out more on the site. And for all things Chevy and GMC, keep it right here at americantrucks.com.
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
Features, Description, Reviews, Q&A, Specs & Installation
Shop All Truck Parts And Accessories
Shop All Cold Air Intakes For Trucks
Fitment:
RedRock S108261
CA Residents: WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov
Installation Info
Installation Time
(approx) 1 Hour
Difficulty Level:
Simple installation for anyone.
What's in the Box
10 More Questions