DDM Works intake install and Review!

[slitzell]

Got my long awaited DDM works intake about 45min ago.

First impression: Extremely high quality. The heat shield is enormous. I had a heat shield on my last car(350z) and it was a little flimsy piece of brass. This heat shield is very high quality, and i like the rubber grommets that protect it from scratching/rubbing parts of the engine bay.

Installation: Straight forward and took about 25min to complete. If you can loosen to bolts, remove a couple hose clamps, and widen two holes to a 1/4in this install is for you.

Sound: Exactly what i expected based on other videos of other sonics with intake. Def makes the turbo sounds a lot louder with a woosh between shifts.

Performance: throttle response is better, and ive only driven it round the neighborhood quickly so i cant comment further.

Cons: i felt the instructions were worded weird, I just used my intuition and common sense when installing only glancing at the instructions for tool size.

Overall this product is well worth the wait, and for the introductory price of $250 you can't get any better. Thanks for the great product DDM Works!

 

[sonicShadow]

looks good man im jelous :sadbanana:

 

[slitzell]

looks good man im jelous :sadbanana:

Hah, Yea it's nice im glad to have waited for it, almost cracked for the zzp

 

[Dave@ddmworks]

Got my long awaited DDM works intake about 45min ago.

First impression: Extremely high quality. The heat shield is enormous. I had a heat shield on my last car(350z) and it was a little flimsy piece of brass. This heat shield is very high quality, and i like the rubber grommets that protect it from scratching/rubbing parts of the engine bay.

Installation: Straight forward and took about 25min to complete. If you can loosen to bolts, remove a couple hose clamps, and widen two holes to a 1/4in this install is for you.

Sound: Exactly what i expected based on other videos of other sonics with intake. Def makes the turbo sounds a lot louder with a woosh between shifts.

Performance: throttle response is better, and ive only driven it round the neighborhood quickly so i cant comment further.

Cons: i felt the instructions were worded weird, I just used my intuition and common sense when installing only glancing at the instructions for tool size.

Overall this product is well worth the wait, and for the introductory price of $250 you can't get any better. Thanks for the great product DDM Works!

Install looks great, as for the instructions, those were revision A, I will go back and clean them up a little.

Thanks again for the feedback!
Dave

 

[slitzell]

Install looks great, as for the instructions, those were revision A, I will go back and clean them up a little.

Thanks again for the feedback!
Dave

Main thing i noticed on instruction was you referenced intake when you were talking about the heat shield so i just used my insight and got the shield in place, but then discovered the next 4 steps were about how to get the shield in nicely. nothing major, I love the product

 

[TurboGrayLZ]

Looks good man. I'm alittle jelous too if my make my car any louder my wife will not ride in it.:sadbanana:

 

[slitzell]

Looks good man. I'm alittle jelous too if my make my car any louder my wife will not ride in it.:sadbanana:

Lay down the iron fist lol. My wifey was upset too that i was modding this car especially since i bought it to conserve gas and save money lol. I put her in her place.(Not really i took her out to dinner and gave her a massage) but none the less victory is mine!

 

[Rowe929]

Finally got my ddm intake and installed it yesterday took about 10 min, very happy with product, just a little disappointed with the company, customer service and updating the customer, I am not bashing the company one bit I would deff recommend this intake to everyone, I was just a little disappointed with the service, I was originally quoted the item would be shipped in one week, and a month later I got it, that was not a problem I understand high damand, and what bothered me was they never once contacted me to say what was going on, I was me contacting them witch bothered me, also the intake pipe had a small dent in it, but other than that not problems fast easy install, sounds great and overall very happy, deff recommend this intake to anyone with a 1.4!!

 

[rdss]

Rowe, Ivy kept me in the loop and updated on what the hold up was and when all the parts would be on and once they arrived she emailed me saying I should have my tracking number soon which I had already gotten. It came in last night and was installed the same night as well in about 10 minutes. The only time I have had communication issues with them was last spring when they where wrapped up in their shows and projects which they have apologized for. Contact them about the dinged pipe and see what they will do for you, they may swap it out for you but you won't know if you don't contact them about the issue.

Did you go polished or powder coated?

 

[SUPER SONIC BOOM]

Idk, just for more sound I wouldn't get any aftermarket intake. The stock airbox fully covers the filter & it has it's own cold air coming from underneath (fender area), that heat shield ain't gonna prevent it from still sucking in hot engine bay heat, killing performance while trying to give some in the process. Don't get me wrong, they look very good under the hood, but the car was originally made for the stock airbox, the pcm is very picky & can detect any major changes. Without a tune it's a useless noisemaker imho. I feel like I'm getting all power (hp/tq) with my stock box just fine, boost is there at anytime & my warranty is still intact. The stock turbo is pretty small, it really doesn't need an open, bigger intake. The BPV works fine too, no need for a BOV either, a stock untuned car don't need all that extra ****, I bought this car to be inexpensive, not try to turn it into a wannabe racer or something, I'm thinking reality here. I just like my cars loud & low, that's all!

 

[ripper806]

Sounds like this is not the thread for you then!

 

[rdss]

That and the "fender air" is being pulled through a straw vs an open element filter. It's a trade off....... I haven't driven enough to see if the heat shield is helping out over the RNI I was running before it and I didn't have my ScanGauge II with the stock box for comparison.

But, it sounds like the factory intake works for you super sonic boom so I would save some cash and spend it on the H&R'S springs.....

 

[ThatTmoGuy]

some people (myself included) like the sound from an intake. there is no way you could convince me that the stock air box flows anywhere near as well as an aftermarket intake (or even and RNI for that matter) yes temps may be a bit higher but if you get more air into the compressor side of the turbo it will bring the temp up anyway that's what inter coolers are for.

 

[Dave@ddmworks]

Idk, just for more sound I wouldn't get any aftermarket intake. The stock airbox fully covers the filter & it has it's own cold air coming from underneath (fender area), that heat shield ain't gonna prevent it from still sucking in hot engine bay heat, killing performance while trying to give some in the process. Don't get me wrong, they look very good under the hood, but the car was originally made for the stock airbox, the pcm is very picky & can detect any major changes. Without a tune it's a useless noisemaker imho. I feel like I'm getting all power (hp/tq) with my stock box just fine, boost is there at anytime & my warranty is still intact. The stock turbo is pretty small, it really doesn't need an open, bigger intake. The BPV works fine too, no need for a BOV either, a stock untuned car don't need all that extra ****, I bought this car to be inexpensive, not try to turn it into a wannabe racer or something, I'm thinking reality here. I just like my cars loud & low, that's all!

Everyone is of course welcome to their own opinion on the matter, but I do want to put up some data to support that an intake is a good option on the 1.4L Sonics, especially with a tune.

The stock intake does pull air from directly below the fender on the passenger side, which is cooler then the engine bay for sure and it does completely seal the top of the filter to make sure no air from the engine bay enters into the intake. That being said, the stock intake has a much higher restriction when compared to either our intake or the Injen intake, here is a graph showing the difference in restriction:

What that graph shows is that as you increase the flow of air going through the entire intake setup, the restriction increases with all intakes, although the restriction is much higher with the stock setup.

On a tunes 1.4L, this shows up on the dyno, and more power is made at the wheels :

The dark green is our test car with our intake installed and the dark purple line is the same car with the stock intake installed, resulting in a small but also repeatable change in power on the dyno.

As for the heat in the engine bay, of course while sitting in traffic the intake air temps are going to climb, but what we have measured with the heat shield in place, shows that intake temps are usually pretty close to ambient when the car is moving, and noticably cooler then without the heatshield. This is do to a couple of reasons. There is some air that still comes up through the stock intake tube and it is caught by the stainless heat shield we use and therefore goes into the filter. The other reason is that some of the air that comes into the engine bay between the hood and the front bumper is caught also by the heat shield and keeps the intake air temp low.

Lastly, the ECM is very picky about what you do with the intake on this car and most of the new cars out there are also very picky. The way that the ecm is picky though, involves monitoring the fuel trims. Fuel trims are used by the ECM to add or take away fuel so that the ECM hits its target air fuel ratio. Stock fuel trims fluctuate all of the time and are never "0", but instead generally will be less then 10% most of the time when short term and long term fuel trims are combined. So when developing an intake for this car it is very important to monitor the car with the stock intake to see what the fuel trims are, then when developing the intake for the car, make sure the the fuel trims with the new intake do not exceed what they were stock. As long as the fuel trims stay the same or less then stock, the ECM will be completely fine with the new intake and no retune will be necessary.

The cool thing about these little cars is that they are a blast to drive straight from GM, but some like to modify them to make them there own, and get more performance, better looks, etc. It is nice to have some options out there for everyone, and if you are happy with the car the way it comes, that is all that matters.

Dave

 

[dblackston]

Idk, just for more sound I wouldn't get any aftermarket intake. The stock airbox fully covers the filter & it has it's own cold air coming from underneath (fender area), that heat shield ain't gonna prevent it from still sucking in hot engine bay heat, killing performance while trying to give some in the process. Don't get me wrong, they look very good under the hood, but the car was originally made for the stock airbox, the pcm is very picky & can detect any major changes. Without a tune it's a useless noisemaker imho. I feel like I'm getting all power (hp/tq) with my stock box just fine, boost is there at anytime & my warranty is still intact. The stock turbo is pretty small, it really doesn't need an open, bigger intake. The BPV works fine too, no need for a BOV either, a stock untuned car don't need all that extra ****, I bought this car to be inexpensive, not try to turn it into a wannabe racer or something, I'm thinking reality here. I just like my cars loud & low, that's all!

Too each there own but its proven science, the better a vehicle breaths the more efficent it operates( more air in and more air out = happy car, not just performance but all around). The stock air box set up in theory is great but you forget that one of the mains things that they are designed to do is baffle sound and make the car quiet. Baffling=restrictions which leads too less efficient breathing. These expensive noise makers do more than you give them credit for and I think the test charts above prove that. Car now gets better MPGS, thorttle response and over all runs better with less stock air box componets.

My intake came off of my wifes cruze. Have you ever looked at that "perfect" stock air box set up? Its horrible! and in theory its set up with a "ram air" function and yet its no wonder why they are turds comparied stock for stock on the Sonic. All it does is retrict the air flow to quiet the motor...all those baffels where ripped out before the new intake was ever purchased.

 

[krkhans]

Hey Dave,

Is this intake California legal? In wishlisting for this car, I was interested in the Bad News Racing Stage 1 Kit and I can't seem to find a definitive answer as to whether or not it is legal.

 

[TheFallenAngel12]

I can say that an intake swap from stock to a short ram system or cold air intake system most definetly is worth the while. The improvements they do for vehicles is incredible. For instance. When i had my 2000 Sunfire, when i bought it, it was all stock parts. bogged all the time, slow performance (Yes i know they arent all that great to begin with) but overall was bland. I started modifying this car, adding an intake to start. Oh did this car wake up just on an cold air intake swap. Then i installed a cat-back system. Woke up even more. Ran so much better and smoother. Then i finished the exhaust system with downpipes headers and a Hi-Flow CAT. That car went from boring, to a blast to drive. It was way less restricted and the performance gains from it was amazing. So i can only imagine that if these Sonics get modified what they can do with a better less restrictive systems on them!
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
Now i have a question for you guys... Do they make this DDM Works Intake Setup for the 1.8 Motor yet? I want to get an intake for my sonic but dont want that Injen Intake that hangs over the motor. I like how the DDM Intake follows the stock pipes but opens up the area for the intake to breathe by sectioning off part of the engine bay with a heat shield. If they do, where can i get one, and if not, how long before one is made available?

 

[Dave@ddmworks]

I can say that an intake swap from stock to a short ram system or cold air intake system most definetly is worth the while. The improvements they do for vehicles is incredible. For instance. When i had my 2000 Sunfire, when i bought it, it was all stock parts. bogged all the time, slow performance (Yes i know they arent all that great to begin with) but overall was bland. I started modifying this car, adding an intake to start. Oh did this car wake up just on an cold air intake swap. Then i installed a cat-back system. Woke up even more. Ran so much better and smoother. Then i finished the exhaust system with downpipes headers and a Hi-Flow CAT. That car went from boring, to a blast to drive. It was way less restricted and the performance gains from it was amazing. So i can only imagine that if these Sonics get modified what they can do with a better less restrictive systems on them!
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
Now i have a question for you guys... Do they make this DDM Works Intake Setup for the 1.8 Motor yet? I want to get an intake for my sonic but dont want that Injen Intake that hangs over the motor. I like how the DDM Intake follows the stock pipes but opens up the area for the intake to breathe by sectioning off part of the engine bay with a heat shield. If they do, where can i get one, and if not, how long before one is made available?

We are doing intake testing on the 1.8L on the 17th of November and should have some more information then on the intake.

 

[Dave@ddmworks]

Hey Dave,

Is this intake California legal? In wishlisting for this car, I was interested in the Bad News Racing Stage 1 Kit and I can't seem to find a definitive answer as to whether or not it is legal.

Our intake does not have a CARB EO right now, I think the Injen is the only intake with a CARB sticker right now.

 

[rdss]

Now i have a question for you guys... Do they make this DDM Works Intake Setup for the 1.8 Motor yet? I want to get an intake for my sonic but dont want that Injen Intake that hangs over the motor. I like how the DDM Intake follows the stock pipes but opens up the area for the intake to breathe by sectioning off part of the engine bay with a heat shield. If they do, where can i get one, and if not, how long before one is made available?

http://www.sonicownersforum.com/forum/t4718/