Cold Air Intake?

[centex]

Years ago I put a cold air intake on my 06 GMC sierra SLE 1500.

 

I ran it with no heat shield just the filter out in the open for a while to see if i noticed anything different and for quite some time now I was running it with a home-made heat shield and the mpg was the same, a 22-23 gallon tank and close to or over 400 miles which is around 17-18 mpg highway. The question is after taking my home made heat shield off I noticed on my 350 mile back to college trip that my temperature was sitting way below normal with a/c on and off, although the temp was sitting lower it seemed as if my low fuel light came on faster than usual and I was cutting it close to get to 400 miles on a full tank. Any thought's, if I can clear this up for you in any way i will.

 

Thanks,

God Bless

[Stevens03]

Well, The heat shield is suppose to block heat from the motor sucking it in... Heat kills power which would lower fuel mileage

 

In theory anyways...

[centex]

Stevens: I understand that is what the heat shield is supposed to do, I was just curious as to why my temp needle was running at the quarter of a tank mark rather than the normal half a tank mark with heat shield off. I am however going to put my home made heat shield back on when I get home, but it will blow my mind if when the heat shield is on and the temp needle goes back up to normal.

[Superperv23]

I guess you could say that the intake without the shield was sucking in hot air from the engine bay instead of it sitting there with the heat shield which may lowering running temps through lower engine bay temps, but if that difference was actually that noticeable I dont know.

[Stevens03]

 

Very odd....

[jro909]

throw that CAI in the trash and put the stock box back in, CAI are like sham-wows just over hyped to seem appealing but in the end just a waste...unless your running some beefed up track engine in that thing the stock box will deliver more then enough air to support your needs with less problems and more protection

[centex]

jro99: yea I put it back on in '06 when i first got the truck because I got all attracted like everybody else by the claims of hp and mpg. But no can do with putting the stock back on, dont know where i put the darn thing.