What is the Best Cold Air Intake for a Chevy HHR

This question is asked many times every day on Google as well as the other popular search engines.  I offer all brands so I am not trying to steer you to the one air intake I sell.  When surfing the web as I do everyday, I came across a test performed by a California speed shop.  The test compared the performance of the stock air intake, the Airaid Cold Air Intake, and the CGS Cold Air Intake.  The test was performed as professionally as possible using a Dynojet 7 Dyno owned and operated by West Coast Vipers. This is a very expensive piece of equipment and always gives very accurate information relating the power produced at the wheels, which is more meaningful to you than that given by an engine dyno.  All runs were completed within 1-hour, and the temperature variant was less than 3-degrees from start to finish. All runs were made with the hood up and a 48-inch fan blowing. The stock air intake and Airaid air imtake received direct cool air into their intake hoses, the CGS intake did not receive any cool air as the intake was buried deep inside the engine compartment. Since the vehicle was not on the road, no cooling air was being fed into the fender well for the intake to use.

Three separate runs were completed with each intake (with cooling down periods), and the total of all three runs was then averaged. There are many ways to do a dyno run, and despite the many variables all you end up with are slightly different numbers. The bottom line: these intake tests were all done in the same manner by an independent professional. The numbers show how each air intake performed relative to each other on this specific vehicle. Your results may vary slightly.  The trusty stock air intake was tested first. To aid in cooling, the air duct hose was placed on top of the radiator support and fed directly from the 48" fan

Next up was the Airaid system. It too received cold air from the fan.  Finally, the CGS intake was tested. Due to the filter location deep down in the engine compartment it did not receive the benefit of any fan air. Under normal driving conditions, it receives cold air from the fenderwell hole.

 A 48" industrial fan fed cool air to the intakes and engine compartment. Dyno runs are hard on engines and they allowed proper cool down times between runs to maintain consistency, and prevent damage.

They reset the DIC before starting dyno runs and were suprised to note that after 9 full-throttle dyno runs (at up to 110mph), the little HHR was happily getting 16mpg. Try that in your Mustang or Camaro.

Here are the official numbers from the dyno. As you can see, even though the CGS intake did not receive any cool air from the fan, the CGS Air Intake still outperformed the others, making 8.08hp and 8.02ft/lbs of torque over stock. Airaid's cool air intake actually lost power(-2.55hp and -.029ft/lbs torque), compared to the stock intake setup.

 The CGS Intake system proved itself the clear winner in this shootout.  I have seen test between K&N and Injen which K&N won, but I have not seen a test between CGS and K&N.  As Sly Stone once said different strokes for different folks.  Whatever you want we have it.