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Sila 451 Induction Kit

Mod Description
This is the Sila air intake as provided by SmartMadness in America for this fitting guide and a future review
Mod Details
PremiumNo Difficulty Mod ID741 Creditevilution Cost£varies For451 Fortwo Linkhttps://www.evilution.co.uk/mod/sila-451-induction-kit.htm Copy to Clipboard

This is the main part of the kit as supplied by Smartmadness. There are 3 options. Silver powder coated steel, black powder coated steel and an aluminium version. Or aluminum if you’re American. The filter is shrouded to reduce the amount of hot air drawn from the engine bay.

These are either $169.99 for steel or $219.99 for aluminium.
Run that through a currency convertor to find how much they are in your country.

Firstly, we need to remove everything that’s in the way so remove the original pipe. Remove the 2x Torx30 bolts from the right hand side.

Remove the air box lid and the filter inside. Lift the air box up to un-pop a ball joint underneath.

Angle it up towards you and slide it out to the right. There is an air feed pipe on the left that is quite stubborn so keep pulling the air box until the pipe comes off from one end or the other.

Circled white is the air feed pipe, sometimes called a trunk, this leads to the air scoop on the left hand rear arch panel. This convoluted piece of rubbish needs to be pulled from the car as it’s a terrible bottle neck for air flow. At the bottom of the page you can see more about this performance and efficiency stealing pipe.

With the air feed pipe pulled out, blindfolded and shot, you can see where it connected to. This is the base of the air scoop on the side of the car. If you didn’t buy the Sila air feed pipe to accompany the induction kit, I’d recommend leaving the old pipe off.

Loosen both pipe clamps and push the silicone hose onto the throttle body.

Remove this Torx30 bolt from just left of the gear change motor.

Take a quick look at the bracket, pull the rubber washer from it and slide it over the bolt that you just removed. Line the bracket hole up with the hole that you just uncovered and lightly fit the bolt. If you didn’t buy the Sila air feed pipe you can tighten the pipe clamps and the bolt. Don’t over tighten any of these fixings, it’s not needed.

If you have bought the air feed pipe then mark where the opening of the new pipe sits. Then take the bolt out and remove the induction kit again.

This is the Sila silicone air feed pipe. It transports air from the external scoop to the filter, minimising the amount of hot air drawn in from the engine bay. It’s a big bit of silicone and does look like something you’d use to plumb in a toilet. This part, also available from SmartMadness, it retails at $69.99.

Put your arm in the wide end of the pipe like a sleeve, reach into the engine bay to the far left and attach it to the scoop connector shown 6 pictures up. Once it is in place, measure from your mark to the edge of the pipe. On mine it was about 6mm. Pull this off of the car once again.

ON THE NARROW END of the pipe, measure back the distance you took earlier and cut the hose down. This pipe is very thin so it can be cut down easily with kitchen scissors. Keep a straight line.

Refit the pipe as before. Now you can see that the hose doesn’t come so far into the engine bay.

Refit the induction kit and place the open head of the filter into the air feed pipe. It is not designed to be a tight fit. I found that if you don’t trim it down, the pipe is way too long and buckles the hose.

Tighten up the Torx30 bolt and the 2 hose connections. Then fit the oil breather pipe in place and tighten a small hose clip over it. The oil breather inlet on this Sila pipe is quite narrow so make sure it’s holding on sufficiently.

To save from losing them, refit the air box bolts into their rightful places.

That’s it fitted. Go for a drive. This is the original air feed pipe.

Convoluted surfaces increase air resistance plus the overall shape won’t help matters. You can see from the end shot that not much air makes it straight from the pipe to the air filter.

Review

A review of this item can be read here.