The factory air box while decent for what it is kind of lacks a bunch in the air flow department. Which explains why a ton of companies have come out with better flowing solutions to solve the problem. S&B is one such solution and pretty sharp looking to boot.

I ordered this one from Nate at www.performancetruckproducts.com

The intake arrived overnight with regular shipping. Nice fast service. Highly recommend performancetruckpoducts for your diesel performance needs.

Heres how it looked before opening it up.

Some more pics of the box and how its packed. Click to enlarge.

After unpacking the box I could tell right off the bat it was a notch above the intake kits I had tried in the past on other vehicles. You can tell its designed for the particalar truck in place of it being one of those one size fits all deals. Heres everything removed and ready to assemble.

A few more shots of the parts. Again click to enlarge.

Im not going to cover assembling the kit since the instructions that came with it were VERY well written with pictures and diagrams covering how to assemble and install it. I will cover the few things I found that might make things a little easier for someone else if they are installing one of these.

First thing I had to do was to remove the factory air box.

Notice how the old back has the broken clip in the corner and the bungee cord helping it stay closed. Common break point on them.

Next the battery is removed.  Notice all the battery acid. I have upgraded to optima batteries which will never leak but even after washing the old battery box out its hard to get rid of it all.

Now for the new intake. Heres a show of the new battery box thats included as part of the intake system.

I was able to clean out all the dust after the installation was completed. Noticed the hold down on the top left and the hold down in the fender. The fender bolts actually were the tricky part.

When first installed and tightened down the intake sat up to high causing the hood to touch the top of it. Heres the bolts to pay attention too. Try to get it as low as possible before tightening them.

Heres my test tool I used to insure it cleared the hood :)

Now for the finished product, minus the battery. I still need to get some better pics but at this point it was 31 degrees outside and pitch black. So I will add to this tomorrow.

One might wonder why dump the stock box? Well beside airflow issues it also get dirty way to fast. Time will tell if the S&B intake can go longer or not but at least it doesnt have to be replaced. You simply clean it and reoil it again.

Heres what a factory airfilter looks like with 15,000 miles on it running around here.

Some more shots of the factory filter. Click to enlarge.

Several people have asked about the noise level changes. I was one of the ones asking myself :)

Heres a movie of the stock airfilter.

Heres the S&B Intake System

The truck was very cold when  I made the movie of the S&B Intake and I didnt want to rev it up that much with it being that cold. So I will make another movie tomorrow since this one isnt showing one noise that it did have after the install. I'd call it a huffing sound that it made when you let off the pedal. The turbo itself isnt that much louder than it was with the stock intake but the huffing sound is new since I didnt hear that sound at all with the factory intake.

So far I love it. It has to filter better. The motor seems to be breathing easier and performs better to me. It will be nice not throwing money away on filter elements anymore and it looks cool to boot :)