Car stalls after installing cold air intake

Cold air intake is a solid upgrade that improves the performance of your vehicle. However, you should learn about some of the awful effects of this upgrade. Several users who have tried this boost complained of car stalls after installing cold air intake. In this article, we will explain car stalls caused by installing a cold air intake and what to do if these stalls ever occur.

Why does Car Stalls after Installing Cold Air Intake?

Cold air intake works by introducing cold air from your surroundings to reduce the temperature of your engine. Cold air is dense and contains more oxygen which increases the rate of combustion and boosts your car performance.

Because cold air is being moved to your engine, alterations are made and issues start to arise which may cause stalling or idling of your car. Cold air intake without filters will bring dust and debris into your car engine which may cause reduced engine performance.

Car stalls after installing cold air intakes can also be caused by hydro locking, a situation where water gets into the engine instead of air getting into the engine.

What To Do After Installing A Cold Air Intake?

After installing a cold air intake, you should tune your car. Before we look further into tuning after installing a cold air intake, you should understand what tuning is.

Tuning increases your fuel efficiency and boosts car performance by altering values in your car’s lookup table. These altered values are now sent as output to the ECU. So tuning your car after installing a cold air intake will help your car to use the cold air intake to its full potential.

But here is the problem with tuning, it costs a lot and your car will function without tuning. So if you don’t want to tune your car after installing a cold air intake, you should take your car out for a test drive and then refill your fuel tank after that.

How To Fix Car Stalls After Installing Cold Air Intake?

We have explained earlier that car stalls that occur after installing a cold air intake are a result of hydro locking and debris, well here are some ways to fix these problems.

1. Purchasing and installing splash shields

You may need to drive under the rain for some reason and driving under the rain without a splash shield may cause water to get to your engine through your cold air intake. To prevent this you should purchase and install a splash shield to prevent water from getting to your engine.

For car users who drive into water 6 to 8 inches deep, it is advisable to not get a cold air intake at all.

2. Air filters

Dust and debris can get into your engine if your cold air intake doesn’t have an air filter. You should buy an air filter for your cold air intake to prevent debris from passing through, or you can simply purchase a cold air intake that comes with an air filter.

Best Air Filter and Splash Shield to Fix Car Stalling

Here are the best splash shield and air filters to prevent car stalling after installing a cold air intake.

Armordillo skid plates

Key features

1. Offers a high level of protection against dust and water
2. Powder-coated aluminum for corrosion resistance
3. No drilling is required during installation
4. Aggressive and stylish angular design

AEM dry flow air filter

Key features

1. Requires no oil to work
2. Washable and reusable
3. Captures about 99% of contaminant

Car stalls after hard braking

It is important to know what car stalls mean before going further into this article. Car stalls are the sudden stop of a process in your car, most times these stops occur in your car engine. There are a lot of reasons why your car stalls, so you should get it checked to identify the problem and cause of your car stalls.

Car stalls after hard braking occur when you release your clutch suddenly. It may also be as a result of taking your foot off the clutch when it’s in gear without giving it any gas, based on this description, it is obvious that car stalls due to hard breaking usually occur in manual cars.

Frequently asking Questions

Cold Air Intake Causing Hesitation

Engine hesitation occurs when you experience a power loss for a very short period of time. This power loss may occur when you try to accelerate your car but it slows down instead.

Hesitation caused by installing cold air intake happens when your engine is running out of air and this is because your cold air intake is free-flowing. 

Your Car Won’t Stay On After Installing A Cold Air Intake

While installing a cold air intake may improve your car performance, installing a cold air intake wrongly could have consequences.

Your car may not come on or will eventually turn off if you wrongly install a cold air intake. To fix this problem, you may want to reinstall your cold air intake properly or get an expert who could do that for you.

Rough Idle After Installing A Cold Air Intake

If you hear a puffing sound coming from your engine bay or your exhaust, it means your car is having a rough idle.

A rough idle may occur a few weeks after installing a cold air intake. This is because your cold air intake comes with vacuum ports, and if this port comes off or breaks from its routing, it will cause a vacuum leak, and a vacuum leak causes your car to have a rough idle.

Conclusion

Cold air intake does a great job of boosting your car performance, but some problems come with installing a cold air intake.

You can have car stalls after installing cold air intake, there can be hesitation and rough idles. But all these come with installing the wrong cold air intake or incorrectly installing a cold air intake.