photos by: JDP Motorsports
We Team Up with JDP Motorsports to Test a JLT Performance Cold-Air Induction Kit
For over the last twenty years, there has been a debate among tuners and enthusiasts alike about the performance increases that cold-air induction kits and high-flow air filters provide. While most stand by these products, there are others who say the horsepower percentage increases are nothing more than mythological advertising jargon from the companies for enthusiasts to shell out their hard-earned cash on.
In the past, we’ve proven the capabilities of cold-air induction systems time and time again, but there’s one company in particular that has been adamant about the results their products produce and that is JLT Performance. Founded, owned and operated by Jay Tucker, JLT has been making a name for themselves largely in the late-model Ford aftermarket – if their products sound familiar, check with your Mustang buddies about the level of quality and performance capabilities that they offer. Chances are, they’ll have nothing but good things to say about them.
Looking to branch out and offer their amazing products to the 5th-gen Camaro crowd, JLT offers kits for the 2010-2015 Camaro SS and 2012-2015 ZL1. We reached out to Jay a little while back regarding putting his 2010-15 Camaro SS kit to the test. Always willing to prove his products, he went ahead and sent us a kit with Jordan Priestley of JDP Motorsports stepping in to install and test the kit himself.
Finding a bone stock SS around Jordan’s neck of the words almost proved fruitless, since those JDP guys keep themselves fairly busy in that part of Utah. That was until a local guy turned up with a 2011 Camaro SS (who later had JDP install a cam upgrade, among another mods).
Looking to make some more horsepower we all agreed that the first order of business was to open up the induction tract, and the timing of JLT’s cold-air kit couldn’t have been better. So after the car was delivered, inspected, everything was determined to be in perfect working order and a proper cool-down had commenced, JLT strapped the Camaro down to its in-house Dynojet chassis dyno for a baseline pull. The results depicted that the Camaro was producing 359 rwhp and 362 lb-ft to the rear tires. Not bad, but let’s see what a small bolt-on induction kit from JLT can do.
Under the hood of our test Camaro is the tried and trued 426 hp LS3. As functional as the OEM airbox is, there’s certainly enough restrictions within it and the succeeding elbow that effect optimum performance. The issue that General Motors and other car makers are obligated to, is a certain level of sound decibels that their vehicles are allowed to produce, both from the induction and from the exhaust side. While it’s unfortunate that we’re left with the result of these “innovations,” we’re equally grateful to have the aftermarket that we do to remedies these little foibles.
This is the JLT Performance kit (PN: CAIP-CC1062) as delivered to our door and out of the shipping packaging. A you can see, everything is of high quality and presents well. There’s also an optional extra to include an SCT X4 tuner to the kit, which not only allows for fine tuning, but further increases performance (PN: CAIP-CC1062-X4). If you opt for just the CAI itself, Jay does recommend tuning after the installation.
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- The kit comes with everything you need; including the washable, reusable 5×9 powerstack air filter, inlet tube (available in painted body color or black textured plastic, seen here), ABS heat shield, heavy-duty clamps, silicone reducer and all necessary hardware.
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- JLT has stamped its logo on several components of the kit, including the inlet tube to throttle body elbow bellow.
The first order of business was to disconnect the negative battery cable and unplug the MAF connector from the OEM inlet tube.
Next, we loosened up the clamp connecting the air bellow to the inlet tube and the throttle body, as the entire assembly has to be removed for the JLT kit. As you can see in the photo, there are a few air baffles molded into the tube as a way to quell the intake noise to meet federal production standards.
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- There are two nuts holding the OEM airbox in place, one to the right of the air filter housing…
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- …and one to the left. The mounting bolts stay in place, however, as they’ll be reused to mount the JLT heat shield.
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- Jordan promptly removes both.
With the OEM air box and inlet tube removed, we turned our attention to the MAF once again. Since the OEM MAF is reused, we remove the two screws holding it in place on the factory inlet tube, to reinstall it into our new JLT piece. You can see how it mounts in place in the four-photo gallery below.
With the MAF sensor reinstalled, we attached the JLT bellow and clamps to the inlet tube to prepare for installation.
The JLT heat shield mounts in place of the OEM air box as we’ve said earlier, and that’s exactly what you’re looking at here. The heat shelf does just what its name suggests, blocking out engine compartment heat from entering the air filter, preventing heat soak and providing a cooler, denser intake charge – thus, increasing horsepower and torque levels.
After the inlet tube was installed as well as the air filter, we reconnected the MAF sensor connector.
Now that everything is installed and the clamps are tightened up, we were now ready to make a follow-up pull to our baseline test run.
With the Camaro still strapped to the Dynojet chassis dyno, Jordan made another pull to see what sort of increases the JLT kit produces. Since tuning was recommended for our particular kit, Jordan broke out his laptop with HP Tuners to adjust the timing, air/fuel ratio and other parameters that are necessary for optimum performance. For a simple cold-air induction kit with no other upgrades, the results might astound you.
Following up on our baseline of 359 rwhp and 362 lb-ft to the rear tires, the JLT kit boosted power to 384 rwhp and an equal-level 384 lb-ft. to the rollers. Now that the Camaro is certainly breathing better with an additional 25 hp and 22 lb-ft., this paves the way to further modifications for the car’s future.
Rick Seitz is the owner and founder of GMEFI Magazine, and has a true love and passion for all vehicles. When he isn’t tuning, testing, or competing with the brand’s current crop of project vehicles, he’s busy tinkering and planning the next modifications for his own cars.
