Justin: Hey guys, Justin here with AmericanMuscle.com, here with my detailed review and dyno test
of the C&L Cold Air Intake Kit along with the VMP Custom tune combo available for your
2015 and up Mustang GT.
The C&L-VMP combo is going to be for the S550 GT owners out there looking to start modding
with two of the premium options in their respective categories: the C&L Cold Air Intake and of
course, that VMP Custom Tune. Now a cold air and tune are where most owners tend to go
when the desire for more power starts to grow and ultimately, it's going to be for those
owners looking for the biggest gains possible as opposed to going with a cold air by itself.
And speaking of those gains, let's quickly break the numbers down first before I start
talking about some of the specifics here with the C&L and VMP Tune. We already grabbed our
baseline run earlier today using our 6-speed GT behind me, so with the C&L installed and the
VMP tune uploaded, we need another hit on the Dynojet and here are the results.
Baseline run using our six-speed 2015 GT gave us 386 horsepower, 364 pound-feet of torque
at the rear wheels. With the C&L VP combo, the car is now making 411 horsepower and 381
pound-feet of torque at the rear wheels. That's good for a peak gain of 25 horsepower over
those baseline numbers and curve gains of 46 horsepower and 48 pound-feet of torque.
Now these numbers are obviously good throughout, right guys, so you're picking up a ton of
low-end torque down low and you're picking up some nice P-course power up top.
So again, overall the tune, the intake are doing their job as you can see here and the
drive-ability, I can't stress it enough guys, is going to be the big separating factor between
the VMP option and some of the other options you might find here on the site. Now that
you know a little bit more about the combo as far as numbers are concerned, let's get
back to the table and break the intake down a little further.
Let's first start with the C&L, a very popular intake here on the site and one that's going
to come in at the top of the food chain in regards to price, but also quality and fitment,
at least in my opinion. Now, C&L has definitely had a very long history in the Mustang community.
They've been producing a wide variety of induction parts for Mustangs for over 20 years now and
all of their stuff is built, designed and tested right here in the USA.
Getting into the specifics here with the C&L, here's what you are going to be looking at,
guys. Rotamatic plastic intake tube, 95 millimeter mass airflow housing that does require a tune.
And this thing has been finished in aluminum, signature C&L blue couplers here, the large
8-inch reusable oil filter, so again whenever this thing gets a little dirty you can wash
it, re-oil it and you're good to go and you're going to save yourself some money in the long
run.
Finally, C&L's included this really unique curved heat shield here and I do like this
because it's going to help prevent any water from dripping through your GT's hood vents
onto the actual filter itself, which could possibly cause some problems and that's going
to be characteristic of an open element filter, but luckily again, the C&L heat shield is
going to prevent that.
If I did have one nitpick about the heat shield itself here, is that it could do a slightly
better job of tapping into your factory cold air ducting similar to what the Roush, JLT
and Aira have all done. Definitely not a deal breaker in my opinion, but worth pointing
out.
Now that you know a little bit more about the C&L Cold Air Intake, let's quickly touch
on the VMP Custom Tune because again, this is going to be a higher-end option available
here on the site. Now this thing will of course deliver the power as we already saw with our
dynograph. But the big separating factor with the VMP custom tuning is going to be the refined
drive-ability. You are going to be receiving three tunes from VMP including a low, medium
and high octane tune, depending on what kind of fuel is available in your area along with
a single data log revision if necessary.
Those three custom tunes will be emailed directly to you from VMP for easy upload onto your
X4 Power Flash tuning device which does feature some nice little bells and whistles on its
own. These include one-touch data logging, reading up to eight different values on your
car at one time including air-fuel ratio, intake air temperature, cooling temperature,
things like that, a nice full-color bright LCD screen. It can hold up to 10 tunes at
one time and it can read and clear those diagnostic trouble codes. And if for whatever reason
you do wish to return your car to stock down the road, the X4 can handle that with a simple
touch of a button.
You're going to be looking at a very easy and straightforward install with this combo,
guys. Basic hand tools for the intake including a socket set, flat head screw driver and a
torque tool to remove that mass air flow sensor. Overall, maybe 20 to 30 minutes to removing
the factory intake and installing the new C&L. When it comes to the VMP Tune, even easier,
total plug and play job here, plug it in, follow the directions on the screen, upload
the tune and overall, you should be wrapped up with both of these things in about an hour
from start to finish, again, one out of three wrenches on my difficulty meter. Anybody should
be able to tackle this job in the garage or driveway.
Wrapping up my final thoughts on this combo, the C&L again a very well-built intake, its
going to help provide some very solid gains along with that VMP custom tune, and along
with that power from the VMP tune you are going to see smoothed-out drive-ability with
your new GT and overall, a great performing package as we saw with our dyno results.
So be sure to learn more about the C&L VMP tune combo for your ride here at AmericanMuscle.com.