BEGi Cold Air Box: Review

[Breakdown81]

Welcome to my review of the



The BEGi Cold Air Box retails for $229.95, and can be purchased through online retailers. in the kit you will find all this



Excluding the tape measure, there will also be a manilla folder that contains the installation instructions and a nifty BEGi sticker for your car. I'd also like to point out that in the picture I have pre-assembled the lower box/MAF housing/filter assembly for compositional considerations. As shipped all parts are separate. On with the review.

Ordering and Shipping:
I ordered the product from Protege Garage with some other parts and the order was processed fairly quickly. The date the order was confirmed as being shipped was 8/29. I received half of my order by 9/10.
I sent a message to Ken at PG on 9/11, who informed me that his understanding from BEGi was that the product had shipped the same day as the rest of the order. Ken said he would look into the issue. By 9/15 I still had no package, so i sent another message to Ken. Ken got in touch with BEGi. BEGi assured Ken the product had shipped. I'll fast forward now because I think you all get the idea. Product arrival date: 9/24.

Ridonculous.

At any rate. Being terrifically excited that the piece had finally come i eagerly began to put it together. The piece is advertised as being powdercoated, however a small seed of doubt was sown when i observed this



Chips and Overspray!???? hmm. fishy.

I should have ceased all work and packed the thing up and sent it back at this point. But goddamnit I'd waited a month and i was going to install this fucker. Which leads me to the next thing that i really should have taken as a warning.



heres some closeups going from top left to bottom right.





WTF! None of the machining would line up properly for assembly, And the join of the lid to the bottom box wasn't the only place there was this problem. For example this thingy



As you can see there are three pieces held together here. The MAF housing, a U bracket and the bottom of the CAB. You have no idea how hard it was to get both screws to secure the U bracket to the MAF housing. To be honest the screw at the rear of the housing (Pic right) is probably cross-threaded since i had to fasten it at an angle.

All this brings us to the MAF housing itself.

Here's the back.



And the front.



Notice the shrinkage from front to back, that will come into play later.

So blazing ahead I was ready to attach the filter. Here it is.



MMM...looks cool all big and blue.



Hey AMSoil makes it! That company is decent, people use their products and they even have a nifty graph on the side of their box which shows how awesome the filter is. Sweet! but wait....




There's no velocity stack. Nor is there an airflow straightener anywhere to be seen. I really should have stopped, but i was stuck on stupid and bolted the thing up into my car. which brings us to yet another bit of frustration.



The screws that are pictured are what you use to secure the MAFS into the MAF housing. They are too big for the predrilled holes on the MAFS. Not a problem! say fuck it and carve up the plastic and make it work! It will all fit snugly and securely...I promise.

the only thing left to do is bolt the thing into the car now. so lets go back a minute remember this pic?



Notice the metal piece in the center as well as the two pegs. These pieces comprise the platform that the lower part of the box sits on and bolts into. they mount here



You remove the piece circled in red, slide the metal blade in behind it and then re-fasten it to the engine bay creating point one. Next you screw the two pegs on top of the studs circled in green, creating points two and three.
So you slap the box on these fasten it up and call it a day.

Except you can't figure out how to fasten off to point number one because when you place the box into its resting position you have blocked off all access to the underside, which you need to get at to be able to thread a nut and bolt. So you say fuck it and roll with just the pegs fastened.

Congratulations.

So I'm driving around purely delighted by the fun new sounds and power I've got from this super cool cold air box. When I start hearing from people that there is something wrong with the LTFTs that comes from using the CAB. So I take it to a buddy for some data logging. This is what we get.



My buddy promptly asks me what the fuck I have in there. So I show him and we pull it out and take it apart and notice some more detioration of the "powdercoat"




At this point my buddy makes the rather astute observation that the powdercoating looks like barbeque paint, and I'm an idiot for installing this thing in the first place. So we throw a properly designed intake on and do a second datalog to get this.



much better.

So in summation. STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM THIS THING!

Poor design and manufacturing combined with utterly terrible customer service add up to one unescapable conclusion.

BEGi = FTL

thanks for reading.

[skeeter149]

thanks for saving people bro. i will never look at that one now.

[speed3]

Nice!

[speed3]

such a nice piece. Does it come with the air straightener? Is it required?

[Doc]

I am running one of these.. and I too had fitment issues.. However the LTFT problem was corrected when I had the dyno tune done..

It now runs like a champ, and as for there being no air straightener.. i am getting consistent LTFT figures under varying loads..

For someone to run this untuned.. i feel ther MAF size is no good.. but if you can tune around it, its not that bad.. and the amsoil filter is very good.

There have been fitment issues with this thing for guys in Australia for years now.. I hoped they had their fingers on the pulse and had sorted it.. obviously i am mistaken

E mail them.. send them the link.. see what comes of it

Doc

[HiggyMS3]

I too have this set up. It has been sitting in my basement collecting dust for a few months. I ran it for a few weeks then heard about the wack LTFT's and pulled it out. I had the same fitment issues as Breakdown and Doc did.

I would steer clear of this thing unless you can tune around it.

[desperado callado]

Sorry to hear about this. These guys have a great rep among the Miata crowd and Corky Bell's book has made him a celeb in the amateur turbo modding world. I visited them when they were just putting the box together. It seemed a little rough-hewn but it sounds like they're just plain sloppy now.

[Breakdown81]

Yeah i was really disappointed as well, i came from the 240sx community and Corky's book is pretty much the bible among the KA-T guys i knew. I figured this product would be a safe bet in the quality department. It's still a sore spot to think i spent money on the thing.

[Lee123]

Thanks for posting this. I was considering buying the BEGI to get away from the battery box breaking problems with the Cobb. What kind of intake did you put on when you removed the BEGI? The log you got with the BEGI isn't that much different than what I'm getting with my Cobb SRI. That's why I'm curious what you installed after the BEGI to get such a low LTFT. My LTFT with the Cobb is +8.6 at idle and +13.3 when accelerating. With the factory airbox with multiple holes cut in it I get -3.1 at idle and 0.0 when accelerating. I've gone back and forth a couple times and the results are consistent. Every time I've changed the intake I've unhooked the battery and drained the charge, then let it idle for 10 minutes before driving. The car runs great with the Cobb, so I don't even know why I'm worrying about the LTFT, but I'm sure curious how you got yours so much lower.

[DaleNixon]

I too would like to know what kind of intake you put back on. From your picture, it looks like you had a Cobb before the BEGI. If you put the Cobb back on, I'm very curious how you got such good looking LTFT's.

[Breakdown81]

I went from Stock to BEGi to COBB. Datalogs are not done under WOT. I don't reset my ECU when I install parts. These last two factors more than anything most likely contribute to the way my datalogs look. However In all due diligence i should probably do another set of data logs concerning the COBB SRI now that the filter has been on my car for four months or so.

[LiquidSpeed6]

Thanks for doing this review

[nerv81]

Another problem with this box is if you're running an aftermarket BOV (i.e. turbo xs or turbosmart), it won't fit. I had to cut the bend the box to fit my bov, and then it looked like crap so now it's collecting dust in my garage and I went back to Cobb

[Breakdown81]

Originally Posted by nerv81 Another problem with this box is if you're running an aftermarket BOV (i.e. turbo xs or turbosmart), it won't fit. I had to cut the bend the box to fit my bov, and then it looked like crap so now it's collecting dust in my garage and I went back to Cobb

You just bought a big ass bpv or one of those combo bpv/bov's which arent the best thing to use on this car anyway. worked fine with the Forge valve.

[nerv81]

Well I have an HKS on recirc now anyway, but I know a lot of people are rocking the turbosmart. Either way, this thing is a POS compared to the other options out there. Corksport has an enclosed SRI now too which looks pretty nice

[alexspeed3]

what did put on when you said "proper intake"

I got a cobb sri and my trims are probably double yours, it's garbage too. I am in search for an intake that will keep the trims under 10