Has anyone installed a Airaid kit on a HHR with a standard trans. I open the box tonight and the first thing I saw on the instructions was auto. only.
nowhere have I seen anything about which transmission you have when buy a cai. I don't see why it wouldn't work but want to make sure before I install it.

 

Tech man at Airaid says the kit is for automatics only!!! He informed me that it says so on the instruction as I already know. He said they would take note of the problem and change the listing to clarify automatic only.

Anyway, I installed it. I cut the plastic cowl panel back 1 inch to allow extra clearance and drilled 3 new holes to relocate the wiring harness further back against the cowl. I drove it over 100 miles today with no issues.
The only difference I would see is there is more movement from the engine with a manuel transmission. Worse case is it will wear a groove in the hood insulator which on my car is already worn by the stock intake.

We'll see how it looks after a month of driving.

 

I tested, uh well...briefly tested the Airaid intake kit about a year ago. The reason Airaid now says their HHR kit only fits autos is the work I did with them on this issue in Oct. of 2008.

Once I had it installed, I ran the truck on the chassis dyno and it made the slight improvement I expected, but the air box had a significant interferance problem with the cowl. I contacted Airaid's customer service folks. First they gave me all this BS about: I installed it wrong or my truck had been in a wreck or its engine mounts were bad.

Not.

Once I sent them pictures and told them I'd measured half-a-dozen other trucks and knew the engine positions were different, they waited about a week, then contacted me and admitted they'd screwed up. Airaid told me they never validated it on a manual, only on an automatic and, then, they assumed the engine position and angle for the manuals was the same.

Oops.

Once Airaid confirmed what I'd found for them, they told me they 1) were going tell customers it didn't fit manusls and 2) they had no plans to market a specific version of their intake kit for manuals. When asked why, they didn't offer any specifics but I'll suspect it's a cost issue, ie: they don't feel the extra development is worth the few sales they'll gain from manual trans owners.

I finally sold the Airaid system to another member of this site.

This thread comes at an opportune time because, early next week, I'm headed for K&N in Riverside CA for an installation of their "FIPK" for HHRs along with before/after chassis dyno testing. I'm told the K&N intake kit fits both manuals and automatics. I'll publish the results here, probably in about two weeks.

As for "cutting the cowl" to gain clearance? That's a dumb way to solve the problem and, because of the truck's soft engine mounts allow lots of engine movement, you need to cut a lot away.

 

I am selling my KN and it is definitely an improvement but I am only selling it because I want to keep my warranty at least for a while.

 

The part I cut is the plastic panel that hangs over the engine, not the metal cowl itself. I only cut 1 inch off and the box works fine now. In fact, I already had issues with the stock air box hitting in the same place and knocking the oil filler off the engine. Of course this only happens during spirited driving and wheel hop. You may think it's dumb but I've chopped and modified and alot of vehicles worth a WHOLE lot more than this car. If you don't cut, chop, and channel, it's not customized. I'll take a picture this weekend and post it, the average person would never know the panel was cut.

 

A cai or air filter will not void your warranty and can be removed and returned to stock before taking it in for repairs.

 

If you are getting wheel hop you need to upgrade your engine/tranny mounts.

AFAIK solid or filled engine mounts from the Cobalts should work just fine on the HHR. From a visual inspection the top and rear mounts look to be identical.

 

I don't drive that hard very often and the pirelli's hook really well.

 

check the socal hhr website they tested 4 diffrent mfgs. airraid had a HP loss

 

Everyone pretty much knew we was a little biased on his information. He was here to sell. He never had any facts to back anything up. He soon sold out, dumped his HHR for a Jeep and never looked back.

Lots of people bought into his sales pitch though.