We in doing custom tuning have seen many Vettes that had underlying problems that all lead to that vararam over several years.

We have seen

1. cheap design for high profit margins.

2. as product gets older and due to engine bay temps the box gets out of square and unit allows hot dirty air to be pulling between the top of box and lower part.
Many times we have seen in customers cars the top has unlatched and owner did not even know it.

3. cheap foam filters that tear and come apart due to it being stressed between the top and lower part. After all the years this product has been out it is surprising to see the same aircleaner failures today as we did in 2003.

In fact once when we at a drag strip a C5 Z06 almost crashed as what we found later was part of the filter broke off, got caught in the throttlebody jamming the butterfly open

4. Random and airmass issues confusing the MAF and the PCM.

5. how this filter/CAI functions I can tell just by looking at a OBD scanner recording as the car listed in 1st post in this tread. Once seeing the ills via scanner data my 1st statement to owner was this car had a vararam ( remote tuning so I never saw the car) and he answered yes.

6. worse is the vendor sells the notion of more air / more performance but then sells the POS shown below that even the feds in the 1980s proved so called mods like this are useless that in fact reduce the air volume.
That junk part in fact did not even sit straight inside the airbridge and cause turbulance.

7. Vendor's marketing claims

Makes 40 + HP gains.
Reduces ET by 3.5 tenths
Increases trap speed in 1/4 mile by 3 MPH
Increases maximun speed by 8-10 MPH

If all that was done was adding their product my 40 years of racing says bullshit to their claims.

The front of car is designed for a good C/D and to help reduce lift thus there is no low airpressure so there is zero air being RAMMED in. To my viewpoint marketing it as varaRAM is misleading and if properly testing it and it alone in the real world on roads and it's claim of performance gains is BS.
What really increases the performance is the PCM tuning and not the aircleaner itself that would have very little gain seen at the real wheels.

As to the CFM, our 1999 C5 eats over 660 CFM and the engine is NA and uses a simple Donaldson Blackwing and our Icebox which prevents hot engine air entering the filter and takes in colder air from outside.


For the POS VR3 for $35 ( worth 2 bucks) below they make claims :

In Truck applications we have seen gains of up to 22+ ft/lbs of tire-shredding torque throughout the power curve where you can use it! As tested in a 2004 Silverado 5.3 V8.
In LS1 car applications, gains of up to 13 rear wheel HP have been seen (03 C5 Corvette).

Again my feeling, Bullshit