I installed the CTA intake in my pre-98, and there were a couple of awkward areas. For one thing, the pipes were basically a bit too short! The cheezy bracket that's supposed to hold up the MAF had to be bent back so the MAF could reach it, even with plenty of slack in the middles of the rubber joint tubes. I almost think I could fit an e-ram into the tube without cutting any metal off of it. An inch at the most.
Getting the filter onto the MAF was hard. In the end I had to lube it with some spray silicone (sprayed onto paper towel and wiped on)... and then pull out little shreds of rubber that came off during the struggle, from the ridges moulded inside the filter's fitting.
The simple hole to screw the IAT sensor into is a somewhat unfortunate compromise... it leaves much more of the sensor sticking into the airstream than in the original design, and the hole isn't going to be all that re-threadable. I would recommend some kind of nuts or bushing on some of the threads on the sensor so that it doesn't screw in all the way, and/or using some kind of thread-lock.
It works. It cut about 3/4 second off my 0-60 time. But not when the engine gets hot. The name "cold air intake" is a misnomer; it's quite vulnerable to heat. I am puzzling out different options for how to get more cold air up to the top of the engine compartment. It's hard to snake any wide tubing through there. A good first step would be to pull all the remaining plastic out of the wheelwell opening.
The instructions assume a lot; I may offer Chris a rewrite.
The noise it makes was fairly startling at first. At half throttle you have to raise your voice a bit more than you're used to; at full throttle it makes a howl loud enough to be a territorial challenge to any nearby hot-rods.
So now I'm figuring, what the hell, I don't have too much to lose if I get a somewhat louder muffler...
Here you can see the bent bracket, and a bit of foam I stuck down to cushion the filter from bumping against the body:
