So I'm looking all over at intakes...

Any AEM intake is near $300+, even on ebay.

I can buy a generic intake like this for $50 with shipping, then pay $50 of an AEM filter.

Is there any reason to pay the extra $200 for the authentic AEM pipe?

 

you probly will not see any gains at all from an intake the stock air box is very efficent . I would suggest a spoon snorkel or replica snorkel on ebay and gut out the air box

 

You will get a different sound from the car and I don't see a difference between that intake and a AEM CAI V1. Maybe the eBay version may not be made as well or missing an attachment point, but it is hard to tell from a picture.

I bought one from eBay, but ended up selling it. We installed it on another S and it worked fine. Make sure it comes with instructions. The one I bought didn't so we had to use mine (I already had a AEM) and figured out which tube went where.

 

The generic one I bought on ebay did not fit correctly, and since I paid very little for it, I just trashed it and stuck with the stock air box + K&N air filter.

 

Skip the ebay junk and just get a K&N or similar drop in filter. You'll make just as much or more hp that way. If you want a more aggresive intake sound, then block of the resonator chamber of the intake and do the gutting mods. There's a thread in under the hood (stickied i think) that has some do-it-yourself intake mods that will cost under $50 and give you as much if not more power than any after market intake (except maybe some of the high end ones like the j's one, but it's over $1k)

 

i got my V1 for about $210 shipped off ebay fyi
-Chris