[Christ]

So - I'm not in the position to provide evidence, as I'm the one questioning what you've provided. It's a rather simple process.

I run my engine with no air filter, and it's not ruined. In fact, I've been doing this for about 9,000 miles now. While I don't recommend that others do it, because of the obvious perceived danger, I also know that it won't "ruin" your engine in any short amount of time, relative to average engine life.

If you feel that I misunderstood something, it may be because you were less than clear about it. I, however, doubt that there was a misunderstanding. I'm sure you were referring to blocking the air inlets of the grille, which, in most OEM "real world" scenarios, are far too large to allow for adequate cooling.

Once again, A full belly pan won't necessarily cause your engine to overheat, provided you have a means to vent the engine's excess heat into open air. That means doesn't necessarily have to be the bottom of the engine bay, nor does it have to be the hood.

You're correct in saying that engines have an optimum operating temperature, I didn't dissuade from that. What I mentioned was that it was very neglectful of you to say that "warmed up" was that optimum temperature. You simply cannot apply such a broad term to something so precise without further explanation, and you also cannot say that the OEM setting is always necessarily best for optimum performance or efficiency, to place the cue on either side of the scale, especially considering that such has been found to be false on so many occasions, both here at EcoModder and in most performance communities at large.

What one can be quite sure of, though, is that OEM's will make every attempt to compensate for "worst case scenario", even though it doesn't apply to the largest subset of consumers. What this means for you is: on average, your vehicle, when in OEM condition, will not run at it's best efficiency or performance, will not perform at it's peak in all conditions, and, at least in some capacity, has room (lots of it, usually) for improvement over OEM configuration.

To combat your previous non-sensical assessment of CAI's with more non-sense:

Most OEM's won't cover engine damage that could even remotely be associated with intake stream modification or manipulation. Go ahead and verify it.