Cone air filters

[twosmoke300]

pipercross panel filter on the mondeo was noticeably better on acceleration

 

It's all in your head

[AlabamaShrimp]

So in conclusion, a car company that has spent God knows how much designing a plastic box and paper filter have made something better than a few blokes that sell the same cone in different sizes that are essentially all the same.

 

Am I right?

[cobblers]

It's all in your head

Even if it did give the claimed "3-5bhp" you're never going to genuinely be able to feel that.

[twosmoke300]

Unless it replaced a seriously blocked paper one it wont even do that. 

[Split_Pin]

My Megane idled much better when I changed the birds nest that was the air filter with an actual clean one.

[DaveDorson]

So the theory is that a cone induction filter, mated with a sealed off area and a cold air feed, will give less restriction at the top end.  As such it'll also sound a fair bit more rorty as you've removed a lot of the silencing baffles from inside your induction route.

 

In theory, anything that's stopping noise is also hindering flow.

 

Also, in theory, the surface area of a pleated/foldeed cotton gauze cone filter is also greated than the surface of a pleated/folded paper flat panel.

 

Personally, I'd avoid the foam type at all costs, I've seen them catch fire on older carb'd cars, and that's enough to make me avoid them.

 

The other thing to consider, is that a modern plastic airbox is usually designed not only to stop hot hair and noise entering your engine intake, but also water.  Cone filters are a little less good at this. .

 

And then there's filtration.  Cotton guaze, and foam aren't as good at filtering out the dust, ground up rubber, oil mist etc that paper filters are, which is why they're oiled, the idea being that those smaller particles are suspended in the oil.  Same way the old Oil Bath filters used to work on carb cars I guess.  Provided it's kept clean, and lightly and correctly oiled, I'm sure they're fine, but paper is fit and forget.

 

I quite like a bit of induction noise in my cars, but then I'm a bit of a hooligan who doesn't mind modified chod too.

 

They don't in the real world have much impact on performance in my experience though.  We run one on the race car, but that does 1/4 of a mile at a time, and has most of the engine bay stuff removed,

 

That's actually a Honda S2000 air filter

[Des]

 How about we consider that every standard filter out there is capable to go service to service without getting bunged, that  means they're starting out with excess capacity, so to achieve [marginal] utmost performance gains from your filtering medium just change the fecker earlier than really needed. Max powah brah!

[DaveDorson]

 How about we consider that every standard filter out there is capable to go service to service without getting bunged, that  means they're starting out with excess capacity, so to achieve [marginal] utmost performance gains from your filtering medium just change the fecker earlier than really needed. Max powah brah!

 

 

Yep.

 

First thing I usually say when one of my friends sons/mates/brothers inevitably asks me what they can do to make their car perform a bit better, is to get a full service done, check they have air in the tyres and that the wheels are all pointing the right way.

It's amazing what a difference that can make to your automobile.

[Junkman]

People who use cone air filters:

 

[Bobthebeard]

The MG ZT has one. It contributes nothing. At all. Was fitted due to the broken OE airbox so a cheap fix.

[Zelandeth]

The only car I've ever tried one with that actually gained anything positive was on the L plate Corsa 1.5TD I had.  Only tested because the air intake to the box looked to be about the size of a couple of drinking straws...

 

That made it very much more obvious when the turbo was doing its thing - not nearly as much as when the choked rear silencer fell off - that made a massive difference.  So suggests that work on the exhaust side would have been more worthwhile.

 

The witchcraft in terms of using acoustic resonance chambers and such in the inlet tract on modern vehicles though done by the makers is generally going to be pretty good.

 

The only times things are likely to be changed and these are to be worthwhile is in you've done some pretty major mods so the peak torque/power band has been massively shifted from the rev band the manufacturer intended, or if you're bolting on massive turbos and cranking the boost up to levels where you could probably use it to make the car hover, in which case you'll probably need a physically larger filter.

 

For your average car though, they're just noisy bling under the bonnet.  There's one rolling around in the garage somewhere from my sillier days, but I doubt it will ever get used again.  It's mainly there in case I need to do engine running tests on cars with the standard airbox out the car for any reason.

 

The K&N panels I do use on a couple of cars, but have honestly never really noticed any real difference.

 

These are all cars that use MAP sensing rather than a MAF setup for injection control - I'd probably steer clear of you've got a MAF sensor in case the oil from the filter were to contaminate the MAF sensor.  Though I'm slightly paranoid as I've only had experience with one car with one, and it seemed to enjoy breaking them if you even looked at the thing wrong!

[PhilA]

Funny about the cold air thing. Yes, I notice a marked difference in all of my vehicles when it's cold outside, but conversely they all have thermostatically controlled intake systems (as designed by the manufacturer) to bring the intake air up to about 40°C and keep it there, stable. Likely for emissions?

 

Phil

[puddlethumper]

I have a cone filter because I couldn't find a flexy pipe with a 75mm opening one end and 50mm the other and 450mm long.

I have a Xantia engine where the air intake is at the front whereas a 305 it goes in the back. I had an old wire spiral paper one but it disintegrated to the point where I had to use chicken wire and gaffer tape. Black of course to fit in in a very Autoshite way.

Not the best solution you'll agree and, as has been mentioned, the noise is a bit much.

So, if anybody knows of a flexy with the above dimensions, or another type of solution, let me know please.

[DodgeRover]

No experience with cars, but using aftermarket air filters that require removal of the airbox on bikes and scooters has never ended well for me. This includes both no-name Chinese shit, and yer more expensive, better class of shit like K&N. I would avoid like the plague.

I don't expect they told you that you would need a jetting kit when they sold it to you did they?

K&N used to do specific kits for common bikes. From memory on RD/DT125s you needed to go up 100 on the main jet.

If you didn't either they didn't run without the choke or they melted a piston.

[cobblers]

I have a cone filter because I couldn't find a flexy pipe with a 75mm opening one end and 50mm the other and 450mm long.

 

 

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Silicone-Hose-Straight-Reducer-Black-PICK-SIZE-Silicone-Shop-Black-Core/252222008497?hash=item3ab99a6cb1:m:mwDbfo1-T2lCkJdCFwwgE4w

+ the 76mm flexy pipe of your desires

[puddlethumper]

Cheers Cobblers. Just the thing.

 

This place.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

Have fitted both pipercross and K&N filters to cars during my boy racer past. Lots of lovely induction noise but no increase in performance. In the case of my Corsa the filter oil wrecked my MAF

 

However on motorcycles I've found the panel filters do make a difference....but you need to tweak the jetting to suit. However that then begs the question "had I used these jet settings on an OEM filter would i have seen the same result?"

 

Sent from my SM-A510F using Tapatalk

[stuboy]

It's all in your head

appease me its 1.6 slushomatic of limtless (limited) power

[vulgalour]

Factory arrangement was perfectly adequate.

 

Had to fit a cone type out of necessity.  Sounds a bit nicer and it clears the pipe repair but other than that, there's no real improvement.  There is one disadvantage in that it seems to mist a very small amount of oil that the factory set up caught so things have to be cleaned more regularly.

 

I saw more improvement from fitting a home-made heat shield between the manifold and carburettor than I did fitting the filter.  As soon as I've ditched the suspension pipes the factory filter set up is going back on, it's easier to keep things clean.

[dollywobbler]

The video I mentioned earlier is now live. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkpsydS8JXI

[Guest Hooli]

When I had a twin cam Sierra it had quicker pickup with a cone filter, I know as it felt broke with I put the airbox back before selling it. No more power really, just a better response.

[Formula Autos]

I've fitted a few panel filters to my daily drivers over the years (mostly K&N) and noticed no difference in performance or economy from the paper filters the cars came with.

 

The advantage for me though is the ease of taking the filter out when it gets dusty, easily cleaning and re-oiling it, and getting the car running right again. I visit building sites for work, and in summer they get dusty and clog up filters in no time - paper or panel ones. Works out a bit cheaper that way too, and more convenient than having to keep popping into motor factors.

 

In short, not much use unless you have a specific need for them, like I do.

[red5]

When I had a twin cam Sierra it had quicker pickup with a cone filter, I know as it felt broke with I put the airbox back before selling it. No more power really, just a better response.

Only way that would ever improve (all things being equal) is by machining about 4kg off the flywheel - they're off a 6 pot York I think!

[J4mes]

The K+N Typhoon (ooer!) on the Accord has proven gains.

The filter is located right at the bottom of the bumper not in the engine bay.

The standard air box is decent, but it also has a resonator box pre-filter which is quite restrictive. Another option is resonator delete combined with a panel filter.

 

Edited to add, it came with the car and there's no way on earth I'd spend £250 on an airfilter for possibly 2bhp gains!

[cros]

Clearly a K&N is wasted on normal cars, but they turn my 10hp up to 11.

 

[Guest Hooli]

Only way that would ever improve (all things being equal) is by machining about 4kg off the flywheel - they're off a 6 pot York I think!

 

Nope it did work & felt broken when I put the standard toss back to sell it.

 

Throttle response that is, not acceleration. Putting the standard stuff back felt like a blocked accelerator pump.

[Bren]

Gains more noticeable on forced induction engines.

 

Hard to justify £60 on new one but a secondhand one for the price of a paper one is a no brainer.