Ok, so I bought a conical K&N air filter and adapter from AMS. They are real nice guys and they seem to know their ****. Has anybody else had to grind the hell out of the aluminum adapter to get it to fit? what a pain... oh well, my car makes all kinds of whooshing noises now and I love it! The stock BOV sounds nice and deep in tone. My question is, did I gain any HP? It feels like I lost a little torque. Am I nuts?

 

Do you have any other mods?

You probably lost a couple of psi of boost (MBC should fix that).

I thought the stock BOV sounded like the car was sneezing when I put the K&N on mine (I got mine from the LancerShop.com, but it's different than the one they sell @ AMS, more expensive and not worth it).

Anyway did you drive your car in the rain @ all this weekend?

Mine felt like S**t in the rain w/ the cone, and I was all paranoid about water getting in.

 

you know what, I was paranoid too! I left it in the garage all day sunday but, monday I had to take it to work. When I got home, I looked at the filter and it seemed to be ok! When it was hot out, my car did lose a bit of boost. Monday night I did a 3rd gear pull throught the twistys on medinah road and it made the correct 19 psi. Weird, my rx7 made more boost when I did an intake

 

If you look at the front of the car there doesn't seem to be a whole lot af room for air to come in since the radiator takes up most of the upper grill. Did you leave your snorkel on?

 

ya, i left it on, i thought it would help the filter get cooler air.

 

so what is the verdict....buy one or don't buy one?

 

Don't buy one unless you can compensate for the loss of boost. MBC or Electronically.

 

Turbulent flow of air past the air mass sensor will throw off the a/f ratio, killing performance. A bit of background....

I swapped in an air flow kit on a high end 3.4L 300 hp six that I own. Performance suffered. In conversation with a friend in my department we convinced ourselves that a sequential set of grids (last is a wire screen) in fact was there to straighten out the flow of air in a similar manner as what exists in a wind tunnel. When I restored the car back to stock restored performance.

Subsequently I was re-reading a tuning book I have from down under and found that the author stated that some cars require laminar flow past the air mass sensor. Vischnu has made similar statements based upon tests on his dyno. As such he recommends keeping the stock Evo air box in place with the stock filter!

Sorry for the bad news but I don't think that you are nuts.

 

OK, I knew that! I kept the screen on, all you do is bolt the filter to the screen on the MAF The honey-comb "air straighter outer" is still on the MAF . I wish I could post a pic

 

your car is running rich.. u need an A/F controller to get the hp back and you'll also gain hp!

preferrably get your car tuned on a dyno with O2 wideband since every car and every intake is a little different..

 

It is not clear if the screen is 100% of the solution.

I do agree if the a/f ratio is thrown off by increased air flow power will suffer. And at WOT the map is calibrated to the stock parts (intake through muffler).

 

I lost no boost with an K&N cone filter. MachV has a dyno of a buscher filter before and after and he gain hp on the dyno.

 

My question is how to get the awesome turbo spooling and BOV sounds to be more audible with the stock system without losing performance like you claim an aftermarket intake mod seems to do?

 

you can drill holes in the stock box.. that's about it.. i did it, and it's louder for sure, but nothing like an open air filter!

 

Take the lid off the airbox. I did this at the track and the 1/4 mile times and mph stayed the same, just a louder whoosh sound. When I did this on the dyno I picked up 7 hp on the top end.