TEST & RESULTS - Stock air filter Vs Cone air Filter

[Antz]

Originally Posted by malteser

ps Antz thought my engine bay was dirty lol feeling slightly better now

Pfffft its an engine bay, the only person who ever looks in there is me and I cant be arsed to clean to it. Its a daily car, not a show car.

Originally Posted by Dean1985

Have you taken the foam out the bottom of the airbox? If you haven't then by taking it out will give you a bit more off an aggressive meatier tone whilst accelerating away

Nope. Airbox is bone stock. Didn't want to remove the foam and corrupt the experiment. Its as factory.

[malteser]

[QUOTE=Antz;1654179]Pfffft its an engine bay, the only person who ever looks in there is me and I cant be arsed to clean to it. Its a daily car, not a show car.



Mine's not far behind you

[skyship007]

[QUOTE=malteser;1654233]

Originally Posted by Antz

Pfffft its an engine bay, the only person who ever looks in there is me and I cant be arsed to clean to it. Its a daily car, not a show car.
Mine's not far behind you

I'm a bay wiper, all you need is an old pair of old pants and some dish water to damp them with. I have been around the nooks and crannies with a vacuum cleaner for leaves and field mice dinner leftovers a few times this year! If you can read the name Volvo on the engine cover and the local Indy is willing to change the filters without charging for a pre service steam clean first, all is well under the hood.

[Antz]

Bit of muck in the bay never hurt anyone. I keep my other car engine bays clean but they are things to show off, not a stock volvo v40.

Service and repair my own cars so it never sees a garage unless it's mot time.

[Dog_Book]

Originally Posted by Antz

Bit of muck in the bay never hurt anyone. I keep my other car engine bays clean but they are things to show off, not a stock volvo v40.

Service and repair my own cars so it never sees a garage unless it's mot time.

Even so, im disgusted! Just like yer tackle, you've got to keep it clean for any lucky inspections!

[gazO2V40T4]

Originally Posted by Dog_Book

Even so, im disgusted! Just like yer tackle, you've got to keep it clean for any lucky inspections!

He's a Yorkshire lad I've heard they like it dirty round there lol

[V40owner]

Originally Posted by Antz

I'm sick of all the arguing over weather a stock air filter is better than a cone air filter, or not so rather than join in, I thought Id actually myth bust it.

The car:
2003 V40 T4 - 135k miles and due a full service imminently. Ive had this car for 5 years now and when I bought it, it was already running on a Ripspeed cone filter and the previous owner had thrown the airbox lid in the bin. I swapped the Ripspeed filter for a proper K&N cone filter which noticeably improved power delivery and adding a heat shield improved things further. Its been this way for 50k miles........but was it better than a stock filter???.......lets find out.

I sourced a stock airbox from a 1999 V40 2.0T in my local scrapyard and bought a cheapo £6.50 air filter from the motorfactors.

Now lets compare.....

Before - K&N Cone with home made heat shield:


After - Stock air box with stock paper air filter:


Now its time to take it for a test drive....

Having always driven the car with the cone filter Im well used to how it drives. With the stock air filter the first thing that's apparent is the cool SWOOOOSSHHH under acceleration and PPSSSHHHT of the Recirc valve when changing gear have gone which upsets me greatly. This appealed to the inner chav.

How did it drive though? Well Having kicked its head in for a few miles on standing starts, straights, overtaking, twisty bends and full throttle though all the gears I'm saddened to say I actually think it performed better with the stock filter. It felt like it pushed you back in the seat a little bit more and performed very much like it used to do on a nice crisp cold day when the turbo is getting all that lovely freezing air. Not by much, but it was apparent.

I imagine this is down to the fact with the stock filter it only gets cold air, albeit restricted to what the cold air feed can give it. With the cone filter, yes it gets more air but not all of that air is cold and some of it will be soaking from the turbo. We all know how hot T4's get in the engine bay and think of that warm air getting into the intake.

Im going to look at getting a K&N panel filter and try the test again. After all, the panel filter will let in more of that cold air.

So conclusion:

Does a stock filter perform better than a cone filter? - I think so.
Does it sound as good? - Hell no.
Does it look as good as a cone? - No.

MYTH BUSTED.

have you tried using a can of pringles as an induction kit?????
get this done as i want to know results ahaha.

ps: get that engine bay cleaned

[kieran40]

Originally Posted by gazO2V40T4

He's a Yorkshire lad I've heard they like it dirty round there lol

Says it all lol http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d4U17cLoAXI


Panel filters are the ones to have , I fitted one of the cone filters to my diesel sounded like a tractor but I liked the swooosh noise,just not the tractor noise lol.

[skyship007]

A little Sunday reading with nice graphs:

http://www.nicoclub.com/archives/kn-vs-oem-filter.html

AC Delco are owned by GM and supply good quality parts (Their batteries are about the same as Bosch), BUT Volvo seem to be using a Mann (Made in Germany only) air filter and I suspect the performance would be at least as good if not better than the ACD or Amsoil filter. The key figure is the dirt passed:

AC Filter accumulated 574gms of dirt and passed only 0.4gms.
K&N accumulated 221gms of dirt but passed 7.0gms.

Compared to the AC, the K&N “plugged up” nearly 3 times faster, passed 18 times more dirt and captured 37% less dirt.

[Mount vision rider]

YORKSHIRE!! Gods county