Standard or uprated air filter?

[Another Peter]

Got a week off work shortly, so I'm ordering some parts for me to service my Stag.

Would welcome any opinions as to whether there is any benefit in replacing the standard air filter with a K&N one on an otherwise unmodified car.

This is the one I'm tempted by on Ebay

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/33-2011-K-N-Air-Filter-TRIUMPH-Stag-3-0-V8-2-BBL-70-77-/390293758423?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item5adf5221d7

Regards

Peter

[martin]

Hi Peter, I've looked into K&Ns and decided that I can get 6 standard ones for the money, on their own they make little difference, they need a cleaning kit that's not cheap, and you may have to re-tune the carbs to deal with a weaker mix. On balance I decided against. Martin.

[peterrc]

I agree with Martin, Peter at LD parts is £9.00 + P & P. Cheaper than e-bay.
Peter, Cupar

[jbuckl]

Oiled type air filter elements can be more restrictive than paper elements

[ChasR]

Indeed, and IME tend to become dirtier alot quicker than their paper counterparts, rendering them useless in what their initial aim was (i.e more airflow).

You may as well stick with changing the stock item every so often .

[Guest]

Things like the KN product do let more air through which, in theory, will give more power but whether you can really notice it - rather than have a placebo effect - is another matter. You will probably hear a slight difference in throatiness though.

The trick is not to over oil them and I have always let them stand on paper for 24 hours once out of the packing so any excess drains off. Modern cars with MAF sensors / filters can be damaged by too much oil.

[Mimosa Stag]

I to have a similar question, as you will see I have a Rover V8 engine and have been also thinking of fitting K and N cone filters rather than the standard cylinder system, any advise or coments welcome?

[Guest]

The point of uprating the filter is to get more cold air into the combustion process, as that produces more power. Cone filters sit in the engine bay and most usually don't have a ducted supply of cold air and, instead, draw warm air in from the engine bay.

Warm air doesn't aid combustion and it it widely thought that although cone filters make a great induction noise, the power actually decreases.

[jbuckl]

The link in the thread below was not to a cone type.....but what you say about cone types is spot on.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/33-2011-K-N-Air-Filter-TRIUMPH-Stag-3-0-V8-2-BBL-70-77-/390293758423?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item5adf5221d7

The original mk2 stag had its cold air intake in a good place I think.

The point of uprating the filter is to get more cold air into the combustion process, as that produces more power. Cone filters sit in the engine bay and most usually don't have a ducted supply of cold air and, instead, draw warm air in from the engine bay.

Warm air doesn't aid combustion and it it widely thought that although cone filters make a great induction noise, the power actually decreases.

[flying farmer]

When I had the Stag engined estate on the rolling road at the TSSC international at Stafford 18 months ago it produced 162 bhp on strombergs using a non too clean paper air filter. The mixture was hopelessly rich so we popped the filter out and ran it again and it made no difference whatsoever. The problem was worn needles and jets not a restricted air filter so on this basis I would say there is no advantage in having a performance air filter even on a mildly tweaked stag.
Regarding cone filters on Rover V8 engines, I also have some experience with these. Cone filters work well on the V8 as they bolt onto the existing tapered inlets, what doesn't work at all well are flat filters bolted straight to the carbs, the sharp turn the air has to perform as it enters the carbs throws the jetting miles out.
What works far better is cold air ducting to the SU's. When I was running a 3.9 v8 in my Dolomite years ago, I moved the cone filters to the side of the radiator and joined them to the SU inlets using black plastic convoluted hosing that I aquired from a scrapyard search. This simple little mod lifted power from 205 to 215bhp (as calculated from the terminal speeds on the dragstrip), and made the engine run much better in traffic as it wasn't drawing superheated air from the top of the engine
Note that one of the changes that was made between the mk1 and mk2 Stags was the addition of thermostaticly controlled air inlet temperature
Neil