Joined: Sun Aug 27, 2006 11:30 pm Posts: 818 Location: Sydney
Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 8:10 pm
Why do you associate a bigger air filter with a K&N?
Yes a bigger filter is better due to more surface area but you can buy enclosed OEM filter housings from the wreckers that are bigger. I don't think a bigger filter is legal though due to emissions etc but meh.
So from what I can understand you have a vit and a 32/36, also a top hat to fit your carb??
Sounds like you need "an" airfilter to fit inline with your airintake? Something like a cheap airbox from a wrecker that fits in your eng bay with similar holes (inlet / outlet) to your intake.
Something with a common airbox with a reas factory filter that is cheap to replace on a reg basis....
Yea that seems to sum up my situation Ace, I got the car with this Weber, cant do nothing about it now. Cannot get hold of a standard Vit carb kit here in WA. Sourced one in UK but too expensive to ship. I got the 'hat' so i can attach a decent airfilter to it from the side (came with a stupid shiny round filter).
I think i will just attach the so called heavy duty AEM filter to it, in an air tight box ( probably from another wrecker as you suggested) then attach that to a snorkel.
The Donaldson I was suggested is a very good idea but again i was looking at nearly $200 for the box. just not got that in my pocket right now.....
Cheers guys, didnt mean to cause a stir like the last thread!!
You don't need to spend $200 on a new donaldson airbox in order to have better filtration than a pod style filter can deliver. Wreckers are full of cars that have excellent air filter setups that can be adapted for your use very cheaply.
I use Hi-ace filter boxes quite a lot because they are effectively a copy of a Donaldson cylcopac filter. They have lots of filter area, but most importantly, put that filter into a proper centrifugal housing that works and seals much better than many other factory airfilter housings, including anything Suzuki have produced. A hiace air box is about $40 from a wrecker and a new Ryco element about the same.
I have also seen navara filter boxes used with good effect.
There is now so much data and evidence (including the personal experience of many) that oiled cotton filters marketed for high performance road cars don't match the filtration quality of paper it's a dead argument.
Previous car a volvo on the dyno there was not much difference between paper and K&N in a standard box, going to a pod filter though did see a bit of a difference (mainly acceleration, but did sound really cool ), but cold air intake with a ITG filter saw the biggest difference, more in response and in the higher rev range, esp when on the high way and say accelerating from 80above.
On the 4x4, paper filters where good, K&N clogged very quickly on dirt roads. Uni filters where good untill the foam shifts or dirt clogs up in one section of the filter, and after a bit of dirt driving im sure they rob the engine of low end torque on steep hill driving, Going back to a ITG filter makes a big difference, esp on dirt roads, they dont get clogged up that quick. Only recently i compared a freshly cleaned and oiled uni filter with a ITG filter, and the Uni filter even though might feel ok performance wise it is not even close to the ITG.
They can work by static charge to trap dirt, and have 2 or 3 layers of special foam that traps different size particals and the big stuff falls to the bottom of the air box. They do recommend a light oil for off road use for very fine dust.
They say if use the right filter oil and amount the weight of it can not be sucked up into the MAF and engine, over oiled filters are the issue.
Fuel use wise, i have never seen a difference. On EFI with airbox, the airbox is designed for paper filters to straighten the airflow for less turbulence etc and the best airflow, take the filter out and try driving it will fill like you have a old diesel motor.
They do airbox's as well, have a look at them, might be a fair bit more expensive than a K&N but i have tested them over 10 years and are pretty happy with them, and after a few paper filters it pays for itself.
Main thing with Pod filters is they do sound good and kinda look cool. The pod was only good from start acceleration, apart from that was pretty much no difference. There was cold air being supplied but when engine was hot from hard driving the ECU did not like the Pod as the extractors where on the Pod side, even had the motor cut out on me and refuse the start, Volvo Engine Safety cutout and was embarrassing being on south road, started after a few minutes but went into limp mode, lost the pod then.
Nothing beats the standard airbox and paper panel filter, ITG is only good as has good dust retention, keeps the performance longer. From memory was only few KW more with a 2.5" Cold air intake and the ITG filter over stock cold air intake and paper filter. Only reason why i went ITG with the XL7 was i was being charged $45 for a paper filter that i had to replace every few months.
With Webbers though ITG may be a good option. and there Airbox replacements are supposed to be good.
3.2 navara air filter box I got 3 " od fittings post and pre filter, will work out well as have 3" carby hat and plan a 3" snorkle. Only has the two holes unlike stock 1l box with the wing nut adjustmet.
_________________ You're just hating because you don't understand
In terms of expecting a noticeable performance gain from changing an air filter, you're completely right droverdave. however, in realtion to choosing the correct filter to protect your engine in a very dusty environment, than I don't think that's garbage at all. Lots of people seems to be willing to trade off filtration quality for perceived improved performance, and that's something I don't understand.
GeckoXL7 wrote:
ITG is only good as has good dust retention, keeps the performance longer.
I was staying out this discussion - trying to counter this "performance airfilter" garbage is just too frustrating, however, I'm a bit confused by this.
Do you mean that the ITG offers better filtration performance as it holds more dust (because this would be the case) or better engine performance as it holds more dust? (because that isn't true)
A word on suzuki air filtration.
It seems that with every new suzuki model that is released, the air filtration is being scaled back more and more towards road car specifications. I've never liked sierra air filters, but at least the 1.0 filter pretended to be a centrifugal filter. Since the EFI cars have come out, filtration has gone down the toilet.
If you operate an EFI suzuki product in a dusty environment, the stock filtration is out of its design envelope. It's designed for road use. Trying to improve engine performance with a filter that is a similar size to stock (or fits in the stock airbox) is flawed because for the filter to flow more air, it must have bigger holes in it and therefore let more dust into the motor.
A filter that is designed for dusty conditions is required, and that should involve an airbox swap too, because the stock airbox is effectively a road car box.
Consider this - the hiace boxes I like are designed run a 3Y petrol engine (similar airflow to a G16B.) A hiace filter offers 114,400mm2 of surface area (without convolutions.) A G16B filter offers 31,800mm2 of surface area without convolutions.
Toyota recommend the filter is serviced every 2500km in dusty conditions, and that's taking into account that a hiace box has a dust trap built into the end. Toyota had quite a good grasp of engine filtration in the 80's. It's much, much better than the grasp of filtration suzuki have, but I guess toyotas are dearer cars, and have always been dearer than their competitors.
I have experience with Unifilters, K&N, and stock paper. I run stock paper. K&N and Unifilter are designed for road/race applications with filtration is secondary to engine performance That's just plain old fact. That's not what I want for my car. If I need more air flow, a fit a bigger filter, not one with bigger holes in the filter medium. The added fact you can make the filter filter less effectively than optimum by improper servicing also makes no sense. Of course I'm not trying to make money out of selling an aftermarket product though.
Joined: Wed Dec 19, 2012 7:43 am Posts: 685
Vehicle: 85 ' Drover
Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 10:50 am
Gwagensteve wrote:
In terms of expecting a noticeable performance gain from changing an air filter, you're completely right droverdave. however, in realtion to choosing the correct filter to protect your engine in a very dusty environment, than I don't think that's garbage at all. Lots of people seems to be willing to trade off filtration quality for perceived improved performance, and that's something I don't understand.
Well like you say, if you have the same filter area, you cannot have more "flow" withouth less filtration.
The only way to get better flow with teh same type of filter is to make it bigger.
i suspect if you went for an aftermarket filter (ryco etc), then the suzuki and toyota filters would be made of exactly the same stuff?
I bought a genuine filter for my subaru wrx, and it was some aftermarket brand (maybe ryco?) in a subaru box....
read bellow im not explaining it well, I guess what im trying to say is that ITG filters offer better filtration performance in the way they can hold more dirt, not that you will experience better performance.
Its true these filters where designed for race/rally cars, but have found they where good on long trips where the roads are mostly dirt.
With really fine bull dust i have never found any in the engine side of the intake, so i gather the filter does a good job that side, but i have to say for bull dust a paper would be better, as on foam the dust will stick to the oil and clog up the filter, while on paper fillter will build up and either full down to the bottom of the box or you can simply blow out every day.
Tri-Foam System
itg were probably the first company to manufacture a truly durable, high performance foam-based production air filter.
Why foam? Because, compared to paper or other filter technologies, reticulated polyester foam achieves optimum performance against three key criteria:
- Maximum Air Flow - the ability to allow air to pass through without causing a large drop in pressure. - Cleaning Efficiency - the capability to arrest a high proportion of airborne dust while feeding the engine clean air. - Dust Load-up Tolerance - the capability to absorb a large amount of dust without reducing air flow capacity.
Look at the figures in the graph to see just how an itg filter out performs the best cotton or paper filters.
With our unique Tri-Foam System, which uses various thicknesses of finer or coarser foams, these factors can be varied for different applications.
Tri-foam gives us the flexibility to produce air filters to exact specifications and, where high flow rates are possible, we can tailor filters to arrest even the slightest dust traces.
Compared to other designs, itg filters offer many additional advantages, including a significant reduction in noise while providing more power for longer.
What's more, because we use the very latest adhesive technologies to bond the foam layers, itg filter assemblies are totally resistant to water, fumes, oils and fuels - including the exotic brews used in racing.
, but i have to say for bull dust a paper would be better, as on foam the dust will stick to the oil and clog up the filter, while on paper fillter will build up and either full down to the bottom of the box or you can simply blow out every day.
And that's exactly why most/all of these aftermarket, user-serviced filters are pointless for non-racing use. They stop the factory airbox working properly. Every bit of dust that enters the intake ends up stuck to the filter. This leads to incredibly short service intervals, lots of messing about in the inlet tract of the car (introducing more dust into the motor) and the risk of over or under servicing, both of which might lead to the filter not working properly.
If we go back to the hiace filter as an example. It's a centrifugal filter, so much of the dust that enters the housing never makes it anywhere near the filter - it ends up falling out the dust trap in the end. Despite this, (and the fact it's a well sized filter), toyota recommend 2500km service intervals in dusty conditions. Now a G16B filter has less than 1/3 of the surface area, no centrifugal action, (gravity only) and then users fit a filter that traps rather than drops most of the dust it encounters. It doesn't make any sense, and it explains why these filters require servicing after every dusty trip, whilst I ran my hiace filter for over 12 months and never opened the airbox.
I use to use the ITG filter as non oiled, again didn't see any dust in the air intake or on engine side of filter. Only serviced every 10,000 or so k, just blew it out and put it back in. Now running it oiled I will see how long it lasts before its clogged up. I dont like oil in filters full stop but thought i would test it out but did squeeze as much oil as i could out of it.
The Centrifugal action is ideal for 4x4.
Recently saw video on Donaldson TopSpin Pre-cleaners
Joined: Tue Aug 08, 2006 11:30 pm Posts: 5517 Location: Holland Park
Vehicle: Awesome!!
Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 12:36 pm
GeckoXL7 wrote:
I use to use the ITG filter as non oiled, again didn't see any dust in the air intake or on engine side of filter.
I believe the limit of human eyesight is 50micron so there could be particles, sight unseen coming through and causing wear. If you can actually see dirt then that's pretty bad..
Thanks this is exactly the information i was looking for! I wasnt looking for 'performance' filters, lets face it as Droverdave mentioned its a 1.6 8v I was really looking for the information you gave about the centrifugal filters etc I did not know about these and never considered a Hiace / navara box and most of the discussions on forums always end up in a discussion about how bad aftermarket filters are but never go in the other direction and offer people like me (complete noobs) better alternatives!
Definitely going down this route now, seems a no brainer for off roading in the dusty conditions/beaches of WA.
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@Royce 
), but cold air intake with a ITG filter saw the biggest difference, more in response and in the higher rev range, esp when on the high way and say accelerating from 80above.
I was really looking for the information you gave about the centrifugal filters etc I did not know about these and never considered a Hiace / navara box and most of the discussions on forums always end up in a discussion about how bad aftermarket filters are but never go in the other direction and offer people like me (complete noobs) better alternatives!