Best Air filter for my WRX Wagon, Hi flow panel or induction kit?

Mr Windscreen · Post by **Mr Windscreen** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 8:45 pm

Do i buy a green/hks replacement panel filter or go with a induction kit?

ginger ninja · Post by **ginger ninja** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 8:55 pm

Depending on what power modifications you are going to do ??
A Green pannel filter is fine, I am running 340bhp with no problems with the Green filter.

Got mine from here : http://www.priracing.com/product.php?xProd=172&xSec=202

ScoobieWRX · Post by **ScoobieWRX** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 10:50 am

The standard newage Airbox with a snorkus delete mod and quality high flow flat panel air filter should be good for over 400bhp.

Not woth having a cold air intake or short ram unless you're making really decent power (450+bhp). Both aftermarket solutions tend to lean out AFR's and the short ram will suck warm air from under the bonnet in which case you would have to shield it off or build a box around it linked to an outside air supply to keep out underbonnet warm air. Either way they would need a remap to benefit from and run smoothly (MAF rescale very important).

There are very few aftermarket induction setups that will genuinely be of benefit with some setups even resulting in a loss of power due to either not flowing as much air as the standard airbox or skewing the MAF scaling so way off standard there is a danger of serious detonation if not dealt with.

A remap is not such a big issue with standard airbox mods but then a remap wouldn't hurt to fully benefit from that setup either.

HTH

Mr Windscreen · Post by **Mr Windscreen** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 2:46 pm

I,ve been reading about the snorkus delete, some people say it,s not worth doing, some say it,s great?

ScoobieWRX · Post by **ScoobieWRX** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 10:53 pm

The plastic air scoop under the bonnet sucks hot air coming from the radiator when your scoob is stationary. Even when on the move with the bonnet down air flow is somewhat restricted. The resonator inside the inner wheel cavity is supposed to do two jobs.....cut down on induction noise and supposedly lets any water ingress via the front scoop fall to the bottom of the resonator chamber.

Water ingress via the front scoop is really minimal i.e. tiniest of drops, and to be honest what little bit there is if any very likely gets sucked in to the engine anyway and does the engine no harm at all.

The Snorkus mod allows cool air from inside the inner wing cavity to be freely sucked in without restriction. The inner wing cavity has a plastic shroud that does a good job of keeping water out and letting cold air in, with no heat sources nearby.

If there were a significant amount of water to enter the inner wing cavity it will leak straight back out and onto the road, unlike water sucked in and trapped at the bottom of the resonator chamber that might possibly under the right circumstances be sucked into the engine because there is no way for it to leak away. I've gone through some pretty deep puddles on B roads and farm tracks, deep standing water on motorways at high speed, and waded many a ford in Scotland with my wheels just about totally immeresed in water. So far so good!!

The snorkus mod instantly gives a sharper throttle response. Those that have done it and noticed no difference at all very probably wouldn't know a sharper throttle response if it nipped them in the nuts and likely didn't have their cars mapped to take advantage of the extra airflow.

There is no way i could max out my MAF sensor with the standard turbo if i hadn't done the Snorkus mod. I would struggle to make the power i do via the scoop only. It's a whorthwhile and totally free modification that takes about an hour to do, is of genuine benefit, and makes a real difference to your drive.

If you do it and genuinely feel it makes bugger all difference (i would be surprised) you can just fibreglass it back together and you're back to standard. It costs nothing bar a bit of time.

Edited to add: Coupled with a decent high flow flat panel air filter (as has already been suggested) from K&N, HKS, Green Panel or Cosworth it's one of the best mods you can do for your P&J. Even a bog standard scoob with no exhaust mods or anything else will benefit from this mod+filter.

Mr Windscreen · Post by **Mr Windscreen** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:38 pm

Do i just remove the scoop and plastic pipe in the innerwing, or do i then need to get some pipe to direct the cold air into the airbox? Thanks.

ScoobieWRX · Post by **ScoobieWRX** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 9:47 pm

Jack up the front drivers side of the car. You're now going to access the wing cavity via the plastic wheel well shroud. There are two metal clips on the wheel well shroud hooked onto the wheel arch lip via two tabs. Slip the clips off and pull those back, then carefully with the flat edge of a large screwdriver insert that in between the plastic shroud and wheelarch lip and gently lever away from you to give you enough space to get your fingers in there to pull down the wheel well shroud. Look inside and to the front of the car and you'll see the resonator chamber. There are two bolts holding the resonator on. One at the bottom of the resonator, undone from inside the wing cavity and the other you can get to from the inner wing engine bay side. Pull the resonator out, can be a sruggle but you'll see what i mean when you're in there. When you've got that out you'll see a moulding line on the resonator chamber two thirds of the way up from the bottom. Cut straight across the resonator following that line and you're left with two parts. The part you want is a tube that now has 3 holes. Put that back with just the top nut (inner wing engine bay side) and you'll see both ends of the tube sticking through the inner wing just like before. One end slots into the airbox and the other end is for the plastic scoop to slide onto. You now have a nice big hole in the middle of the tube as well sucking air from the inner wing cavitiy.

When your vehicle is moving you now have air fed in via the front plastic scoop and air coming in via the wing cavity. No shortage of nice cool air now which is why the airbox can happily stay on till you're making well over 400bhp. It makes a nice induction noise when you boot it, and you can hear a nice quiet PSSSSSHHHTTT from the BOV recirculating air back into the turbo inlet hose in between gear changes.
Job done Mr. Windscreen!!

duncan · Post by **duncan** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 10:48 pm

Have you measured the 'improvement' in charge temperature and bhp/torque Francis? I have.

Not worth the hassle IMO.

Far better things that could be done to improve charge temps.

What power level Mr Windscreen ?

ScoobieWRX · Post by **ScoobieWRX** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:38 am

I've just looked at my very old logs of way back when and charge temps lowered by only 3

duncan · Post by **duncan** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:50 am

Where are you measuring charge temps Francis? - there is no charge temp sensor as std.

Minute differences in weight of the car, wind direction, tyre pressures, ambient heat could also easily account for the change in power you saw.