Changing the Air Filter

[goelise]

Originally Posted by scottyb

No issues for me since I've done it. I've driven in serious down pours too.

good enough for me. I'll be doing this in the near future.

[goelise]

That was long enough.

I snuck out and purchased these:

After jacking the Elise up I took the snorkel off and installed my Velocity Stack:

Closer look:


My main concern was would this let water in but a even closer look shows the stack is above the highest air port, so water should have a hard time going up to the stack's inlet:


I can't wait to try this out and hear how it sounds now.




On the side I noticed the spare screw that was used to hold the snorkel can work in the wheel liner in a pinch, here it is (on your left) compared to a wheel liner screw and anchor:

[scottyb]

Originally Posted by goelise

That was long enough.

Now pop in the green filter and you'll really enjoy the sound!

[mpsalm]

That funnel looks a little gimmicky. Like that tornado thing that you put inline to lose gas mileage. lol. Have you driven it with and without the funnel but both without the snorkel? Does it sound any different. I wouldn't think so.

[scottyb]

Originally Posted by mpsalm

That funnel looks a little gimmicky. Like that tornado thing that you put inline to lose gas mileage. lol. Have you driven it with and without the funnel but both without the snorkel? Does it sound any different. I wouldn't think so.

It definitely sounds different!

Remove the snorkel - sounds good & filter stays cleaner
place the velocity stack - sounds better
pop in the green filter - sounds awsome!!!!

[goelise]

Originally Posted by mpsalm

That funnel looks a little gimmicky. Like that tornado thing that you put inline to lose gas mileage. lol. Have you driven it with and without the funnel but both without the snorkel? Does it sound any different. I wouldn't think so.

I have not driven my car with this installed yet. I just installed it last night and now I have to work today.
Velocity stacks are known to work, they are proven but I do wonder about how it would work on an Airbox and I think the airbox has a built in stack inside.

Cheap mod and reversible if I don't like it. I'll have to try this out and report back.

[Jack]

It works great...especially with a S/C.

[Evil Twin]

My two cents on the filter change:

Getting the airbox to close was tricky only b/c it took me a few minutes to figure out that the reason the two sides of the box didn't seem to want to align was because the inner hinges (the ones visible from the engine bay) don't readily come back together again after they disengage from one another.

So, once I could see the problem, with my right arm in the wheel-well pushing the box inward and with my head and my left arm in the engine bay guiding the inner hinges together, I found it only took a couple of minutes to get everything to mate. The key was watching the inner hinges to see how they responded to pressure.

Once the inner hinges were properly aligned, the airbox went together and the two metal clamps holding the outside faces together were easy to push back into place. I could tell everything was properly aligned when the plastic tabs (as shown in GoElise's photo on page 1) on the snorkel-half of the box didn't need any pressure to slide into place -- they go on the outside of the housing on the intake-half of the box.

FWIW, I elected to keep the snorkel and stick with the Toyota paper filter. For $14 a pop, the stock filter's a cheap solution, the filter works great, and I never have quite trusted the filters that require oiling anyway. After some 8K of super-clean highway (to/from various tracks) and track driving, my filter was remarkably dirty. I doubt the dirt was creating any restrictions, but I can't see the filter going 30,000 miles, as recommended in the service manual, particularly those of you who find yourself on a gravel road once in a while.

Hope this helps. Thanks, all, for sharing your experiences and to GoElise for posting pix.

Twin

PS: and "yes", Jack, we know you have a supercharger...

[goelise]

No problem Evil Twin, hope it helped.

I took the car out today, weather is pretty nice in Chicagoland right now which is really odd for January. The combined K&N air filter and velocity stack/snorkel delete mod causes any RPMs over 5000RPM to take on a new more prominent sound. I like it and the mod will remain!

Plus - my butt dyno says at least a 2hp gain.

edit: I went out again! Yup! I love this sound! I think I'm going to be hitting the second cam more and more now. It's intoxicating! LOL!

On the side. I use K&N a lot maybe 'cause I'm old skool. Our 2 daily drivers use them and I have over 100k miles on both. I use hardly any to little oil whenever I clean these filters. That's all they need.

[LotusUSA]

Originally Posted by goelise

No problem Evil Twin, hope it helped.

I took the car out today, weather is pretty nice in Chicagoland right now which is really odd for January. The combined K&N air filter and velocity stack/snorkel delete mod causes any RPMs over 5000RPM to take on a new more prominent sound. I like it and the mod will remain!

Plus - my butt dyno says at least a 2hp gain.

edit: I went out again! Yup! I love this sound! I think I'm going to be hitting the second cam more and more now. It's intoxicating! LOL!

On the side. I use K&N a lot maybe 'cause I'm old skool. Our 2 daily drivers use them and I have over 100k miles on both. I use hardly any to little oil whenever I clean these filters. That's all they need.

I'm glad that you like the mod. It's the best $20+ mod we can get. I recently added a 90 degree elbow (from spectre) to the funnel because I was afraid that it might touch the clam when on high rpm. Sorry, no pic because I did it at around 1AM and didn't bother to take a picture. The clearance is good but sound has been dampened. I'm looking for other ways for the funnel to have better clearance from the clam. Is there anybody here with a good suggestion?

[scottyb]

Just flatten the top of the funnel with a heat gun. When I did it, it allowed for less of a bend in the connection between the funnel and the airbox and gave more clearance between the clam and the funnel. I also placed a cushion/sticker between the clam and the velocity stack just in case of contact between the two.

[goelise]

Originally Posted by scottyb

Just flatten the top of the funnel with a heat gun. When I did it, it allowed for less of a bend in the connection between the funnel and the airbox and gave more clearance between the clam and the funnel. I also placed a cushion/sticker between the clam and the velocity stack just in case of contact between the two.

+1.
I took a heat gun and just kept pressing/rolling one section of the funnel against a butcher's block while applying heat. It flattens it out just enough to create clearance. i also added some foam tape just in case it touches the clam. Works great and that way you can avoid adding any kind of angle on the air intake.

[Jack]

Originally Posted by LotusUSA

I'm looking for other ways for the funnel to have better clearance from the clam. Is there anybody here with a good suggestion?

Just trim the velocity stack/funnel.

[LotusUSA]

Thanks scotty and goelise!

[mpsalm]

Stock Airbox on Ebay... Could get it cheap...
It's not my posting

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Lotus...69520211QQrdZ1

[knucklehead]

Originally Posted by mpsalm

Just installed my new Green Air Filter from Blackwatch... Didn't feel like jacking up the car and removing the wheel so I just took the Air sensor off the top disconnected it from the throttle body and I was in business...

Is this procedure pretty straight forward. My shock reservours were mounted in a position that now doesn't allow me to open the airbox wide enough to slip the airfilter out. Is the airbox just held on by the hose attached to the throttle body?

BTW to get my velocity stack to fit. I just cut about an inch off the funnel with a dremel tool. Took like ten minutes max. Very easy

Thanks
Jacob

[choi0706]

anyone try the ITG drop in filter?

[shay2nak]

I just spent litterally 4 hours trying to get this freakin' Green filter in my car. It's truly a bitch with the S' IC pipe in the way. I took the wheel, etc etc off. But it didn't want to close. I tried to get the tube from the airbox to the TB off, but couldn't even get in there to do that. I eventually had my pops help me but no luck aligning the back hinge. So luckily the stock one only took about a minute to put back in. I swear it was easier to change my exhaust than to do this. I was hoping to install the filter and my HIDs but didn't even get one thing done. I'll try again later. Damn I'm so mad I wasted my time today.

[masheen]

i don't know what "S' IC" and "TB" are referring to so i can't comment on that.

but i am going to repeat what has been written up here earlier on couple of ocassions, because it is such a revelation and it makes hours of difference: you put the filter in the box (i also used the green filter) and align it with the box, which is the easy part - just make sure it does not slip out of its alignment during the next step, and the next step is critical - alight the tabs in the back (the engine side, the tabs of one half of the box go under the tabs of the other half, so-to-speak) and hold with one hand while pushing the other side of the air box (closer to you) and clamping it closed with the other hand. i imagine that sometimes two people may have to substituted for two hands.

if i can do something (i always run into trouble), it must not be that difficult.

[masheen]

my stock filter had so much stuff in it (9000 miles), crazy: bird feathers, straw, stones, pieces of rubber, a black layer of dirt - a shower of little bits of stuff came out of the filter when i took it out - i worried that a somthing would fall into the engine when taking it out but when i looked inside i could see that the engine-side pipe is at an angle that makes that very unlikely.

i had removed the snorkel weeks ago and it made a slight difference in overall sound. but now that i replaced the dirty stock filter with the new green filter, the sound on the cam is glorious and i think i detect a slight difference across the entire rev band. now i want to get on the cam just to hear it, regardless of acceleration.