Stainless Steel Air Filters

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Been looking at some air filters and researching them from what I've seen in a old fast car magazine the stainless steel filter completely blew the others out of the water in terms of air flow inc pipercross green cotton and K&N. But nothing I can find really mentions filtration. Has any one used a stainless steel filter ? Have you had any problems regarding air contamination ?

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This shows in pascals the resistance of air on each through the rev range. The lowest resistance being the only stainless steel one tested the rest were cotton or foam. In looks streets ahead.

[btmaldon]

Im not sure on how stainless steel can filter anything. Is it a wire wool type construction. I would like to see a link.

[btmaldon]

Is this the sort of thing you were looking at:

http://www.k300performance.co.uk/stainless-steel-air-filters.php

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Yes pal something similar but the surface area is larger due to the end of the cone inverting back in on its self but pretty much the same materials. Not sure if they're any good or if they're ok for England because we don't have such a highly sandy of dry climate like say Spain Egypt etc where they would definitely be a no no

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I'm assuming the holes in the mesh wouldn't be any larger in that than say a cotton one ? I don't know. The results on air flow look tempting but not at the cost of a turbo if it doesn't adequately prevent contaminants

[btmaldon]

I really dont know as I haven't heard of anyone using one. My concern is that even if the foam and K&N type filters need an oil spraying on them before use, what is there on a stainless steel one to capture any contaminants. I know we are not in a particularly dusty country, but you will be surprised how much dust there is under my bonnet each time I look and my cars only done 18k miles.

You also have the heat soak to concider with cone filters. You may be better off buying a performance replacement panel filter. I quite like the Pipercross myself.

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True I'm going to contact the manufacturer and ask because I can't see why you couldn't oil the stainless ones the same way I know cotton is slightly porous but with the right oils it's could hold on the stainless. Failing that then the pipercross foam seems to be the second best. Really surprised about the K&N though clearly not as good as the other cotton filters

[FOCA]

The steel filters flow well but the filtration is poor, lets in smaller particles of dirt, its not just the turbo you have to worry about, but the engines rings and bores and valves/ seats etc

apart from heatsoak, the cone filters are not tuned/ matched to the engine, as tha stock induction kits often are, with the airbox tuned to boost the low-end torque or to boost flatspots in the midrange

the test was done on flow- rigs, not connected to a car/ engine - so is invalid/ does not represent "real life" conditions because things like heatsoak, resonance and tuned length are not taken into account, and the effect the different filters have when actually fitted to a real engine in real-life conditions (ie - the engines' actual air requirement is a tiny fraction of the capacity of some of the filters, so the extra flow is meaningless and may not make any difference- but the heatsoak and losing the "tuned length" of the stock airbox will loose power - contradicting their findings, that were based on a misconception)