Which air filter/intake is better?, RS200 3SGE

It seems that not too many people here have too many experience with the HKS RS suction kit since I havent got a reply from my previous post.

Perhaps someone can help me out with giving some info on the different types of air filters especially the Apexi Power Intake or the Blitz Suspower.

I have heard that many people seems to like the Apexi one and I probably do prefer the looks of the Pod type filter rather than the dome sponge of HKS (although I like the piping that comes standard with the HKS kit). What do people here use as piping for the Apexi filer or do I have to get it custom made?

Any info on the different kind of air intake system that is suitable for Altezza would be great (low to mid rev range in particular)

thanks.

Geez, give it some time, your "other post" has only been up for a couple of hours - not everyone logs on here every 2 hours...

Anyway, to answer this part - Don't expect any intake to give you more low end power. Freeing up the intake allows air to travel in more easily, and this only becomes critical when you're needing to suck a lot of air, ie. high end.

hmmm, was the other post only up for a couple of hours? I actually posted it last night. Sorry to be so pushy then people.

Now, for the car stuff, I totally agree that filter would not do much, but I have read somewhere that adding something like SAFCII would help tremendously.

Any comments on SAFCII would be great....

I didn't find that the SAFCII did much at all but then again i've never played around with it that much

from what ive noticed from playen around with a few cars as such, a filter is a filter
its all sucktion noise hehe

i think for such a minor gain u wont notice much
u want noticeable power go forcefed or spend shit loads of money on n/a set up

ie: cams, retainers, valve springs, pistons etc

I probably wont go the full NA route as it is way to costly for the performance.
If I were to spend lots of money, force fed is the way to go although my other half probably wont allow me to...

I had a CRX SiR (second series Jap import) that I actually turboed and it was one heck of a car....unfortunately, I sold it to fund my move to Japan...sob

Hi guys, dragging up an old thread because I'm finally getting more interested in doing my intake.

Apexi seems to be the most popular one for our car. Any reason why? Hopefully it doesn't all stem from the MKIV translation of the Revspeed review because I'm a little skeptical of it... And as any techie sciencey type person knows an experiment isn't worth squat until an independent party is able to replicate it, and I've found no further work elsewhere (except this one, which is on different filters) to back up the Revspeed one...



The HKS, on the left, looks to connect to the throttle body in a better fashion... Are there any intakes that have the best of all three worlds?

I had a look at the Simota intakes, there's some funky designs there, but maybe they've gone for quantity over quality. Besides Simota doesn't do a kit for the RS200, so I'd have to do a DIY job of piping and mounting the MAF sensor somewhere.

Anyone got any new thoughts to add to this? Without some good numbers to back it up it's all speculation really - is the factory intake restrictive enough to warrant a change when the engine is still unmodified? Will a pod on its own cancel any volumetric gains by sucking hot air?

I got an HKS on mine though not the RS, it has a rubber tube instead of the ally one. Lovely noise, and i reckon that it has improved the performance.

When the filter gets dirty I just take it out, wash it in petrol, let it dry and pop it back in again.

make sure you oil it after you wash it Mac. They rely on a sticky surface to trap small particles.

A two-stroke mix or any light oil in petrol, or buy an aerosol of the proper stuff & spray it..

cheers

Sound advice and I agree entirely.

However I don't bother re-oiling as IMO it is not dry enough over here to worry too much about airbourne abrasive dust. But if we had a long dry spell in the Summer I would have the filter off and oil it. You have to remember that 2 consecutive days of more than 20C, with no rain over here is a heat wave and sends everyone running to the beach

As note of caution when you oil the filter watch you don't over do it, excess oil will end up coating the MAF sensor and mess up the fuelling. Bloke over here had that off a new K&N filter on his IS300. Not a problem on the IS200 obviously.

Other options include the stainless mesh Blitz SUS Power:



Or the rather pricey Blitz Sonic Power filter with the trademark adjustable 'heat shield': (pic from chisiang's Altezza)

Actually, someone actually told me that drop in filter (stock airbox) will give better low end, but not too good for mid-high end performance whereas the open cone type filter will give better mid-high end performance at the price a the cost of your low end.....

For air filters, it seems that the more restriction or long the piping, the more low end torque you will get, at the expense of mid and high rpm power.

For air filters, it seems that the more restriction or long the piping, the more low end torque you will get, at the expense of mid and high rpm power.

No no no no NO! Restriction is never a good thing. Restriction is what the throttle does, and when you're at less than WOT you don't generate as much power. Same thing if you restrict the intake.

I think you may be confusing resonate tuning principles (Helmholtz) with adding longer pipes/'restrictions'.

This link does a pretty good job of explaining the principles in simple language:

Overall, you are dealing with a motor already putting out more than 100bhp/litre, and this was absolute racing car stuff only 20years ago.

I could turn my 100bhp Datsun 1600 into a 160bhp rally car in the 1980s, and WRC winning Escorts had 220bhp from full-race 2.2litre BDAs.

So the chance of making a meaningful increase with intake/exhaust is pretty slim, Toyota engineers have extracted more than 90% of the power already.

But supercharged or turbo'd... well, that's another story!

Totally agree.

I remember whan the Ford Sierra Cosworth came out, 2litre turbo, 200BHP. It was the first 100BHP/litre production engine.

You may squeeze an extra 5-10% out of a NA engine with inlet and exhaust mods but not a lot more.

With regards to the vacuum cleaner test, I believe it was utter rubbish.

I brought this issue up with Blitz Japan before, and one of their R&D engineers just gave me a laugh.

I was told that when they design air filters, there one thing on their mind. Filtration without compromising flow rate.

From what I understand, a typical home vacuum cleaner is sucking air between 2 BAR to 4 BAR! That's 29 psi - 58 psi! Unless you are running that kind of boost, otherwise simply ignore those findings.

Therefore, those filters which has superb filtration abilities in the test will probably hinder flow rate in real life (due to lower suction force).

In the test, only filtration test was carried out, but not flow rate. They should "suck" at, say 1 BAR of force, and when the filter is attached, the lost in suction. In addition, they did not disclose how powerful the vacuum cleaner was.

I believe that the test was carried out in name of truth and knowledge sharing but due to the lack in scientific methods, it disseminates more false information then before the test.

Good points on the vacuum cleaner test chisiang! The other test I link to above is more realistic as the filters were used in-situ. However, they were testing American brands and had a paper filter downstream of the one they were testing that would have impacted on how things were behaving.

Just an update on what I'm running. HKS Super Power Flow Reloaded - what mouthful...

Really impressed with the kit, comes with everything you need - even a tiny little cover for the vacuum hose (for the flap in the stock intake) that becomes redundant.

Main selling point was the good looking (from a fluid dynamics point of view) flow edges etc.

Anyways, seems to be running fine... No drone at open road 3000 rpm, but a nice mechanical growl at WOT as the VVT-i goes through its timing changes. Really need to get the Camcon tuned to take full advantage of it and the exhaust now.

heres what i had and was running

Attached Image

Yea i have the same filter its great how it comes with piping and so easy to install nice little power boost aswell

I've one of them as well.... seen some high end performance increase, but it's the noise that's the best bit..

I bought my Apexi kit from Takakaira japan... good price!

Just one thing... on that site they recommend that an Altezza needs the Apexi air flow controller to get the most out of the induction kit..... but after reading on here that the ECU tunes it out after awhile i am thinking twice....but!!!!!!

Now don't get me wrong I'm not trying to dismiss what has been claimed on here about the ECU tuning the Apexi AFC out over time, you guys have actually bought them...... But the Japs ain't Stupid, surely they haven't made a product that is off little benefit and surely word would get round to the people who buy these and then the product wouldn't sell ???

But it's popular and it's not been dropped and they are still releasing newer versions that can control either VVTi or V-Tech.......

Apexi sell a lot of their products on their name alone.... but they have earned this name through great products ...... So is the claim really true, is there any actual proof or it it based on hearsay........

I am genuinely interested in an answer and not trying to get anyones back up, OK

sincerely

Noel

Would a good cold air set up (sealed box and all) with a proper brand name pod filter be just as good, if not better than the trust flat panel air filter i already got in there?

Camcon....

Ya been thinking of that also.... so you finally got it all wired in, How's it going for you?.... did you have to get the car on a dyno?