When my BMW e30 wagon was getting a bunch of work done at Gutenparts, one of the upgrades was replacing the open filter "hot air" intake with a Castro Motorsports cold air intake setup.
It's been quite a while since I got the wagon back and I never took a peek inside airbox to see what type of filter was installed inside of it and if it needed cleaning. When I removed the top I found a very short K&N filter.
The top edge of the filter rests on the ABS line
I removed the filter and found the marking "F030D6" , however, there is no information available on the K&N website in regards to it but I as able to find a few details about the filter on Google.
As I am not planning on purchasing a K&N cleaning/re-oiling kit, so I started searching for a replacement filter that required minimal maintenance. The trick was finding one with a 3" inlet that would fit within the cramped space inside the airbox.
After doing a bunch of digging into filters made by the likes of S&B, AFE, AEM, Apexi and Amsoil and checking the material specs and sizes.
Only AFE manufactured a filter that would fit into the space, so I mocked up the dimensions provided by AFE to get an idea of clearance and it looks like the new filter will not touch the ABS lines.
New AFE ProDry S filter
K&N on left, AFE on right
Since I was changing the air filter I decided to clean the MAF at the same time with some CRC QD Electronic cleaner. Sprayed it over the sensor element and let it dry.
AFE installed
Results:
No butt dyno gains from the air filter, but the idle smoothed out and I attribute that from the MAF cleaning.
I’m not going to assume it was the K&N filter that was dirtying the MAF, but I just know don’t have to worry about this with this new filter setup.
It's been quite a while since I got the wagon back and I never took a peek inside airbox to see what type of filter was installed inside of it and if it needed cleaning. When I removed the top I found a very short K&N filter.
The top edge of the filter rests on the ABS line
I removed the filter and found the marking "F030D6" , however, there is no information available on the K&N website in regards to it but I as able to find a few details about the filter on Google.
As I am not planning on purchasing a K&N cleaning/re-oiling kit, so I started searching for a replacement filter that required minimal maintenance. The trick was finding one with a 3" inlet that would fit within the cramped space inside the airbox.
After doing a bunch of digging into filters made by the likes of S&B, AFE, AEM, Apexi and Amsoil and checking the material specs and sizes.
Only AFE manufactured a filter that would fit into the space, so I mocked up the dimensions provided by AFE to get an idea of clearance and it looks like the new filter will not touch the ABS lines.
New AFE ProDry S filter
K&N on left, AFE on right
Since I was changing the air filter I decided to clean the MAF at the same time with some CRC QD Electronic cleaner. Sprayed it over the sensor element and let it dry.
AFE installed
Results:
No butt dyno gains from the air filter, but the idle smoothed out and I attribute that from the MAF cleaning.
I’m not going to assume it was the K&N filter that was dirtying the MAF, but I just know don’t have to worry about this with this new filter setup.
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