Air filter - to breathe or not breathe

[SS2.]

After some 5 or so years of sitting in the garage, the S was rolled out of the garage at the weekend.

A new battery, a gallon or so of fresh fuel, a level check of the fluids and then flick the key once or twice to get the oil moving.

Fingers crossed - key turned & held and engine started immediately - no missing, coughing, spluttering; just a wonderful burble..

Other than bleeding the brakes, she seems pretty much ready for an MOT. However, the air filter was in dire need of replacement (simply falling to bits).

Have ordered a new one from RaceTechDirect but wondered what the consensus is on the breather pipe ? Seems a little odd to pump oily smoke back into the AFMs so it is best to remove the pipe completely and fit a breather filter to the oil filler cap, or to reconnect the breather pipe to the new air filter ?

[robo1968ph]

Fit an oil catch tank. Easy mod.

[Sandgrounder]

Mine just has the breather on the filler cap. Somebody had already modified it!!!!

[SS2.]

robo1968ph said:

Fit an oil catch tank. Easy mod.

The S will probably do less than 2k miles per annum - would a catch tank be a worthwhile mod for such a low mileage ? That said, I see that you can get some snazzy looking tanks for not a lot of dough..

Sandgrounder said:

Mine just has the breather on the filler cap.

No build up of oil residue anywhere in the vicinity of the filter, I take it ?

[Sandgrounder]

Nope, no oily mess anywhere so seems to work ok, and oil level doesn't go down noticeably with limited mileage I do.

I often noticed the breather pipe on photos of other S's and wondered why mine was different.

[SS2.]

Sandgrounder said:

Nope, no oily mess anywhere so seems to work ok..

Sounds good.

In that case, and rather than hacking into the new Pipercross, I'll give a breather filter a try out..

Edited by SS2. on Tuesday 2nd October 21:33