Stainless steel mesh, cotton or foam air filters

[kenmorton]

What are the advantages/disadvantages of the stainless mesh air filters or cotton or foam air filters. Not interested in the go faster looks of any of them as its tucked away out of sight but it does need to be able to pass lots of air with minimal flow restriction but still filter the air adequately.

[steve_d]

Just fit a K&N. There are a number of design styles in their range.
There is no better filter and it can be washed and re-oiled as often as needed.

Steve

[stevieturbo]

Stainless such as Blitz look bling, but dont filter very well.

As above, just stick a K&N on it. Tried and tested the world over.

[greenv8s]

Whatever sort you fit, you need to get a big enough filter area to supply your maximum air flow without restriction. Once you have that, the only difference between the different tyres is how long they last until they are dirty, and what happens when the get dirty. Foam/oil types simply stop filtering, you get dirty air. Paper/cotton types keep filtering but get more and more restrictive. On that basis, foam/oil filters aren't as good as paper/cotton, but that's irrelevent if you replace/clean the filter regularly.

I don't know about the steel mesh types, is that just a trim panel over some other filter element or is the stainless mesh actually doing the filtering? Is it a variation on the foam/oil approach? I'm having trouble imagining how that would work.

[_VTEC_]

Great thing about steel air filters is that they don't need to be oiled and therefore pretty easy to maintenance. Further, they have superior air straight-lining (turbulence reduction) capability via a specially designed mesh pattern. Filtration isn't quite as good as the others though it must be said.

The hot (cold) sh*t though is a high performance air filter application coupled with a carbon fibre ram pipe. Peer under the bonnet of just about any race car nowadays and you'll see this being utilised.

[chuntington101]

as said above, make sure you get plenty of cold air blowing onto the filter! also a lot of "kits" now mount the filter further away from the heat sourses, like down in the front air dam! although there is a slight increas in intake length, and thus a potencial loss of power, this is more than made up for by the apply supply of cold air you get from this location!

thanks Chris.