?.. i took the air filter out one day on my 3.1 camaro and i was expecting to hear the motor rev a lil higher, but it did not, then i took it out on the hwy, to see if it was a lil more powerful and i could not tell for the life of me.,,.does removing the aire filter increase performance ? if so how much?

 

not by enough to risk destroying your engine when dust/dirt/water gets in there and ruins your injectors and scores your piston walls, causing shortened engine life and reduced performance. not to mention the risk of liquid lock. i would highly advise against making more then a dyno run or two w/o an air filter.

 

You should be able to see a difference. I could tell a difference from changing my old one that was black to a new one, it felt more responsive, so I imagine if I ran it without an air filter the difference would be more.

 

Some engines may not notice anything but if going from a stocker to K&N helps it breathe better, thus no air cleaner should make it flow better. Though if you live in a dusty dirty climate [sand] not good. Water isn't bad for an engine, only in large amounts. [turbo guys use water injection for a reason.] Can't see it makign your injectors dirty, unless you talking about the out side of them.
But the combustion should keep them cleaned off. Cylinder score is the big one to watch out for but I know people with old trucks and a million miles that never had an air cleaner but your climate and the fact that they are only driven 1-2times a week comes into play.

Though I only mentioned it for kicks in the other thread. On a nice day and if you have a true CAI, removing the filter should make it feel better. should, should should should, might not though if your engine is already tired.


I have done it before but ask in the carb section. I found many people here running no to minimal air filters with years of use.

 

i saw about a 1/10 second gain on a 1/8th mile strip. but then my cai is the biggest bottleneck in the entire intake system. and i have alot of work done to the engine..i... i only run no filter on the track for the gains that i get..... never do it on the road as there is way way too much dirt and dust that will score your cylinder walls after enough exposure to it...

 

In reality if no intake restriction doesn't make much of an improvement, your engine is tapped out n e ways.

An engine is just a giant air pump. If freeing up the intake doesn't help, the problem is probably on the exhaust side. Unless you got a turbo, you can't suck anymore air in , then what flows out.

But there all all kinds of exceptions to the rule.

But if you find freeing up the intake doesn't help, id start doing exhaust mods. Then start in internals.

 

you could not have said it better gumby, but still you don't wanna take the filters out for normal driving

 

i have run my car at the track with no filters and it runs no different. i'm running the TPI dual snorkel air box and stock paper filters and it runs the same either way.

 

but stock, you're induction is a whole lot better than a stock birds

 

If you notice a performance gain by removing the filter, you have issues that need to be worked on.

 

oh yeah, forgot about the bird's lovely setup. i still lean towards what Dale said after me, though.

 

Very sound advice.

 

I agree very much on this.

the restriction from the air filter at least comparing a brand new one to no air filter provides very little restriction that is hardly even noticable.

you would gain more air flow from doing other things with the intake ducting instead.