# Aftermarket air filter



## RAB (Jul 3, 2020)

Hello

I have had my TT for a couple of months now and wondered if replacing the filter for a pipercross or K&N is worthwhile and will make a difference on its own? A panel one which would be a straight swap


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## leopard (May 1, 2015)

No, you'll be wasting your money. The only difference might be a perceptible increase in induction noise. The oiled types can knacker your MAF.
Even worse are the air cones that have been swapped in as a replacement for the air box.
Don't bother it's all aftermarket trinketry..


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## macaddict111 (Jun 13, 2018)

leopard said:


> No, you'll be wasting your money. The only difference might be a perceptible increase in induction noise. The oiled types can knacker your MAF.
> Even worse are the air cones that have been swapped in as a replacement for the air box.
> Don't bother it's all aftermarket trinketry..


+1, the air box on these is pretty big anyway, tend to not worry so much about induction restriction with a big turbo too haha.


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## spidey3 (Aug 13, 2019)

RAB said:


> I have had my TT for a couple of months now and wondered if replacing the filter for a pipercross or K&N is worthwhile and will make a difference on its own?


No.
At best they are a waste of money, sheer puffery.
At worst they will result in _reduced_ performance, and possibly even _damage to other components_.


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## Saturn5 (Dec 10, 2018)

just a fit a good quality "standard" air filter . . . . save yourself the money


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## kevin#34 (Jan 8, 2019)

totally disagree.... first of all, a reusable air filter means saving money in the long term, then, cotton (K&N, BMC, Pipercross...) or polyester (Sprintfilter...) air permeability is surely greater than paper (ok, no drastic performance increase, but the minimal gain its proven) with a better filtering capacity, while for MAF or other components damage, this is purely an internet myth... (unless you use an entire oil bottle to reoil it...)


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## kevin#34 (Jan 8, 2019)

PS: I dont' work for K&N or any other air filter company... 8)


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## cyman (Jul 14, 2020)

running an aftermarket panel filter from a reputable company is a definite improvement over stock.

i have a 2016 tts and fitted a new k and n filter and carried out the air box mods listed in the FAQs section. i immediately found an improvement at the top end which tbh when i first bought the car i thought was a little lack lustre almost wheezy where it would rev but the power would drop off quickly. it instantly felt better at the top end after fitment.

in all my years of being a petrol head i have never heard of an oiled air filter causing an issue with a maf, the oil coating is so light that it only just coats the filter and is designed to capture very fine particulate. if anything maf sensors can get dirty and sometimes gunked from re circ systems on cars.

mounting a panel filter in a normal housing doesn't increase Nosie levels in the car at all.

for me personally fitting larger external so called cold air filter kits are a step to far, they always look boy racer ish to me and often dont get as much cold air as they say and in some cases just suffer from heat soak.

my advice is just do it you will get gains over standard even if its not masses, the filters are cleanable so you never have to buy a new one.


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## cyman (Jul 14, 2020)

macaddict111 said:


> leopard said:
> 
> 
> > No, you'll be wasting your money. The only difference might be a perceptible increase in induction noise. The oiled types can knacker your MAF.
> ...


air filters on turbo cars can still make a massive difference to performance. i actually did some back to back testing on one of my rx7,s running a setup that was capable of over 500bhp. i ran a gauze filter on the turbo, a larger dome/pancake filter and a very large cone type filter. the gauze filter was actually the worst and effected the mid range and top end, it also effect spool up as it was just to restricted. the dome filter was much less restrictive but did hamper the higher rev range, we settled on the large cone filter which actually had to be mounted on a large elbow sat behind the intercooler and even though it actually drew in more hot air when at low speed it still gave the best power, spool up and mid range. this was obviously down to surface area but also the volume within the filter which all helped.

i may still have the graphs somewhere so will post them if i find them.


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## ross_t_boss (Feb 28, 2017)

There is no MAF sensor on these engines, so it's not really relevant to whether it might get damaged or not. The MAP sensor in the inlet manifold and everything else from the turbo inlet and beyond is regularly bombarded by PCV oil anyway.

The question really is do they improve air flow, and secondary will it increase performance. The answer is maybe, and in some conditions yes, but not so much on a turbocharged car.

A restriction = pressure drop = less power potential. You see that when you take a car to higher altitude where the ambient pressure is naturally less rather than via restriction. It's the same principle. A turbocharger is a pressure multiplier, so if it's running at 2.5:1 at peak and you drop 100mbar due to intake restrictions, that is 0.25bar "lost" at the engine. So to make the requested pressure for peak power, it has to spin a little harder and make 2.8:1. That will equate to a laggier feeling on the throttle and higher intake temps which could harm performance.

Intake/induction kits can make a huge difference, but if the turbo can compensate it might just "feel" a bit faster. I've never gone as far as trying to measure pressure drop over the filter, I did see a comparison on youtube once that suggested clean aftermarket filters were marginally better but that flipped after a few thousand miles if it wasn't cleaned. A full intake system with a much bigger cone filter is going to make a much bigger difference - but may still not be any faster, unless the car is tuned quite heavily.


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## cyman (Jul 14, 2020)

ross_t_boss said:


> There is no MAF sensor on these engines, so it's not really relevant to whether it might get damaged or not. The MAP sensor in the inlet manifold and everything else from the turbo inlet and beyond is regularly bombarded by PCV oil anyway.
> 
> The question really is do they improve air flow, and secondary will it increase performance. The answer is maybe, and in some conditions yes, but not so much on a turbocharged car.
> 
> ...


The thing to remember is that the flow maps for all turbos are different its not only the total volume but the way a turbo flows at a certain rpm. The flow map and peak flow are always determined by the end aim. Is it peak power, mid range or low end grunt that is required.

In real world terms its always a compromise for a manufacturer as cost, space, design will all effect how the car goes and feels, during the design process often decisions are made that do not put oerformance first. Reliability or real world conditions in certain countries can all effect a finished design.

If you run a turbo with no filter you would think that's how you get best performance but just by adding a shaped trumpet of different size or length can change how the same turbo reacts at a given speed or rev range also size and shape of the exhaust and position of cats will all change how the turbo produces its power.

These things to me demonstrate how something as simple as the air box mod and a panel filter on a tts can indeed change how it feels at higher revs. For some cars turbo or otherwise there can be losses and gains depending on what the manufacturer was focusing on during the design process.

The one thing you can say for sure is that a panel filter doesn't really have a down side as long as you clean it once a year you will potentially get improved performance for a given input by the driver and of course you don't have to replace it.


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## Mark Pred (Feb 1, 2017)

leopard said:


> No, you'll be wasting your money. The only difference might be a perceptible increase in induction noise. The oiled types can knacker your MAF.
> Even worse are the air cones that have been swapped in as a replacement for the air box.
> Don't bother it's all aftermarket trinketry..


Ditto. These so called performance panel filters from K&N and alike are a total waste of money. Remap it if you want more performance.


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## leopard (May 1, 2015)

cyman said:


> ross_t_boss said:
> 
> 
> > There is no MAF sensor on these engines, so it's not really relevant to whether it might get damaged or not. The MAP sensor in the inlet manifold and everything else from the turbo inlet and beyond is regularly bombarded by PCV oil anyway.
> ...


LMAO, you'll get more performance if you went on a diet and shed a couple of pounds than any effects of switching to a performance filter 
:lol:

https://www.carthrottle.com/post/what-a ... -worth-it/


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## kevin#34 (Jan 8, 2019)

good suggestion, so why not switching to a TT-RS directly? 



Mark Pred said:


> Ditto. These so called performance panel filters from K&N and alike are a total waste of money. Remap it if you want more performance.


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## revulike (Jun 15, 2018)

Pipercross filter is about £10 -15 more than the standard paper filter.
Worth a punt?

Yes, I think so, especially when you factor in their re usability.

I use one on my TT - it's been remapped, but in for a penny.....

The Engineering Explained test (YouTube), was pretty rigorous and believable, showing a small % HP gain.

I'm not convinced the air intake upgrades are any better than the OEM design though.

R


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## cyman (Jul 14, 2020)

Going to a higher flowing panel filter will not give you much of a gain on its own but on my tts the panel filter along with the air box mods definitely made it stronger at the top end so there is a limiting factor in the standard setup at high revs high boost when its left standard.

Anyone going for a re map from any stage upward would be told to either go for panel filter with airbox mods or a cold air setup because as you push things beyond standard levels they are needed or the standard setup will end up being a limiting factor.

My argument is this a k and n panel filter is 40 quid, is washable and re usable and if in the future you are going to map or mod your car is the perfect mod to start with. Will every model feel any difference on its own i say it depends on model as on lower power models the requirements are much less than a tts. For me I went panel filter which was an improvement and then stage 1 map and I couldn't be happier.


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## RAB (Jul 3, 2020)

Thanks for all of your opinions and advice


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## kevin#34 (Jan 8, 2019)

so at the end, tell us if you are going for it or not..


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## nick tts (Jan 16, 2009)

simple answer yes!

we have fitted the revo panel filters to several different models recently everything from caddys to rs6's and purposely run dyno tests before and after because we were also interested in this question.

the power increase is more pronounced on cars running remaps but there is still a increase on standard vehicles, we have seen between 4 and 13hp depending on the model and tune.

some of them are documented on our instagram autotec_performance.

so yea does make a difference


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## RAB (Jul 3, 2020)

kevin#34 said:


> so at the end, tell us if you are going for it or not..


Yeah I am going to give it ago


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## DPG (Dec 7, 2005)

I've got a Revo in at the moment and a BMC ready to go

Cant say I've noticed any difference on the road from standard


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## JoshB (Sep 27, 2019)

As aforementioned, the standard setup is pretty good. There's actually no design difference between the 230bhp TT and the 310bhp TTS, same filter size...

The best mod you can do on the intake is replace the intake pipe and turbo elbow. Some garages have reputed 12bhp increase. I went for the Forge all in one thing and the improvement was VERY noticeable. Kept pulling after 5k rpm whereas it felt restricted before,


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## Aikidomelly (Oct 20, 2018)

I've fitted a Revo air filter. What I've noticed is more women now look at my car and give me the glad eye.
It makes me feel better, so I'm glad I changed. Also I've shed a couple of lockdown pounds


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## spidey3 (Aug 13, 2019)

Aikidomelly said:


> I've fitted a Revo air filter. What I've noticed is more women now look at my car and give me the glad eye.
> It makes me feel better, so I'm glad I changed. Also I've shed a couple of lockdown pounds


LOL :lol:


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