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MG MGF Technical - K&N Cooling mod

As seen on an Elise ... how effective is this ?

http://www.knfilter.dk/elise/elise_tuning.htm#K%26N

Gaz
Gaz

Gaz,

Rob Bell has a similar heat shield on his car. Don;t know if he has dyno figures. I'm sure he'll read this thread soon and tell you 8-)

Raj Jena
Raj Jena

;o)

Probably effective Gaz- afterall it achieves the one thing that the air filter needs- a nice reliable supply of cold air.

I reckon a decent size ice cream box would do the job just as well- covered in a heat reflective material... I think that the only requirement would be that the enclosure would need to have at least a 25 mm clearance around the filter to ensure adequate supply of air...

Some Elise owners use two flower pots taped together as an air box. Them seem happy with the result- if not necessarily the aesthetic!!!

No figures available- a RR wouldn't actually give a reasonable indication of airbox performance. This is one example where road and track driving will give a far better indication of performance.
Rob Bell

I 've seen the flower pot idea on the Elise board a few days ago and it actually makes a lot of sense. A decent sized pot with one of those plates you use underneath as a lid would make an excellent airbox for the K&N. I wonder if the standard plastic pots would stand the engine heat or should be covered with some reflective foil or something.
Spyros Papageorghiou

It is quite surprising that the idea has taken so long to catch on. Remember I was spouting on about the principles of cold air being worth so much more and my own modified original sealed system reducing intake air temps by an average of 12 degrees and resulting in 9ft lbs more torque as well as 6 bhp more at peak rpm. With an ITG air intake system the indications are that even more power than the best K&N and more torque than I achieved is on the cars.

This has to be the way forward.

Rog
Roger Parker

Where can I buy one! :-)

Richie
Richard Russell

Richie,

Buy - which one??

Rog
Roger Parker

>> With an ITG air intake system the indications are that even more power than the best K&N and more torque than I achieved is on the cars.

All well and good but is the xtra cost justified by the power gains ...

The K&N kit is at most £100. The ITG is £311.
I am v.interested in the ITG but the cost is far too prohibitive, despite the quality of the engineering, which appears to far better than the K&N.

Gaz
Gaz

Rob Bell and myself have been talking about the manufacture of an 'air-box' for the K&N with a cool air intake and I have looked the requirements of doing such an item with fibre glass.

It was my opinion that fibre glass would need a lot of strengthening inserts and would have to made to fairly tight tolerances to ensure that everything fits and would in fact be better made from an injection type moulding principle or from metal. Which ever method is selected the process involved will make the whole thing prohibitive in cost and this explains why the ITG filter costs so much - and dont forget that the potential market is tiny.

Ted
Ted Newman

As Ted says, we've been looking at alternative options that may, or may not, work out to be practical.

One thing of note- it appears that ITG have worked hard to derive their airbox, and I am sure it is worth the money- but it is a shame that there is not as much of a differential in cost between a carbon fibre and glass fibre enclosure as one might expect given the difference in material costs.

Three alternatives are being explored:

1. a custom built enclosure made of aluminium- Andy phillips is currently investigating this.

2. use the standard air box- either using the standard inlet with ducting to the near side air vent, or make a larger hole, and route larger bore tubing. The former is the option esposed by Roger and clearly works well, and the latter an innovation performed recently by a Lotus Elise enthusiast.

3. Use a cylindrical airbox from an early model Rover 820 EFi. Dimentially surprisingly similar to the ITG box. Already made from injection moulded plastic- a substansive bit of kit. The inlet to the airbox is dissappointingly narrow (no more than 60 mm compared to the MGF's throttle body apperature of 70 mm) and would need to be removed and a new inlet inserted. Hardly difficult... :o)

I "liberated" one of these from a wreck in a scrapyard (5 quid) some time ago, and may start working on this soon (crumbs- I'll have to get my skates on for Silverstone!!!).

I haven't totally given up on my original glass fibre idea- to see what it may look like, have a look at Simon Daykin's web site: http://www.bscuk.com/temp/airbox1.htm

If this latter thing works, it may be possible to get a couple of extras made. But as Ted indicates, glass fibre may not be the material of choice. We'll see.

Rob
Rob Bell

This thread was discussed between 05/06/2001 and 11/06/2001

MG MGF Technical index

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