Only if there is some kind of support on the back side to keep the foam in place.

BTW K&N says their filters flow about 6 cfm per square inch of filter media. I would think that any cotton gauge filter would be about the same.

 

So, if you took K&N filter medium from a filter, flattened it out, and placed it over the opening of the blower and clamped it into place, it would only flow about 75.4 cfm (4" diameter opening)... That's the point I tried to make with my previous post about filter area of a filter vs. caping some filter medium over the end.

 

Huh? I'm lost. Flattening out the filter would be bad, I don't understand why somebody would cut a filter apart. I suppose I really didn't comprehend what point you were making in the previous post. A big filter would be ideal. Everything from stuffed toys to plug wires have been sucked into uncovered compressors and that's about as expensive a fix you can have.

 

I have heard that putting a small filter (which if you have the D1 on an LT1 it will have to be VERY small because you have about 3 inched from the blower to the first header) just on the blower, it can actually hurt airflow.

This is something I had a big issue with when I got my D1SC on was finding the ideal setup for the filter with the inlet tube to the blower. I ended up using the stock inlet tube, and a MUCH BIGGER K&N air filter. The result landed me just 2#'s of boost difference than that of nothing on the D1SC (on the dyno), that is to say no filter, no inlet tube, nothing.

The other possible winner would be to get a metal inlet tube (look for various threads on this in this forum). These look like they may be better than the stock inlet tube you get from ATI. And then of coarse, I reccomend the bigger air filter.

 

I think those screens and little lawnmower filters are going to be more restrictive than a large K&N cone filter placed in front of the wheel well.

ATI's new hard intake tube has proven itself not to be a restriction on my car. The air filter is the only piece on my car that has shown a boost drop and it was only 1 psi at 6400 rpm. I'm currently using a 9" cone filter with good results.

I like the idea of drawing cool air into my "boosted on the edge of detonation" engine also.

 

i gained 4-3 psi by takin of the hard ATI intake and runing open blower....

 

that was in response to this:

 

Here are the numbers from a little experiment I tried this past summer. All numbers were taken at 6400 rpm. I did this shortly after Call911 posted his nasty power losses on the dyno.

Open blower=11psi
Full ATI hard intake w/o Filter=11psi
Full ATI hard intake and Filter=10psi

I think the filter is definitely the restriction not the 3.5 inch intake tract.

 

How much power is your car putting down?

 

I am still confused about my setup. For those not familiair, the new ATI hard inlet tube and filter was dyno'd on my car, and then to see the power difference I ran it without anything. The difference was almost 10#'s of boost and 100 RWHP!

After thinking it was the inlet tube I tried a new rubber one, wich later collapsed once it reached any boost above 4#'s. I ended up going back to the original filter and inlet tube, and then I was seeing just a # or two difference than what I saw on the dyno. Since all of that I have gone with a bigger filter and seen even closer #'s of boost to the no restriction I was doing for half of the time on the dyno.

One other thing I would like to add about the stock filter from ATI. Once you run it over 10#'s of boost it starts to collapse, and I have heard people say it has even pulled itself inside out at 14#'s of boost! That was enough to make me swithch to the larger filter alone. Since (although few miles have been drvin on it) I have not had any issues.

 

No it doesn't. At least a maintained filter won't. Clearly though you've had some mysterious issues. Its not the product, however it may be the implementation.

 

I should add that filter maintenence on a blown setup needs to be much more frequent than a n/a setup.

One the filter is low on the car and by nature is going to pick up more dirt and debris than it does in a protected airbox with a high pickup location.

Second the filter passes so much more air than an unboosted application. While difficult on an LTx car if you were to remove the outlet tube from the blower and start the car you could get an appreciation for the airflow delivered by the supercharger at even just an idle. This is many times more air than a n/a car sees during normal driving. Even a small blower will throw the hat off your head at low rpm.

Wet filters are restrictive and fragile. The only thing keeping one together is the reinforced wire mesh. Keep this in mind during weather and after washing under the car.

The Dodge Magnum powered Procharged trucks have to run a smaller filter than the previous Procharger LTx fbody systems and they run up to 10 psi from ATI. I had an opportunity to remove the new filter from the supercharger before a dyno pull because it appeared to me that it would pose a restriction. I was ready to bet anybody $20 that it was going to pick up substantial boost. It didn't pick up a thing. I was blown away.

These systems aren't just thrown together. They are tested, tweaked and retested. They are occasionally also revisited to see if there is a place to improve performance. This is why you see the new inlet retrofit kit available. Fitment issues due to a particular chassis may require subtle compromises to be made out of installation necessity (such as a small frame filter) but performance is the priority.

 

ATI has done their homework on the Fbody. I don't think you can find a better intake than their new plastic one combined with a huge K&N filter.

 

I wonder how the ATI hard plastic intake compares to the aluminum/steel 4 inch elbows that a few others are using.

-B

 

All I can speak for is what I have personally seen on mine. And I saw almost 10#'s of boost difference along with 100 RWHP on the dyno between inlet tube and filter, to nothing. My whole system including the air filter was brand new, and probably only had 400 miles on it (none of which had been on a dirt road or in the rain) and when I inspected the filter, it had already started collapsing. After finding a bigger filter at a speed shop, they showed me someone's else's D1SC filter that had collapsed to the point of having the wire mesh inside of it ripped and collapsed. If you work for ATI, I cannot doubt that you know what you are speaking about because you are the expert, but I can attest to what I have had happened to me and what I have seen.

As for the difference between the new plastic inlet tube, and the metal one, I am still waiting to see what the results are. There are more than a couple that will soon have their cars up and running on the metal inlet tube, and it will be interesting to see.