I put my oem airbox back on my Z today the first time Its been on for years, Im moving more towards a oem+ build, I removed a K&N pod that I was never really happy with, its was jammed in behind a front mount. I fitted it after my unifilter intake kit deteriorated and noticed a sharp decrease in throttle response with the K&N pod vs the unifilter. Im assuming because the unifilter was flange out to a funnel that was about 6" filter. Pic for refrence. This bring me to the point of this post, the air filters that are currently fitted are oem that I washed years ago and put in storage, yes oem filters are washable. My question is do K&N/blitz/arc drop in filters offer any performance over OEM?
I think it has been widely accepted over the years that the oem filter panels provide superior filtration over the pod filters but do suffer a cfm reduction in actual airflow as a consequence. Each individual zed owner has made their choice of filter based on their particular priority when it comes to the filtration vs airflow “balancing act”. So in response to your question relating to performance …… I would have to say that generally a decent pod filter will provide a performance improvement over the oem filter because of an increase in airflow (and airflow equals horsepower, especially when it comes to forced induction vehicles) A performance increase with the Unifilter (in photo) is largely dependent upon the correct application of the Airfilter oil. Too much oil applied to the foam will reduce the airflow capacity of this filter, and conversely, too little oil will reduce the filtration capability of the filter. You have me scratching my head with your statement relating to returning your zed to Oem specs ….. you are refitting the factory panel filters in order to retain factory “originality” then you state you have a FMIC fitted
thanks. I will stick with oem filters , yeah I don't have side mounts kicking around. I did say oem+ , that's different to oem specs, basically I have a power goal and when choosing mods I ask myself "what would nismo or mines do". Airbox is the answer 10 out of 10 times, I have no problem with cutting out the bottom of it and fitting K&N/blitz/arc panels, but after test driving today I didn't notice any change from the K&N pod and have run it dry and oiled, the unifilter funnel design imo is the best single intake I have used and if I wasn't bound by oem+ I would fit 2 under the headlights.
Not the bottom, the sides. As in the left and right sides of the box looking at it from the front of the car. Tektrader gave us the advice yonks ago, I followed it. Took it a step further and removed that metal 1/2 torus noise inhibitor inside the box too. I was going to post a How To with pics about 11 years ago but everyone was hell bent on pod filters so I didn't bother. Short version, you'd end up with a bigger surface area from 2 OEM filter panels or aftermarket oilable filters than you'd get from 1.5 pod filters ( based on the filters available back then ) and you'd have way better splash proofing than with pods. But the mod to the OEM airbox is a lot of pissing around, not a quick job to do it properly.
