Performance Air Filters and rallying 200tq's (longish and lowish Audi content).

[gnt@nhm.ac.uk (Graham Thackrah)]

Dear Qlist,

I was with a friend the other day buying a K+N 57i induction kit for his
Nova GTE and was having a discussion with the garage owner (Cooper and
West?) about foam versus paper and oil filters. He showed us a Ram Air
reticulated foam filter kit for a Ford Escort RS Turbo. He said that
generally reticulated foam filters will outperform paper and oil filters
(the K+N type) in terms of outright air flow and filtrate capacity. The
point of this is not to debate the merits of the two types of filter but to
ask about an airbox modification I am thinking about. My Dad works for a
polyurethane foam manufacturer and can make reticulated foam in the lab
there (it is made commercially by another company but on a small scale it
only needs a bath of NaOH to make it). I can thus quite easily get hold of
some foam of the rough hole dimensions as the Ram Air filter.

The guy at Cooper and West was telling us about a modified MK1 golf GTI (the
same 8V 1781cc engine as the 1.8 Audis) that he was working on. One of the
modifications he told us about were what sounded like just a series of holes
drilled into the air box to increase flow.

I was kinda thinking then that it would be easy to fill my airbox with oiled
reticulated foam and drill the base with a series of holes to see what happens.

The Ram Air filter kit for the RS Turbo was 80 to 90 gbp including a length
of SAMCO Silicon hosing. After fitting the 57i kit to the Nova it had
noticeably more torque and was more responsive. Mr. Cooper and West also
said that replacement performance airbox elements were not worth the money
and that something like a 57i kit was far better value for money.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the wisdom of this or any well known airbox
modifications along this line?

Thanks in advance,

Graham.

P.S. There was a picture of a rally 200tq in mid flight on the wall of the
office of Cooper and West, apparently they bought it off Audi and rallied it
quite successfully for a number of years with their own set of throttle
bodies and injection system including mapping hardware. I seem to remember
seeing another picture of a 200tq competing in an African rally on an
internet web page somewhere, has anyone else seen anything like this? The
car was a UK C reg but I can't remember the whole plate.