Well I never had an issue until the recent work. The manifold has been on since 2005. As I said, the filter I fitted in 2020, and regularly checked it. Yesterday, there was an odd smell through the heater. Looking at the intake, it had been repositioned from how I set it up. I’ve sorted that.
A header blanket is £200+. Not going to happen with this car.
Now, I’m thinking about positioning the filter to the side of the washer bottle, with the MAS attached, which considerably tidies up the wiring. But this is a cool spot in the engine bay, relative to anywhere else. The intake air, by the time it gets to the throttle body, will be hotter, thanks to aluminium acting as a heatsink. Now I could wrap the intake tube with £10 of reflective tape, rather than the header with the insulator but that won’t eliminate heat soak. Is positioning the MAS going to lead to an artificially measured instake temperature?
How the intake has changed since I brought the car in 2005
2005, it came with a HKS
Then I got hold of a full Arc intake (note the pad, it used to rattle on the bonnet)
I foolishly thought I was selling on this car, and the Arc box was sold for a tidy sum. 11 years later, I still have the car (the S-Limited that I brought as a keeper turned out to be not as good as I thought…).
On went a no-brand K&N type filter
I started getting emissions issues, and me and Thrussington spent the next 7 years trying to figure it. To eliminate doubt that the filter oil might be fouling the MAS, I fitted a cheap Ripspeed foam filter, that was comically small
Didn’t last long, in 2020, on went the Ramair filter
Which in 2024 melted.
In all the years, MOT emissions aside, the car has always ran great (I was never really convinced of Thrussington’s Hail Mary judgement of worn out engine. The issue was terrible aftermarket cats. But now I have lovelty refurbed injectors, and a 20 year old scrapyard cat that have produced perfect numbers).
