Why you shouldnt buy a cheap air filter

[SC300TURBO]

so last thursday i was at the 240 monthly meet and a little skittle/srt4 came through making noise as i was leaving... so i followed and went to play...rolled 2nd gear and pulled out on him nice and hit 3rd and lost power.....thought i blew an inercooler pipe or a map vacum line or something.....pulled over and had white exahust smoke.......also had 0 boost so figured i killed the stock turbos....
well i pulled em off to go single turbo and find the inside metal part of the filter came off and was in the intake pipe blocking off the front turbo.....and left a nice hole for debris to enter....im not sure if a rock came in and blew it apart...or if it revved too hig trying to maintain boost since the front turbo was blocked off?....i dunno...its a ceramic turbo so im guessing something came in the intake from the hole in the air filter and hit the spinning blades and blew it up......take a look




learn from my mistake...im hoping the motor wasnt affected and bolting on the single turbo...so out of bad comes good but this could happed to anyone...so be careful
Jeff

[SupraTurboUtah]

holy crap! i've had the cheapo's too but i never even imagined that could happen. thanks for the story and the pics.

sorry your turbos died, hope the engine is ok

[SupraTTurbo2JZ]

ive got an ebay filter for my max but the supra never had a cheap air filter.... its always been the KnN or the HKS . but that is some serious damage. I say make the store that sold you that filter pay for your single !!!!

[pituala]

That's why I only use K&N

[supraracer01]

your car is only as strong as its weakest link, dont go cheap. Buy once and be done with it. that sucks tho..

[PM-Performance]

those cheap filters are restrictive as hell too!
Sorry to see, but a lesson is learned. Not all filters are created equally. I always run K&N religiously

[dejacky]

I like S&B filters better than K&N. Superior quality and flow with S&B's open top design imo. Either way, a good quality air filter is definitely better than that. Live and learn, we all go through shit like this at some point...so i'm glad it's over for you .

[ProjekT_SuprA]

It's like the old saying goes, the bitterness of low quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten. I'm sorry this has happened to you, but it should be an example to everyone that you should not skimp out on your parts.

[deck]

I don't understand, exactly which part of the filter broke off?

[Boostedmkiii]

Originally Posted by pituala

That's why I only use K&N

Same here. Even though some people bash them for some reason? I have one on every car.

[ProjekT_SuprA]

Originally Posted by Boostedmkiii

Same here. Even though some people bash them for some reason? I have one on every car.

I think the only reason people tend to bash them is the fact they beleive they've been played out. Don't get me wrong, I love K&N filters, I have always used them. But you get the people who claim to modify their cars yet don't know anything about mechanics bragging about how they have a K&N intake. I guess thats what people derive their hate from.

[jedsred88]

wow dude that sucks. thats alot of pieces. yeah i have an HKS intake so far so good. i bet that was embarrassing to be running one of the 124,324,532,563,453,674,353,253,646,234 SRT4s and then go down like that

[88supramaniac]

K&N all the way...fuck those other filters

[88yoda]

some people bash k&n's because there oiled and the oil gets to the afm and lets dirt clog it up.

[ProjekT_SuprA]

Originally Posted by 88yoda

some people bash k&n's because there oiled and the oil gets to the afm and lets dirt clog it up.

Actually that's a myth. I watched a show (Two Guys Garage) where they went to the K&N factory and completely debunked the myth. The cause of the the bad AFM was a user error (I forgot what it was).

[86_sports_1jz]

damn, i didn't know that was possible

[adidas00]

blitz all the way.......

[MK388Chris]

So i'm buying a new filter now, I have an ebay one, called Option racing. yeah i'm not taking that chance.

[SC300TURBO]

old thread back to life...glad others can learn from my mistake....

[SeriaLThriLLa]

How did both sides explode?

[SC300TURBO]

1 turbo exploded.....id imagine something came in and ate up the compressor wheel and caused the exhaust wheel to contact the housing....destroying it....
i dont know exactly but my guess

[OTSIЯA]

fkin wow...

[XyX]

actually saw this happen on a civic, sucked the front metal part of the filter and it was the perfect size to not get sucked into the turbo but just plug it up. He drove around trying to figure it out and took the filter off and found the mental piece just stuck in the inlet on the turbo. No damage done but it was a pretty interesting sight to see.

[supraman261]

i use the AEM dryflow, K&N, or HKS

[Zach90Turbo]

Originally Posted by supraman261

i use the AEM dryflow, K&N, or HKS

I love the AEM Dryflow, my favorite filter on the market.

Be careful with HKS filters. They really don't do much filtering, and when the sponge element gets older and dry, chunks of it get sucked off the backside of the filter and into your motor. I've never seen any damage from it, but it's sketch to say the least.