[biomed27]

Anybody with stage 1 notice significant power gain/delivery with updated intake, especially MST?

[dmanb2b]

Intake provides no noticeable power bump in stg1/2. Sound is main benefit

[Wires]

Originally Posted by biomed27

Anybody with stage 1 notice significant power gain/delivery with updated intake, especially MST?

As said above, it's basically for noise. Kies Motorsports has a YouTube video of them dynoing the MST on a 340, and they lost power over OEM.

[mike@x-ph.com]

VM posted a before and after dyno with BMS intake and it showed noticeable gains with the intake.
Here is the dyno


It all depends on what you mean by significant power. you'll get ~ 10 whp, you might not feel the difference unless you dyno the car. Its still more power than stock

[Hein Jockins]

I've heard some reviews of mst intake saying the stock intake performs better in hotter climates. Is there any truth to this? I live in the southeast US with hot temperatures almost year round, so I've kept it stock but lots of folks recommend upgrading the intake.

[Wires]

Originally Posted by Hein Jockins

I've heard some reviews of mst intake saying the stock intake performs better in hotter climates. Is there any truth to this? I live in the southeast US with hot temperatures almost year round, so I've kept it stock but lots of folks recommend upgrading the intake.

People say you suffer from higher IAT temps (so power loss) due to sucking in hot under the hood air. Other people say it's not even noticeable.

The OEM, if you have the hot weather version where the intake pulls air from in front of the radiator is a "true CAI". All the aftermarkets don't pull air from outside the engine bay.

My guess is IAT temps are only an issue if you do a lot of stop & go driving and idling. Once you are moving, you will be forcing cooler air under the hood, so perhaps that's where the "doesn't matter" comes from.

Now, if you believe that the IAT's aren't an issue, then you could just remove the snorkel to the OEM airbox since it starts small and then ends up larger at the airbox inlet. One would have to assume that restriction has to result in a reduction of HP (perhaps that's what the aftermarket CAI's are getting their gains from).

All that being said, why did BMW waste the engineering time as well as spec'ing in 2 different intake tracts for cool and hot weather climate if there isn't an legitimate concern?

I ended up just doing a K&N drop in filter since all those "CAI's" would be running a similar oil/dry cotton version as well.

[J555]

Depends on what intake are you considering. I have a closed CAI (Injen Evolution), and while my butt-dyno feels some gains, it may be tricked by sound change, indeed. However, in my case the CAI improved a lot the throttle lag, the reactions are close to instant. I am on Stage 1.0 93+.

[johnung]

Originally Posted by biomed27

Anybody with stage 1 notice significant power gain/delivery with updated intake, especially MST?

There is a tremendous amount of misinformation constantly spread about intakes. Hopefully this will clear some of it up.

1) An Intake does not belong on any list of Full Bolt On mods needed for Stage2. FBO means a free flow catted or catless downpipe and an upgraded (FMIC) Front Mounted Intercooler (unless the engine is a newer B46/B48/B58 that uses a high capacity air/water IC)

2) The big air holes or lack of airbox in an Intake design does NOT flow more air to the engine. There is a constriction near the turbo housing that limits the the air flow to the turbo to about 2" in diameter. No giant Intake is going to flow more air into the tiny opening at the turbo.

What the holes or open box at the Intake is designed to do is to let sound OUT! That's where the turbo spool noise of an intake comes from.

Question) Does an intake increase engine performance, and if so by how much? The answer depends...

3) IF a particular Intake increases engine performance, it does so because of the freer flowing air filter that it uses.

So if your goal is to obtain whatever engine performance increase that an Intake might provide, AND you could care less about the added turbo spool sound/noise that an Intake provides, then just replace your restrictive stock airfilter with a free flow drop-in airfilter from aFe or K&N.

I've used the same aFe Pro Dry air filter for years. It was about $85. It's washable and reusable, and doesn't require any oiling. My butt dyno noticed a difference the moment that it was installed.

4) There is a lot of science behind air filter materials and design. That's why there are specialty companies like aFe and K&N with research scientists and equipment. Unfortunately, then marketing people at those companies and intake companies take over the messaging, so the actual science can get blurred in an effort to sell products.

I have measured the gross surface area of the stock and aftermarket drop-in filters, and the surface area of the MST cone-style air filter. The MST cone filter measures 15% larger. The reason that cone filter shapes are popular in many engines is because they have a large surface area and can draw air from a wider direction.

But having a larger gross surface area can be meaningless for airflow. Airfilters are purposely designed with pleats to maximize the surface area. The MST cone has many more pleats but they are smaller. The drop-in has less pleats but they are larger. Someday if I get old filters of both then I'll cut them open and flattened out the pleated material to compare their surface areas.

But even if I had that information it wouldn't provide a final judgment on which filter flowed better. Because the actual filter material has characteristics that can only be measured by laboratory instruments.

Also remember that an airfilter's job is to keep harmful particles from entering the engine. That's why we see high tech materials being used to increase flow while maintaining particle capture. My aFe Pro Dry drop-in airfilter always looks clean. When I soak it in warm dish detergent suds (about every other oil change) I'm amazed at all of the black particles that fall out. It's definitely doing it's job!

5) How much an Intake airfilter or a drop-in airfilter can potentially increase engine performance is hotly debatable. But in general even the most optimistic claims don't exceed 5%. Think about it. That's really small. On a 300hp engine, that's only 15hp. And that's their best case scenario!

When you see dyno numbers from intake manufacturers or even folks trying to obtain independent dyno comparisons, take it all with a grain of salt. If you dyno a car and make 2-3-4-5 runs all at the same time under the same ambient temperature conditions and on the same dyno machine, just look how much the numbers vary. If they were spot on consistent, then an experiment could be done comparing airfilters with some expectation of obtaining valid data. But it just ain't so.

I suspect that dyno data from intake manufacturers is just a random best dyno run that they obtained, and not necessarily any indication of their performance.

6) A poor intake design can actually cause worse engine performance! If you look at the stock air box, immediately after the box in the air tube is the (MAF) Mass Air Flow sensor. It tells the engine exactly how much filtered air is headed towards the turbo.

BMW engineers have tuned the engine based on these sensor readings. But intake designers that change the environment around the sensor can cause distorted inaccurate readings by changing the size and shape of the air tube, the position and angle of the sensor in the airstream, and even insert obstructions that change the airflow characteristics.

So a poorly designed intake can cause an engine to run less efficiently and actually have poorer performance.

7) To answer your original question... MST makes a high quality Intake. It's very popular. With the MST you will get the butt dyno performance increase from their cone airfilter and you'll get the intake sound increase that many enjoy. If you aren't looking for the noise, you can obtain the same performance increase from a high quality drop-in filter.

I've used both the aFe Pro Dry and the MST Intake on my car. IMO both have a performance increase over the stock airfilter and it feels about the same.

Just for fun, I've been collecting airfilters. The next time that I dyno my car I'm hoping to get numbers on stock, aFe Pro Dry, aFe oiled, K&N oiled and MST cone oiled air filters. As I said earlier, I'd expect dyno numbers to be inconclusive because the dyno itself can't provide reproducible numbers even when no variables are changed. But it will satisfy my curiosity anyway.

Photos of some aFe filters attached.

Hope this helps!

[blacksapphire440i]

Originally Posted by johnung

There is a tremendous amount of misinformation constantly spread about intakes. Hopefully this will clear some of it up.

1) An Intake does not belong on any list of Full Bolt On mods needed for Stage2. FBO means a free flow catted or catless downpipe and an upgraded (FMIC) Front Mounted Intercooler (unless the engine is a newer B46/B48/B58 that uses a high capacity air/water IC)

2) The big air holes or lack of airbox in an Intake design does NOT flow more air to the engine. There is a constriction near the turbo housing that limits the the air flow to the turbo to about 2" in diameter. No giant Intake is going to flow more air into the tiny opening at the turbo.

What the holes or open box at the Intake is designed to do is to let sound OUT! That's where the turbo spool noise of an intake comes from.

Question) Does an intake increase engine performance, and if so by how much? The answer depends...

3) IF a particular Intake increases engine performance, it does so because of the freer flowing air filter that it uses.

So if your goal is to obtain whatever engine performance increase that an Intake might provide, AND you could care less about the added turbo spool sound/noise that an Intake provides, then just replace your restrictive stock airfilter with a free flow drop-in airfilter from aFe or K&N.

I've used the same aFe Pro Dry air filter for years. It was about $85. It's washable and reusable, and doesn't require any oiling. My butt dyno noticed a difference the moment that it was installed.

4) There is a lot of science behind air filter materials and design. That's why there are specialty companies like aFe and K&N with research scientists and equipment. Unfortunately, then marketing people at those companies and intake companies take over the messaging, so the actual science can get blurred in an effort to sell products.

I have measured the gross surface area of the stock and aftermarket drop-in filters, and the surface area of the MST cone-style air filter. The MST cone filter measures 15% larger. The reason that cone filter shapes are popular in many engines is because they have a large surface area and can draw air from a wider direction.

But having a larger gross surface area can be meaningless for airflow. Airfilters are purposely designed with pleats to maximize the surface area. The MST cone has many more pleats but they are smaller. The drop-in has less pleats but they are larger. Someday if I get old filters of both then I'll cut them open and flattened out the pleated material to compare their surface areas.

But even if I had that information it wouldn't provide a final judgment on which filter flowed better. Because the actual filter material has characteristics that can only be measured by laboratory instruments.

Also remember that an airfilter's job is to keep harmful particles from entering the engine. That's why we see high tech materials being used to increase flow while maintaining particle capture. My aFe Pro Dry drop-in airfilter always looks clean. When I soak it in warm dish detergent suds (about every other oil change) I'm amazed at all of the black particles that fall out. It's definitely doing it's job!

5) How much an Intake airfilter or a drop-in airfilter can potentially increase engine performance is hotly debatable. But in general even the most optimistic claims don't exceed 5%. Think about it. That's really small. On a 300hp engine, that's only 15hp. And that's their best case scenario!

When you see dyno numbers from intake manufacturers or even folks trying to obtain independent dyno comparisons, take it all with a grain of salt. If you dyno a car and make 2-3-4-5 runs all at the same time under the same ambient temperature conditions and on the same dyno machine, just look how much the numbers vary. If they were spot on consistent, then an experiment could be done comparing airfilters with some expectation of obtaining valid data. But it just ain't so.

I suspect that dyno data from intake manufacturers is just a random best dyno run that they obtained, and not necessarily any indication of their performance.

6) A poor intake design can actually cause worse engine performance! If you look at the stock air box, immediately after the box in the air tube is the (MAF) Mass Air Flow sensor. It tells the engine exactly how much filtered air is headed towards the turbo.

BMW engineers have tuned the engine based on these sensor readings. But intake designers that change the environment around the sensor can cause distorted inaccurate readings by changing the size and shape of the air tube, the position and angle of the sensor in the airstream, and even insert obstructions that change the airflow characteristics.

So a poorly designed intake can cause an engine to run less efficiently and actually have poorer performance.

7) To answer your original question... MST makes a high quality Intake. It's very popular. With the MST you will get the butt dyno performance increase from their cone airfilter and you'll get the intake sound increase that many enjoy. If you aren't looking for the noise, you can obtain the same performance increase from a high quality drop-in filter.

I've used both the aFe Pro Dry and the MST Intake on my car. IMO both have a performance increase over the stock airfilter and it feels about the same.

Just for fun, I've been collecting airfilters. The next time that I dyno my car I'm hoping to get numbers on stock, aFe Pro Dry, aFe oiled, K&N oiled and MST cone oiled air filters. As I said earlier, I'd expect dyno numbers to be inconclusive because the dyno itself can't provide reproducible numbers even when no variables are changed. But it will satisfy my curiosity anyway.

Photos of some aFe filters attached.

Hope this helps!

Glad I went with MST. Do you recommend putting the cone in suds and using a high pressure air nozzle to spray everything out?

[johnung]

Originally Posted by blacksapphire440i

Glad I went with MST. Do you recommend putting the cone in suds and using a high pressure air nozzle to spray everything out?

I haven't cleaned the MST filter yet but I believe some sort of cleaning instruction sheet came with it. I wouldn't recommend blowing out any air filter material with high pressure air or water. The filtering of those materials happen at the micron level. I imagine that high pressure could damage the material without it being obvious unless it was under a microscope.

When I clean the aFe drop-in, I soak it in warm dish washing detergent suds. Then I rinse it thoroughly under the faucet with copious amounts of water. I make sure that I rinse in the opposite direction of airflow. So with the aftermarket drop-in that means from the top, allowing it to run through the bottom. This flushes out any particles in the opposite direction from the way that they entered.

So if I was trying to do the same with the MST cone filter, I would place the big round opening under the faucet (after soaking in suds) and allow the water to run out through the filter pleats.

[E90lova]

Bottom line don't live life on a dyno. Turbos will always benefit from a more free flowing intake. Just get a well engineered one. Also don't go too large on intake filter as it will result in loss of power but offer instance airflow delivery to the engine like my AFE Magnum intake kit on my F30 N55.

[DreamerJoe]

Another intake thread… the “hot air” under the engine bay is nowhere near the temps being recirculated through the exhaust/turbo, which is then cooled by the intercooler. On a naturally aspirated car I 100% agree on the argument, but on a forced induction vehicle that is cooling the air coming back in… and air nowhere near exceeding exhaust temps 🤷‍♂️

There is a thread in this forum (somewhere) where they tested it and the IAT difference was like 2-3 degrees