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I have mentioned to a few of the members that I have been working on this recently, but wanted a working product before I announced it. I have been designing induction kits for the 3 series BMW range for 6 years now and have built up a very good reputation worldwide with over 1000 sales. (est.) My induction kits regulary appear in the BMW magazines and are the subject of many internet discussion boards. I advertise under the name of Hybrid Induction systems, But everybody just refers to my kits as "Dave.F" as that is always my forum user name
Anyway having recently purchased a cooper s I set out to see what was possible and what was not regarding intake mods. It appeared that nearly all the after market kits were of the same design, a folded plate that sits on top of the airbox base and makes an attempt to seal under the bonnet.( Im sure some do, but Im sure others do not seal very well.
The general opinion appears to be that the best Airbox for the Cooper S is the JCW's one with the ITG filter element. It looks very good, but retails at over £300.00 plus the ITG filter thats another £40.00.Alot of money for most people including myself.
Stick with me guys, you only need to read this once
So I set out to see what was possible, bought some airboxes and started to chop/cut and rebuild.
The results can be seen below,
A Standard Cooper-S airbox that has been modified to take a Free flowing K&N cone filter which has 35% more surface area than a free flowing panel filter.
An enlarged filter box outlet, As big as possible whilst still being able to fit the OEM rubber hose to the throttle body.
Air filter mounted at an angle to provide maximum clearance around the top half, whilst making use of the large area available in the bottom half of the airbox and the existing lower airbox feed.
An additional cold air feed that allows 100% more cold air into the top half of the airbox, routed via the bulkhead which also opens up the cabin to to the awesome Super Charger whine that these cars create.
Above you will see the additional cold air feed obtained by cutting through the plastic bulkhead partition and the foam sealing ring to ensure its a good seal. (Ignore the white item in the bottom of the airbox, that was a trial)
I currently have 1 of these kits fitted to my cooper S and it is performing and sounding great. By use of some manometers and temp probes, I have proven that this box is breathing exceptionally well. There is no vaccum being pulled in the box so the cold air feeds are ideal, and there is no vaccum pulled inside the filter so that is coping with demand. Internal airbox temps remain ambient and even sat in traffic, the temp only rises by 2 or 3 degrees but then drops back to ambient as soon as you move off.
Im sure this is why people rate the JCW's box so highly because the standard boxes are so good at insulating the filter inlet.
All the modifications are made to the top half of the airbox so changing it over takes minutes and the hole in the bulkhead is a straight forward job with a hole saw or even a stanley knife. (The sealing ring will hide your mistakes)
Remove the sticker from the lid and you are left with an almost stock looking airbox that would fool even the most knowledgable insurance manBut underneath it is giving your engine all the cold air it needs to provide MAX BHP.
Anyway thanks for taking the time to read this. Now Im ready for a whole host of questions as Ive been here before
Regards Dave.F
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Originally Posted by SoCal Yank
The Dirty Bitch
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