[dantegl36]

I've been running a Sprint filter in my 2018 Quad for around 3k miles. Attached is a photo of one of the intake lines after the filter. The red circle region all around is self induced contaminates. I used a Kleenex to wipe the inside about 2 inches in. Once I saw I messed my experiment up I grabbed a lint free cloth. The green arrow portion was untouched by the Kleenex. Is someone with a stock QV paper air filter or BMC able to pull one of their intake lines and post a picture similar to this one? I see a small amount of particulates around what I believe is the mass air flow sensor and I'm curious to see how it compares to the stock and BMC filter. I also attached the lint free cloth I used pre and post wipe. No appreciable particulates were captured. On the post you may see some black specs on the corners. This is not from the inside of the intake. Those were picked up when I pushed the towel inside as the plastic is not perfectly smooth and has some loose pieces of plastic on it. The intake seems pretty clean to me with my one question on the MAF particles. If I'm not lazy later I'll go redo this experiment proper on the other side minus the Kleenex error.

Lint free cloth pre-wipe

Lint free cloth post-wipe

 

[Blazinhassan]

Not sure why you guys are so worried about minute particals entering your engine. You do know that when a brand new engine goes through a break in period there are thousands of metal shrouds there get grinded within the engine compartment and engine parts get smoothed over. I’ve never seen an air filter be the death of an engine.

 

[dantegl36]

Not sure why you guys are so worried about minute particals entering your engine. You do know that when a brand new engine goes through a break in period there are thousands of metal shrouds there get grinded within the engine compartment and engine parts get smoothed over. I’ve never seen an air filter be the death of an engine.

Oh I have zero concern over the air filter causing engine failure or premature wear. I am perfectly content with how clean the intake is with the Sprint after 3000 miles of driving with it in. In my mind using a high flow filter is low risk to no risk with proper maintenance. I also did not grab any baseline photos before putting the Sprint filter in so I was hoping another member could. My goal is to document my experience with it should there exist people on the ropes about whether or not to buy one.

 

[MADNESS Autoworks]

Also, left a voice mail to @MADNESS Autoworks and email with no response 2 weeks now. Garbage.

Hello Blazin,

Thank you for reaching out.

We sent you a PM, and would like to help solve this for you.

 

[DeXa]

Not sure why you guys are so worried about minute particals entering your engine. You do know that when a brand new engine goes through a break in period there are thousands of metal shrouds there get grinded within the engine compartment and engine parts get smoothed over. I’ve never seen an air filter be the death of an engine.

I am worried because:

• particles stick to the MAF, which leads to incorrect readings about flow and air temp - reducing performance. Cleaning the MAF = 20% chance of it failing (personal exp)
• particles stick to cold side of the trubo. Crankcase ventilation is before cold side, so dust and oil sticks very well to metal parts. This unbalances the turbo at 180k-200k = increased wear on the bearings, reduced performance.
• particles stick to MAP, throttle body and most important to valves. This increases the deposits from the already prone to carbon deposits direct injected engine = decreased performance.

All of the above combined leads to long term reduced performance and greater chance of valve deposits falling in the cylinder and then going through the turbo hot side, possibly doing some damage and then sticking on the CAT. again dropping performance.
So what is the point of gaining a few hp (if any) and certainly loosing performance and reliability long term?

 

[dantegl36]

I am worried because:

• particles stick to the MAF, which leads to incorrect readings about flow and air temp - reducing performance. Cleaning the MAF = 20% chance of it failing (personal exp)
• particles stick to cold side of the trubo. Crankcase ventilation is before cold side, so dust and oil sticks very well to metal parts. This unbalances the turbo at 180k-200k = increased wear on the bearings, reduced performance.
• particles stick to MAP, throttle body and most important to valves. This increases the deposits from the already prone to carbon deposits direct injected engine = decreased performance.

All of the above combined leads to long term reduced performance and greater chance of valve deposits falling in the cylinder and then going through the turbo hot side, possibly doing some damage and then sticking on the CAT. again dropping performance.
So what is the point of gaining a few hp (if any) and certainly loosing performance and reliability long term?

I've run a high flow air filter in all of my turbo charged cars and maybe Ive been lucky or maybe it's because I've proper cleaned them at routine service intervals but my wife's 2015 WRX is approaching 100k miles and the motor and turbo are running strong. It has a K&N. Before that my 2012 Mazdaspeed 3 had a K&N high flow air filter in it and before it was totaled from being rear ended into another car around 60k miles it never skipped a beat.

 

[dantegl36]

Some more data. I took the other intake off. There is some minor dust in the tube in the upper portion. As you move down there is little to no dust. This side actually looked cleaner than the first. I don't have any baseline data of what the intake looked like prior to putting the Sprint in (maybe someone else can help out here).

Edit: I made corrections to this post after taking apart the entire air collector (below) and checking out the filter orientation again.

Air collector photo

Intake line photo

 

[dantegl36]

The curious side of me has taken over. I went and pulled the air collector out to see if in fact there is dust getting past the Sprint filter. There is not. It is straight up spotless. Not sure where the little amount of dust I saw actually came from but the Sprint filter is not the cause. Some photos for those interested. The second and third photo are most telling. The fins are in the direct air flow path and have no particulate accumulation on them. Both my wife and I wiped out fingers all over the exhausts to the intakes and came away with clean fingers.

 

[DeXa]

Maybe mine is defective can’t tell for sure, but there was certainly a lot of dust particles after the filter and the MAF was all covered in dust.

 

[stocki]

I've cleaned my Sprint filter after about a year of usage.

There was no obviously visible dust in the tubing past the filter.
A few insects were caught by the filter - otherwise there was not much to report.

I prefer it to the K&N and BMC products I've used before. Cleaning it is much simpler, faster and free.

 

[Triumph23]

Sprint is certainly faster to clean....

 

[Jwin]

Are these sprint filters really designed and made in Italy? They are from Latvia, not the same.