K&N Apollo or BMC DIA anyone?

Garfield · K&N Apollo or BMC DIA anyone?

Just a quickie to see if anyone has a K&N Apollo or BMC DIA fitted?

I currently have a K&N 57i with a cold air feed from under the front bumper but I've been meaning to box it in to isolate from the heat in the rest of the engine compartment for ages (potentially with a new cold air feed from the wiper plenum through the firewall. unfortunately I've got ABS as well so this makes both the boxing in and the feed from the firewall more difficult.

Hence I'm now looking at the Apollo or BMC that come with thier own full heatshield/airbox and was wondering if anyone had any experience of them...

Cheers!

5Alive

Nope i don't, i don't remember seeing any on any of the others cars, but i'm sure they will let us know if i'm wrong.

nathmill85

I had a K&N Apollo on my 1.8 mate, very good induction note and little heatsoak due to the shielding... you also get some ducting which makes it a sealed unit, however the direction of the airbox means that the filter faces to the rear... so unless you want to chop your bonnet then its not much use...

In the end i fitted the ducting anyway in the hope of supplying more air to that side of the engine bay however for maximum cold air you could raise the bonnet at the windscreen-end using spacers - this creates negative pressure, drawing more cold air into the bay.

Verdict: an improvement over the 57i due to the shielding but i remain sceptical as to any performance benefits other than a reduction in flat spots when giving beans liberally...

Garfield

Cheers Nath,

Mines a 1.8iS so the layout is pretty much identical - apart from having the ABS unit where your washer bottle is shown, my bottle being behind the front passenger wing/nosecone.

Anyhow, as you say the inlet for the apollo (and the BMC for that matter) both point towards the bulkhead which was where my idea of going through the firewall came from (that and the fact that the area at the base of the windscreen is under positive pressure when moving!). My other thought was to use my existing cold air feed from below the front bumper which stops directly under the 57i filter and extend it to the inlet for the Apollo/BMC (from the debris accumulating around it and some monitoring using a probe thermometer it currently does force in cold air!). By the looks of things the inlet may be too far back in though...

Just out of interest do you have any dimensions for the Apollo as I can't spot them on any of the websites.

PS Re performance I'm not sure the 57i helps but it does sound nice with my IL Motorsport exhaust - primarily because of the high underbonnet temperatures (another reason for trying to get all this sorted!).

nathmill85

not sure on dimensions tbh mate... all i know is that the heatshield fouled the suspension turret, scratching the paintwork with vibration, so i fitted a bracket to the existing airbox mount to lift it clear...

Garfield

Sounds about par for the course - I had to make up a bracket from the AFM to the original airbox mounting hole for the existing 57i to move it further into the engine compartment and stop it catching on the ABS unit and my suspension brace...

mxavo

on a similar subject,,i had a KnN induction kit on my Mk2.5 made lots of noise but to be honest did not change the performance so as you would notice so i reverted back to the original Mazda setup but fitted a KnN panel filter..runs a lot smoother and easier on the fuel pocket..not trying to be a killjoy as i know many of you do have induction kits and are quite happy..this is just my experience..cheers stu

Garfield

Yep been there as well - staretd off originally with it standard, then went to a Jackson Racing panel filter in the original airbox. That changed when I fitted the shock tower brace though as the intake snorkel top the top of the front wing fouled the brace. I overcame that by replacing the snorkel with some flexible Wyrem hosing of the same tuned length but then eventually put the 57i on when I got it cheap. I'm now looking to try and get the best of both worlds so to speak...