my BMC hard plastic mountings split, fortunately got a refund, its a flawed design end of, you could damage your whole engine, if the air filter falls off the mount in situ, metal screw mountings MUCH BETTER than hard plastic rubbish from BMC

 

Good info to know for the future. It's a PITA to swap the filters so I won't do it too often. My car is garaged and only comes out on nice days. But, it will eventually see some auto cross time. And for those of you who might ask, it's a lot more fun to drive than a TTS. Not as powerful nor as fast but certainly more driver-focused and engaging. They are two different cars for two different purposes and both live-up to expectations.

 

FYI - Sharkwerks has a filter removal tool to make the job easier.

I swapped my dirty factory ones for BMC when I did a recent oil change. No power increase noticed, vut many of the tuners recommend the BMC filters when doing other mods/power kits.

The intake sound does change slightly. I am likely in the minority, but I wasn't the biggest fan of how the sound changed when I first had it done, although I'm used to it now.

 

I did a bunch of engine mods with OEM filters and had dyno results for all the work. Changed to BMCs when we de-coked to inlet ports and ran on the dyno again. Exactly the same power so filters made no difference.

 

Hey thanks for the tip on the aFe Power filters.

Installed 'em yesterday and butt-dyno says there's a noticeable difference. Revs spin a quicker on acceleration an rev-matching downshifts and hear a bit more punch on the exhaust note. Can't say I hear more intake sound (don't really hear any).

OE filters were 4 years old w/~20K miles. There was a slight accumulation of visible dirt on 'em but not horrible (like the originals were).

Thanks again.

 

Did you go with the dry or oiled version? I was considering trying the dry version since I don't like messing with oiling filters.

 

Went with the oiled version (the Magnum Flow Pro 5R - Blue).

I've used a K&N air filter on the Viper so am used to the cleaning and re-oiling process.
Just have to be careful not to over-oil 'em because it can gunk up the Mass Airflow Sensor (MAS) if the car has one.

But I've heard that our Caymans/Boxters don't have a MAS. Is true? What do they have?

Because on first start after the aFe install I noticed the engine did a little chuffing and rough idling.
After a short drive around the block it smoothed out completely and has been perfect ever since.

Obviously, the ECU makes some kind of magical adjustments.

 

981 Caymans have MAP sensors. Even though the MAP sensors are more forgiving with oiled filters, I was never good at re-oiling them in the past so I probably wouldn't mess with them on this car, especially since it's a pain to even get to the filters in the first place. But I could see the oiled BMC or aFe being a good option if you have that whole process down.