Which Inducton Kit Is Best Value

[lesstatt]

I'm going to buy an induction kit to go with my CRP and Magnex exhaust, trouble is there are so many around, i've heard the talk about ITG, Hurricane and they are around £150 ish but there is a K&N 57i kit at Bell & Coville for £55.00 delivered , does anyone else have one of these at all and if so does it sound nice.

[Kris H]

Hello - you'll find real diverse views on this I suspect. The K&N is by some distance the cheapest as you point out, then the hurricane, then the ITG which will probably be over £300 (before fitting). Fitting induction kits really is easy if you actually work out what you're doing before you start. I have a hurricane personally and I think it sounds excellent. That was about £160 or so. I suspect you'll find that the majority of folks on here who have an induction kit have the hurricane although a few will have the others. If you want to get the views of quite a few who have the K&N then I'd suggest posting on SELOC as well since more over there will have one.

[Mark H]

Trouble with the K&N is that it sucks the hot air in from the engine bay!

 

You can make your own "flowerpot" housing to get around this though with a bit of Blue Peter skills and some ducting.

[daves2111s]

I've got the Hurricane it's fine no problems.

It was actually designed for the Elise.

I have heard of a few problems fitting it on S2's not that it doesn't fit perfectly but it's a bit awkward if you don't check with one of the threads of this site how to do it. (I cheated and let Horizon do it at the same time as my Janspeed....lovely )

 

(The instructions that come with it haven't been translated very well.... more like something from China )

 

 

Go with the Hurricane you won't regret it I think it looks better in the engine bay than the ITG especially if you colour code it to your car.

 

Check out my garage shots.

 

Dave

[Mark A]

Over the years I have used a K&N and a Hurricane on Elises I have owned in the past. I also run proper filters (non-paper ones) in every car I own.

 

K&N is good for noise but nothing else, probably reduces power due to the hot air it takes in! It isn't even the cheapest option! (see below)

 

Hurricane is quite good, adds noise and probably a touch of power. However there is a very similar product which is cheaper. Hurricane costs approx £180 with VAT and P&P.

 

ITG is the best, but also costs almost double the price of the Hurricane, if money is not an issue this is the one to buy.

 

The option you haven't mentioned is probably the most cost effective. Buy a panel filter (K&N or ITG (personally I'd use the ITG one)) remove the standard airbox and cut off the inlet pipe, you will see it is very restrictive, and cut a large hole in it in that area, approx 110mm, then buy some ducting hose from B&Q at a similar 110mm diameter and connect to the LH air intake and the modified airbox.

This may not give you loads of extra noise but it will improve the power slightly, although less than the Hurricane or ITG.

[Scott_Mac]

Mark has pretty much got it...

 

I use a Hurricane too, as do most I think..... it makes a great noise, the throttle response is slightly better etc.

 

Value for money it wins IMO. BUt the modded airbox option is also worth considering

[GCCK]

Alan

The K&N is loud but is it NICE loud? IMHO there's not much quality to the noise, just lots of it, most of the time.

 

Got a Hurricane and like the way it woofles when you put your foot down but unobtrusive at constant throttle opening e.g motorway. For any sort of performance, as Mark says, apart from DIY (which is a bona fide solution), you really have to go Hurricane or ITG because they duct in ambient air and allegedly provide a ram-air effect due to the ducting straight from the side intake.

 

Noise aside, you've really got to look at the whole engine if it's power you're after. Is the induction a bottleneck? Without upgrades to head etc, can the engine do anything useful with the extra air? There are lots of misleading figures bandied about: PTP claim the ITG Maxogen is worth around 8bhp - it may well be, but perhaps only when added or deleted from their 170bhp engine, when the standard induction would most certainly cause a bottleneck. If you have a basically standard engine (head, cams etc), a Hurricane or ITG might be worth 2-3bhp tops. I would be interested to see what these devices do to the torque curve of an otherwise completely standard engine, although curiously, I've never seen that comparison published anywhere...

 

Graeme

[lesstatt]

What if i got the K&N and some ducting as suggested and routed it from the side vent to the front of the filter, would that work ?? or not much difference to the incoming air temp, does the hurricane fit directly to the side vent ??

[Steve J]

You can add the ducting from the side vent to the K&N. This would do a similar job to the Hurricane (i.e. source air from outside the car).

 

Hurricane comes with ducting and plastic scoop that fits on inside of side vent.

Neither will provide air any cooler than the outside temp, but it will be cooler than the temp in the engine bay.

 

Have a look at some of the cars at the next run and see what you like best.

[Scott_Mac]

ON the S1 the pipe actually seals to the pod on the left hand side, so the air gets in pretty quickly as the car moves.

 

Makes a big difference and i reckon it will work better than a bodged job with a K&N etc...

[Zircon450]

Important information required here Scott.

 

The pipe is sealed into the n/s duct.

 

How, where, when, why,

 

Surely not a direct feed, what about rain etc.

 

Which way is the config ?

 

Any piccies ?

 

Tango190

[dobbo]

The Hurricane pipe is sealed to the inlet duct with (crappy) supplied tape, or something stronger.

 

It has a drain hole or two for rain, so you must fit it the right way up !!

 

Taking the old airbox and pipe out is the hardest part of fitting the Hurricane.

 

There is some ram effect at speed, but don't know how to measure it except with your ar8e-based speedo.

 

Chris

[Scott_Mac]

Yup, see above.

[Kris H]

hurricane is more about noise than power etc though, but IMHO much neater than the K&N if that sort of thing bothers you. Sound is really good as Graeme describes and for me, worth it for that alone. Any claims about power etc are somewhat questionable I'd suggest. ITG seems to be considered a little quieter, and possibly one or two bhp over the hurricane but not anything earth shattering.

 

Inlet pipe fits to the px side by the way, unless I've seriously arsed mine up!

[Scott_Mac]

Inlet pipe does go to pax side yes....