Upgrades 5. Air Filter

There are certain parts of the standard Caterham setup that really bother me and the stock air box is one of them. The intake for the air box doesn't line up with the grill in the bonnet which looks pretty awful and once you have seen it, you cannot un see it. Also because it doesn't line up properly I can't help but think it cannot be getting all the air it needs to perform well (half of the intake is blocked by the bonnet metal). I also won't forget to mention the induction sound is pretty poor. The other downside is the size. I'm planning on putting a tool kit and warning triangle in the car somewhere and changing this may open up enough space to let me put one in its place. One final benefit is that taking the bonnet on and off with the original air box is a pain, it always gets caught on it.

So with all that in mind I decided I'd replace it with a fully coned air filter instead which is much smaller and will open up some space under the bonnet for other things.

After a bit of searching on the forums I settled on the ITG brand of filters and went for the "ITG Maxogen Fully Coned Air Filter JC60 with Rubber Neck, Inner Diameter 70mm". I was advised that these come un-oiled and so I also purchased an "Air Filter Cleaning kit", which comes with both the Air Filter Oil and Cleaning Fluid (which I will end up using as part of the service schedule). the kit I ordered has the JDR2 oil as advised.

This was a simple job and only really involved removing the original air box, oiling the new filter, massaging the oil in (from the outside only!) and replacing with the new coned air filter. I also blocked the 3 holes up with 3 M5 A4 grade bolts.

You can see from the photos below just how much space is freed up where the old air box sits. I'm going to see if I can get something off the shelf to fit in its place and then use the 3 M5 screw holes to secure it.