Before installing the Racingline R600 air intake system on my GTI to collect intake air temperature data I decided that I wanted to use an air filter that I had confidence in.
The R600 comes equipped with a foam filter and I’m not confident that the foam will do a good filtration job.
A direct fit replacement is available from MST Performance as an R600 replacement kit. I decided this would be a good solution but wanted to check if there would be a change in airflow performance using the different material and shape of intake air filter.
The MST Performance replacement filter was installed in the Racingline R600 airbox without any problems and then the system was attached to the flowbench to measure the airflow.
The chart below shows the results between using the Racingline foam filter with Racingline intake hose and CTS TIP versus the MST Performance fabric filter with the MST intake hose and TIP.
There is a small decrease in airflow when using the MST Performance intake. With a margin of error around 2 CFM it is possible the difference could be less. It is also worth noting that at peak airflows with systems such as these where there are multiple attached components a very slight change in alignment between parts can easily impart a change of 2-3 CFM when the airflow is at the maximum value.
As a practical matter the airflow values measured from the R600 intake system are nearly the same whether the original foam filter or MST Performance filter are used.
More notable is that the R600 “closed” system flows equally well with either filter as the open intake systems that have previously been tested, the Integrated Engineering intake and the Induct Performance intake.