DocDirk YOur K&N airfilter uses
oil to caught the debry in the air. It also slows down the air intake speed to the carb. You are trying to get a ramming effect withthe aircleaner. Does your air cleaner have the top that is filtered for a straight shot into the carb? If not this will cost you some HP and torque. mostly in the upper rpm range. Before you get crazy, you need to open that exhaust system up to a 3-3 1/2 muffler inlet and outlet in the side pipe. 500+cid breaths alot of air. Do you have a hood scoop on the car? Before spending alot of money, goto the auto store like Autozone or Pepboys and get a 14" airfilter that is just paper. Try for something taller that will fit under your hood when down and give you 1" of clearance to not hit the hood. Have a low profile aircleaner that sits around the carb BUT make sure it clears the throttle linkage to your carb. These help bend the air into the carb. I have a small 10" round that helps with the flow on my motor. There is a differents between a carb and throttlebody. Do 3 dyno runs with the air filter, you will find that a good paper filter works just as good as a $100.00 K&N. Some of this also has to deal with how much
oil is on the screen materials. The best race filter I used to run was a 14" low profile that looked like a plate. It had foam (black) and a wire support. Worked great with a hood scoop but was not the greatest for cleaning the air. I used window screen to fix this. Worked great but one back fire through the carb and it was all over for this air filter
Don't get crazy, fix the exhaust first, then spend your hard earned money on the other things.
REMEMBER it's just a big air pump. Big inlet, big outlet. It needs to breathe.
