I've been banging the phone and e-mail with K&N trying to convince them that there is a viable (albeit small, but lucrative) market for them to produce their Xtreme line of top lid filters in something other than black anodized finishes.
They offer polished, red and blue in the 14" size, but only black in the 9" offerings. The smaller unit is ideal for both single and dual carb applications for our beloved cars. I figure that most of us would rather spend $60 on a filtering enhancement if it added a little flash under the hood. Am I alone here?
Honestly, I've been considering buying one of their 9" units and adding the Xtreme top, but I'm grappling with the asthetic qualities (performance is only part of the equation).
Question: Would any of you more seriously consider the Xtreme lid offering if they provided more finish choices? With enough responses to this thread, I will consider sending K&N a link and they can see for themselves. At a minimum, maybe we can convince them to do a limited production run and buy them factory direct?!? I know you guys that run the turkey pans would benefit greatly from this mod.
-Deano
P.S. Received my Summit catalog yesterday and they now sell K&N filter oil in different colors!. That's right, you can now change the color of the air filter element to blue, red, clear, etc. Pretty cool......
Last edited by RedBarchetta; 04-21-2004 at 12:29 PM..
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I might. Seems to me the 9" adds just under 100 CFM. Right now I am stacking the filters in the Stellings because I have the clearence to do so. But for those who want to stick to the pan and have limited hood clearence it would help. But the only thing you really see is the ring around the top. If it was polished I suppose it would look nicer.
Rick
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I bought one in black. Looks fine to me. Brushed aluminum would have looked better with the aluminum cold air box. Wouldn't have paid much more for it though.
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Last edited by flipper35; 04-21-2004 at 02:23 PM..
I bought one in black. Looks fine to me. Brushed aluminum would have looked better with the aluminum cold air box. Wouldn't have paid much more for it though.
More important would be to get them to manufacture the correct diameter lid (8.5) for the Stellings and Hellings.
Joe, good point, but I believe that Stellings and Hellings should be the ones to approach K&N. Someone has to foot the bill for the tooling to stamp out the 8.5" rings (vs. the current 9"). I doubt K&N would go for the expense.
It is far easier for K&N to simply take the existing 9" outer rings and skip the anodizing process and send them straight to the polishing department.
Can anyone who has one of these lids tell me how the filter element is attached to the outer ring? I'd imagine it's some form of press fit whereby you can't separate the components without messing up something. But according to the pics above, you can see there is an inner lip that the filter element rests on.
I joked with the K&N rep yesterday that if I was Boyd Coddington calling him asking for a custom outer ring, they would do it without hesitation. And he agreed....
Last edited by RedBarchetta; 04-22-2004 at 08:08 AM..
Red...
I don't believe Stellings &Hellings is a around anymore. They are all reproductions. I emailed K&N awhile ago asking for a custom size. They turned me down.
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Personally, I think the colored air filter element is a "ricer" thing....to each his own.
As for the Xtreme lid, I'll be at Knott's this weekend and I'm sure I'll see at least one car there with one. Hopefully the owner will be close by and will let me take a closer inspection of it before I plunk down 60 bones for one of my own.
I run the 14" X'Streme with the black ring. The filter material and inner and outer grids are epoxied to the ring.
Do not forget that the primary purpose of the "air filter" is flame suppression. I believe that's why there was such a long delay in the release of the original X'Streme tops. The product has a perforated steel plate underneath and the small holes must limit the flow quite a bit. I feel like this top helped my car a lot because the Holly air tubes are so close to the bottom of it. Otherwise, it would not have had a significant effect.
Just get the black one and spray paint the color you want!
Paul
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I'm interested in the 8.5"s my self. That would put the tops into the air flow at scoop. I have no clearence to work with.Front edge of front air cleaner is under hood and rear of rear air cleaner is against the rear of the scoop. Leaving marks.
The 9" top will fit a 8 1/2" stellings, but the edge will overlap a little. I am using one on my stellings. A guy a run-n-gun told me that the 9" top makes a big difference, and there was no loss in hp for a 500 hp engine, running one of these 9" filters with an xtreme lid, as tested on a dyno compared to a 14" filter.
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K&N Proposal (Xtreme top lids)
Linear Mode
