K&N Air Filter

If you want more Performance then a good way is to change the standard filter & filter box to a High Flow Filter like a K&N Filter. The idea behind the K&N Filter is to get rid of the restrictive original Air Filter Box - The original Air Box is only drawing air through a fairly small opening & the length & twists & turns of the intake tubing ( it's a plumbers nightmare really !! ) make it pretty hard to get air from the outside to the engine quickly.

The K&N Filters are re-usable so you will never have to buy another air filter again. You will just need to use the K&N Cleaning kit every 100,000 or so miles. Which pretty much means that unless you drive a hell of a lot of miles you will not be needing to buy the kit for a fair few years yet.

The K&N filter is not specifically for the Sportrak but works great and improves the Performance of the Sportrak nicely. The car becomes more responsive and acceleration is increased. Plus the engine become more efficent and engine emmissions are lower. The K&N that fits the Sportrak is Part number R-1380. Places tend not to have this one in Stock but anywhere should be happy to order it in for you, even halfords! The price depending on where you buy it from can be from £36-£45. The £36 was including delivery from http://www.filterpower.co.uk/ and took about a week to arrive.

Fitting the filter is easy enough and should take no longer than 20 minutes and thats if the screws and nuts are rusted! You first have to remove the old airbox. Which is the huge black maze of pipes with the big black cylinder. You remove that up until the black pipe with an arrow on it and some writing. This is what the filter will be connected to. Next unscrew the pipe from the front of the car as it will not give you enough clearance for connecting the filter. You will have to knock up some sort of bracket to secure the pipe to the area you just unscrewed it from. Usually drilling a couple of holes in a inch or 2 inch piece of metal works or even known people use a piece of wire hanger to make one. Just as long as the filter wouldn't be touching any of the pipes below or to the side of the filter once it is fitted. You now attach the filter and make sure it is on nice and tight, and thats all there is to it.

The setup should look similar to the picture below and when you start your engine you may or may not hear a slightly differnt tone to the engine. But you will definately notice the difference when you first drive it after fitting the filter and when accelerating the engine will have a nice deep roar, especially in cold weather or when in 4 wheel drive ive noticed.