Tuning, Performance and Handling
K&N Breather Filters
My
particular example of this car is fitted with a K&N air filter and matching
breather filter, this will be of interest to anyone out there who is thinking
of doing the same to their car. With the original air cleaner box there is a
section of the drivers side where two pipes are connected, one goes to the
rocker cover and the other goes to the inlet manifold. With a K&N kit
fitted these pipes become obsolete, the rocker cover pipe is dealt with by the
breather filter, the inlet manifold one however is not. I found that by simply
this hose up I started getting slight roughness in the idling of the car and it
seemed to lack the power it had before, I was also beginning experience
starting problems whether hot or cold. There is an adapter plate that can be
obtained from K&N that will allow this pipe to be reconnected to the side
of the air filter, but even this needed some modification as the hole through
the adapter allowed too much air through and made the car run too weak. I made
this modification and the car ran fine after that.
However, due to the rocker cover breather filter I was also getting a strong
smell of hot oil in the car which was making me feel sick and had started to
give me a headache when ever I drove. I was, therefore still looking for a
better solution to the problem. Then I went to Halfords, where I stumbled
across a replacement PCV unit for the 1300 and 1600 engines. PCV means Positive
Crankcase Ventilation and this has been built into the air cleaner on the 1400
whereas on the 1300 and 1600 it is a unit that plugs into the bottom of the air
cleaner. What you do with this is connect the rocker cover pipe to the big side
entry, connect the inlet manifold pipe to the small bottom entry and then
attach the breather filter to the top where the unit would normally fit into
the air cleaner. Hey presto, all pipes reconnected and all problems sorted.
