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There was a bit of discussion on the mailing list about modifying the RC17's standard air filter. Whether this was to improve airflow at high RPM or whether this was a means to save a bit of money by having a reusable air filter was never determined.

Bruce sent a few photos of his air filter mods to the list, and whilst practical and easy to implement, we had a few worries about how well it would work in high airflow conditions.

Our main concern with Bruce's filter was that the filter foam would lift away from the filter frame under high airflow. However, Bruce says that his modification works fine for him, and who are we to argue?

As it so happened, I had just replaced my air filter, so I took the old one to pieces. Mainly to see how it was made, but also to see if it was possible to create a reusable air filter from it.

Taking the air filter to pieces was fairly simple - unbend the folds along the sides where the top is held on, carefully break the glue, then pull the top off. The filter element is attached to the top, so use a knife and cut it off. From there, you can remove the filter element by cutting the paper - I used a blunt screwdriver. Just be careful not to break the glue - it's all that holds the air filter together.

If you look closely at the rear of the air filter, you can see that the lip has been folded back over - this acts as a clamp to keep the top of the filter in place. I had to bend some of the corners a little so that it would fit smoothly together. If you take your time, you should have no trouble seeing which bits to cut out and which bits to bend.

The edge nearest the camera has been folded over and flattened. This was mainly to increase the rigidity of the air filter, but also to allow it to fit back into the air box.

Mr_T has suggested that removing the wire gauze would improve air flow even more, however this would be a tricky task - the wire gauze is spot welded to the perforated sheet, and glued to the sides.

This picture shows the modified top of the air filter - the edge nearest the camera has been straightened from it's original shape, and re-bent about 5mm closer to the center of the filter.

The original fold line is about where screw hole is. The other end of the lid was left intact (apart from putting a couple of screw holes in it).

All up, it took me about 4 hours to reshape the air filter. I took a few wrong turns along the way, and spent some time thinking about how to go about certain steps. If you know what you want (and how to get there), you should be able to knock over one of these mods in about 2 hours or less.

Of course, the filter is almost unusable as it stands - the wire gauze is not able to trap small dirt particles, and dust would go straight through it. This is not terribly good for your engine. From here, I need to get hold of some filter foam and some air filter oil. A layer of foam about 5mm thick should be enough to filter the air stream nicely, and not obstruct air flow too much.

Several months (perhaps even a year) after I wrote these pages, one of our Brazilian members sent a series of photos to the Team mailing list. Although they were very short on textual content, the 15 images show how he replaced the core of the standard airfilter with a three-stage filter foam from Mold'spuma. See www.moldspuma.com.br for more details.

I think that the photos speak for themselves. The thumbnail images are links to the larger pictures.

Thumbnail	Filesize (KBytes)	Text from the e-mail
	66	necessary materials
	86	removing the filter
	84	removing the 1st cover
	77	whole the disassembled covers
	69	the old filter
	63	placing oil in the filter
	64	that disorder
	57	placing in the screen
	84	setting up the box of the filter
	80	gluing the box
	71	gluing the filter in the box
	69	Already agglutinated
	68	filter already mounted
	75	setting up
	78	the end

Just to prove that there is no end to the inventiveness of TeamRC17 members, Nick in Greece replaced the standard air filter with individual pod filters. A 1.8MByte PDF file is a record of his efforts