hey hammer.... i have all my parts for the DIY CAI except for the filter. autozone basically only carries K&N and Spectre. I dont want to get the spectre, but the K&n 3" looks awful short in length compared to the spectre. I really dont want to wait and order one. I was planning on putting my CAI on saturday morning while drinking a cold one. they had a 4" K&N and it looks to be the right length. But i need the 3" in order for it to fit the PVC. but it just looks to small. I really want the replacement filter for the K&N 57 model. I guess I want to know .. will the spectre do for now til i can order a K&N?

 

Yeah, the Spectre will do. I ain't a big fan of them but guys run them full time. However every store I've ever seen carry Spectre filters carries the Spectre 4" to 3" neck-down adapter for under $10. It's basically the boot that comes on the Spectra filters sold separately. I wanna say the part number is 9761 or 9762. OR you can go back to where you bought your PVC and get a 4" to 3" PVC reducer, should be right there with the elbows and other adapters. I've used them and my local Lowes sells them for $1.15.

Get either one and throw it on that 4" K&N...

 

Will I get better airflow with the K&N? Or is it just the better all around filter. I think that I remember you saying that the spectre doesn't filter to great.

 

Well we happened to discover how poorly the spectre filters filter completely by accident. I was working on building a CAI for Pyro (a former moderator here) who bought a fleabay one and the bracket that held it in place broke on the engine sidewall side from normal road vibrations. I had brazed it back together (couldn't weld it as it was just cheap pot metal). It lasted about three weeks when the bracket then snapped at the filter tube end. So we decided to just make one out of PVC and salvage the filter and heat shield from the fleabay one.

In cutting the PVC, I had the cone filter sitting about 2' away, filter standing up on my bench, open end down. After finishing the CAI and waiting for the paint to dry, he picked up the filter and noticed the larger pieces of plastic chips off my mitre saw was laying all around the circle where the filter was BUT there was fine white residue inside the circle, meaning it blew thru the filter.
At that I told him the filter was a POS and we went to Advance and bought a K&N, we then actually used my air compressor to blow PVC dust at both filters. You could dump out a small amount from the Spectre EVERY TIME, if there was any that made it into the center of the K&N it was too fine to see.

Very unscientific test case, but enough for me...

 

yeah i dont think i will be getting the spectre filter after that story. Im gonna run by advanced today and see what they have in stock. Their internet website is down at the moment so i havent been able to see what they have. I think they have the K&N 57 model in stock. maybe even the 77 model