How many of you that purchased the Vararam, or the Widemouth laughed when you saw how cheap the air filter that comes with the Vararam looked? It is restrictive to boot. Well here is what I spent my morning doing, installing a K&N filter in my Widemouth. As far as I know they do not make a K&N for the Vararam. Although I think you may be able to have one custom made. This particular K&N was cut to fit from a 6" cylindrical filter I had on hand.

 

Very nice

 

Nice mod...I think you may be on to something!

 

Thanks! It all started when I pulled my throttlebody off to clean it lol! One thing led to another. I removed the widemouth to inspect the filter. With the rain and snow here, dry salt on the roads, I figured I'd see if I could clean it. If you have the Vararam, or have seen the filter that comes with it, it appears that it needs to be cleaned very often, because of type of the two filter medias used. I started to clean it, and started thinking about how well all my K&N's had allowed airflow in, compared to this filter material. I only had a 6" round K&N filter out in the garage, and wondered if I could use it. I used a sawzall and cut the rubber ends off of the 6" K&N, because there is a metal mesh behind it, that will also not be reused. It laid out perfectly flat after all the cutting was done, I was very happy. I removed the filter material from the Vararam's filter gasket leaving the Vararam's gasket and wire, and put the gasket aside. I then used the Vararam's sponge type filter media as a template, drew my cut lines on the K&N, and used a pair of tin snips to make the cuts, easily cutting through the K&N's paper and small wire mesh material. It is important to leave about a 1/4" of material all the way around for a tight fit. I took the Vararam's filter gasket and wire mesh, and inserted the cut K&N inside, laying against the wire. The front of the Vararam's filter housing that holds the filter in, has a lip behind the openings that you will need to grind down to allow a flush fit with the K&N filter installed. I then put it back together, and there is a tight seal all the way around, due to the reuse of the Vararam's filter gasket which is imperative. I should have taken pics. through the whole installation, but I think people will know by reading this post and seeing the pics. it is very straight forward.
In the other pictures, you can see that I have the black plastic shroud removed that runs from the top of the condenser to the bottom of the nose. This allows airflow through the front fog lamp screens and under the nose deflected by the spoiler up into the inlet of the Vararam Widemouth. I tested the existing filter that was removed from the Vararam against the K&N using a vacuum cleaner and articles of varying weight (nuts and bolts). The existing filter failed to pick up the heavier items, where the K&N was successful. That was all I needed to see. I took the car out on the highway for a test drive and noticed excellent throttle response, strong acceleration and a 2 degree drop in normal coolant temperature. I imagine the PCM is learning the new airflow due to the filter test. I am very satified with the results so far.

 

Very happy with my Vararam on my Z06. I did switch to the K&N filter and it just took a little trimming of the edges of the filter frame and some adhesive foam to seal it in. Works great
BTW, here's a link to LAPD's K&N filter: http://www.thelapd.com/Merchant2/mer...e_Code=thelapd

 

Thanks for that link. I see others have noticed how bad the stock Vararam filter is.

 

I wonder if it will help performance w/ the K&N, but I'd imagine it should...
I've read that some people have picked up more than 2 mph in the qtr by ditching the Vararam filter on their VR unit (not really a good long-term idea though).
I think I'll replace the element w/ that K&N unit & see if I can top 120
mph in the qtr (high one teens now).

Nice work there