BY P. MANCINI
Air filters for endothermic engines are made for different types of applications. In karting, one tries to obtain, as in all motorsport disciplines, the maximum performance with respect to the reliability of the engine. The basic problem is to find the ideal ratio between the quantity of filtered air and filtering quality, two objectives in full contrast: it must be remembered that dust contains a large quantity of silica, which is the same material used for emery tools …The filter always generates, however small or slight, a drop in flow to the intake system: this translates into a smaller amount of air sucked in by the engine, a smaller amount of usable fuel and, as a logical consequence, a drop in engine power compared to a less conservative or even “free” configuration (without filter element). The air filters produced for competitions are designed to guarantee maximum performance thanks to the increase in air flow and the possibility of burning a greater quantity of gasoline, improving volumetric efficiency, combined with optimal filtering and the possibility of being washed for subsequent uses. It must be remembered, in fact, that a clean air filter always guarantees better performance than a dirty or even partially clogged one: a performance difference evident even at the stopwatch!