Installation of BMC air filter on 458 - VIDEO

Hey guys,

I installed a BMC air filter on my 458 today. Here's a video I just uploaded to YouTube, in case anyone is interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9BYJ44rUTU

Reasonably straightforward job, but there are a couple of points which are worth noting. I made the video just to help anyone else thinking about doing this job themselves and/or who is curious about what all is involved.

With a few simple tools, it's certainly something you can accomplish yourself in maybe 30-45 minutes.

Ray

 

They generally flow a bit more air and have less restriction. I'm mainly testing the filter out to see if it allows the car to run more smoothly or idle more stable, etc. I've had good luck with them on my 355 and 360 as well as on the motorcycles. However, I stay on top of maintenance very closely when using these filters.

I'm going to run the filter for a few hundred miles to see if I notice any difference. If not, I may switch back to the factory air cleaner, since I drive the 458 quite a bit.

Ray

 

I'll follow up with a report on my impressions after driving the car a few more days. I just did a quick test run into town and back (nothing crazy) and didn't really notice a heck of a lot of difference.

With the K&N on my 360, there was definitely a noticeable difference in the intake noise. On the 458 - at least as far as I can tell thus far - I don't hear any difference in the induction noise.

I'm going to flip the car back to sport mode tomorrow and see if I can hear anything. In TC OFF, I don't hear much over the exhaust note

Ray

 

Thanks!

Do you have the one with the two cone shaped air filters inside?

Ray

 

I usually do drive with one or both windows down. The intake noise hasn't been more pronounced, but I usually drive the car in TC OFF mode, which is a bit louder than sport mode.

That's a good point about the CF frame and heat; I hadn't thought of that. When you say CF frame, are you saying the lower part of the air box is also CF or just the cover?

Ray

 

Oh, by the way, I wanted add that I contacted Ferrari (technically the Ferrari of Houston dealership) and asked about that carbon looking thing that is glued to the under side of the factory air cleaner. They checked with service and told me that it's not an activated charcoal filter, but just a pre-filter that is supposed to even out air flow a bit.

So that's sort of interesting to note. I wanted to mention it here in case anyone else is wondering what that is and/or researching its purpose.

Ray

 

The carbon fiber race version is very nice. I wonder how much better that functions with regard to the heat?

Next time I run the car hard on the street, I will check to see what temp the air box housing is (where the BMC filter mounts). For track use, I think the carbon fiber one might be helpful, but for street use I don't know if it would be required or not. I will take some temperature readings soon though.

Ray

 

So I was sort of surprised to see that BMC has two versions of this filter for the 458 Italia. One with a carbon fiber frame that they call their "race" version and another one with just the normal rubber frame.

In doing a little searching, I see there have been several cases of the rubber melting on the BMC filters. On your average Honda or Toyota, where there might not be as much heat generated, maybe this isn't a big problem. However, on the 458, given the large amounts of heat generated in the engine compartment - not to mention the bottom of the air box being made of metal and its close proximity to the exhaust system - this does give me pause.

For me, I don't want to take any chances. Also, since the factory air filter seems to be a pretty good design - and I don't hear or feel any noticeable improvement from the BMC filter - I think I'm going to play it safe and just re-install the factory air filter, unless I can figure out some other option here.

Pretty disappointed that BMC would sell two version of this filter, instead of just making one which can stand up to the heat generated either on the track or street.

With that said, I think the issue probably mainly relates to direct contact against the metal of the lower part of the air box; this being the case, I might be able to use some sort of ceramic / silica insulation barrier or something to help protect the silicone/rubber or whatever BMC is using around the edge of their filter. I'm going to do a little bit of research and see what I can come up with.

I did just pull the BMC filter out to check it and it's totally fine, although I have only drive the car a couple of times. I'm going to take a closer look and see what I can figure out here, since the overall filter looks pretty nice. I, myself, would just like to have a bit more insurance against it being in direct contact with the lower portion of the air box, given that it's made from metal and sits near the exhaust system.

Ray

 

I opted to remove the BMC filter from my car for now. Let me add my 2 cents here based on the informal testing I did yesterday. I'll also upload a video of the test I did in a minute.

First off, I'm not disputing anything Rob (or Mark) are saying above with regard to the quality of the BMC filter. I think it's a good product and has its application on the car for sure. Moreover, both Rob and Mark (at Carbonio) are great business men and I would put a lot of stock in anything they say regarding the products they sell. I also called Fabspeed and asked them about the filter and they echoed exactly what Carbonio said, in that they had never seen any issues and that the filters are commonly used under racing conditions, etc.

In any even, yesterday, I pulled the BMC filter out of my car to check to see how heat affected the rubber of the filter, since I (like others probably) had run across a few posts online showing the BMC filter "melting". That's enough to make you want to double check things, let me tell ya. Anyway, so what I did was use a heat gun to apply very high concentrated heat to the edge of the BMC filter (where the red silicone/rubber is) to see what would happen. Let me point out, this is probably far and away more heat than the filter would ever experience back there, even from the likes of the 458 on the track or anything.

I have to say, I was very impressed with how well the rubber material stood up. Even under very high focused heat (probably over 800 degrees) it didn't deform or melt or anything. So that was nice to see. I think the couple of posts on-line regarding the BMC filter disintegrating or coming apart around the edges might be some sort of very isolated cases where something else (some place else in the car) went wrong and resulted in rather unusual circumstances or something (for example, I believe one post mentioned there was a hole in the exhaust system or something, which had increased heat coming into the motor compartment).

It's also good to hear from Carbonio that the reasons for the CF frame are to address weight and stiffness, rather than to address any shortcomings in the less exotic version of the filter.

So, this being the case.. why did I remove it?

Here are my personal reasons:

1. I currently have the extended warranty on my car, so in the end, I decided it was probably better to just stick with the factory parts for now.

2. In the few miles I did run the BMC filter, I didn't really notice a heck of a lot of difference. I think part of this could be because the stock 458 air filter is perhaps a better design than what was formerly used on the older cars (e.g. the 355 or 360). With that said, however, I will say that I did test the BMC filter against the 458 factory filter using my air compressor. What I did was just stand both filters up and then blow air through each of them from a distance of about 6 inches, while having my hand on the other side in order to feel how much air was coming through. There is no disputing that more air was coming through the BMC filter. I couldn't put an exact figure on it, but if I had to make an educated guess, I'd probably say at least 20% more air flow.

3. When I was testing the edge of the BMC filter with heat to see how the rubber stood up, I did notice that under very concentrated heat, the oil in the filter material tended to vaporize and smoke. I don't know if this would ever occur under normal operating conditions, but it was interesting to note. The other thing I noticed was that the metal mesh used in the construction of the BMC filter definitely became very warm when I applied any heat to the overall filter (and this probably contributed to the tendency of the oil to vaporize and smoke off when running the heat gun across the filter). Again, probably not something the filter would ever be exposed to under normal operating conditions - especially since when the car is moving, there is constant air cooling the filter down. Nevertheless, it did make me a little uncomfortable.

I don't think the metal mesh & oiled design of the BMC filter poses any real major issues. However, with that said, this is one situation [for me personally] where I feel (at least while running a stock exhaust system) that I may be better off just sticking with what Ferrari has engineered.

As mentioned, I'll post a video of my testing in a minute.

Ray

 

That looks pretty nice! The entire airbox (upper and lower) is carbon fiber correct?

Ray

 

Here's the follow up video on the BMC filter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OIJe8QqHAI

I don't think the BMC or K&N type filters are bad in any way. In fact, I ran them on my 355 and 360 without any issues whatsoever. And as this video shows, I think any fears of the BMC filter melting under normal operating conditions are largely unfounded. I was actually very impressed with how well it withstood direct heat.

I also think it confirms that the BMC filter tends to flow better.

I will say this:

In hindsight, if I was planning to install an aftermarket exhaust (which myself, I probably don't think I'm going to do), then I think I would probably make the slightly larger upfront initial investment and go for the full air box from BMC - the one that has the twin cone filters inside. It's more pricey than just a filter change, but I think the full CF airbox design might help mitigate heat a bit more (as compared to the metal factory airbox) and also help improve airflow over the stock setup.

Anyway, I put the video up for anyone that might be interested in seeing it what I went through as far as checking to see how well the rubber withstands direct heat. Yes, I ended up putting the factory air filter back in for now, but a big part of that was because I'm probably going to stick with the factory exhaust for now also.

Ray