Quote:
Originally Posted by johnung
MST has a great reputation for not throwing CELs. I haven’t seen most of the ones that you mentioned but I’ll keep an eye out for them.
Like I said it’s my opinion that the round smooth flow of the MST Intake and MST Inlet piping doesn’t leave much room for flow improvement from airfilter to turbo housing. Maybe there are some out there who are equal, since MST’s design has been out there for years. But again my opinion is that it would be difficult to be better
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It's still not perfect:
https://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1678149
It's almost impossible to replicate maf sensor scaling with a large rounded tube, since it allows so much more flow through it and in a different manner vs the stock trapezoidal shape. The few ways to attempt and achieve factory like maf scaling is either by ovaling the tube (In certain sections) as that decreases the cross sectional area (yes if you oval a circle it mathematically decreases the inner cross sectional area), this allows you to manipulate air flow up stream around the maf sensor and try (likely won't be perfect) to achieve factory like maf scaling, they'll also try to do this with the maf sensor housing positioning as well. Or like cts does, use an adapter housing for the maf (this is probably the cheaper and easier way to do this, because you don't have to worry about the entire tube's geometry just where the maf sensor is sitting, this also allows you to more easily manufacture the tube because you can keep a simple mandrel bent aluminium tube everywhere else, and just connect the maf adapter onto it). These types of intakes are designed in such a way that you won't ever get a CEL because they actually try and account for the maf sensor scaling.
Imo there's no way mst can do that with just a massive perfectly rounded tube. Then there's others like infinity who take great care with their CFD work to prevent cel's, and that's not cheap nor easy to do properly. It's easy to just throw a wire mesh model into CFD and look at the results, it's more difficult to fine tune it properly. It's also resource expensive, because running CFD with enough cells is very very resource intensive. Infinity also uses their inverted cone filter design because it has less air flow disruptions, and they have a venturi effect built into their intake mouth, so again they're taking air flow very seriously.
But anyways, I have my doubts that mst was able to do much with maf scaling on a perfectly rounded tube, and Imo it doesn't look like much work went into air flow design for the mdt intake either, rather just get a larger tube, high flow cone filter, and fitment to get it all to fit in the confines of the engine bay. So imo mst isn't the pinnacle of air flow on an intake. That likely is infinity design, their only con is the price. In regards to how close the performance is when everything is pushed to very high flow levels (larger upgrade turbos), I'm not sure, but I wouldn't say it's negligible - at these levels the CFD likely matters and infinity would likely come out on top. In terms of the overall package, I like turner's offering the best. They have a very nice and attractive carbon tube - which is designed to avoid CEL's, a very high quality filter, and it should allow decent flow too - all for a relatively decent price.