VWR air-intake filter conversion

In general, Volkswagen Racing air-intake is a little bit expensive but good solution for the high power output VW 2.0 TFSI engine.

But in my opinion it has some drawbacks. The biggest of them - is the foam rubber air filter itself that is made by ITG. Its cleaning process is very inconvenient comparing with other types of filters that made from cotton gauze (for example from K&N manufacturer).
Also, the cleaning kit for the foam air filter from ITG is more expensive than those that are cotton.
Actually, you may clean the foam filter with gasoline (allowed by manufacturer), but it stinks pretty much.☺

Moreover, if you"ll need to replace the filter with the new one - you will need to buy not only the air filter itself, but also the base of the air filter box. That is because the filter is glued directly to the base of the filter box, when manufactured and it is no way to buy it separately. Of course, this is increases (doubles) replacement cost.

So I decided to get rid from this foam filter and convert VWR air-intake system to use the cotton gauze air-filter.

How it was done?
First of all, I took the air filter box dimensions and started to search for the suitable universal air filter from well-known manufacturers.
Also, I wanted the filter with the maximum possible working surface area. Many cotton air filters has the muffled front side. I don't wanted to use them.

Finally I ordered the cotton gauze air filter from BMC.

BMC FBTW76-140P twin air filter

After the filter was received, the question that arose was: how exactly to perform the conversion?

First thing is to remove the foam ITG filter. This is how it looks after removal:

Foam ITG filter inside the VWR box

The filter was simply glued to its aluminum base.
After advice from the professional welder who helped me a lot with the conversion process, the decision was to build the 3" aluminum adapter pipe, that will connect the new cotton gauze filter to the air filter base.

That is how the adapter looks, welded to the filter base:

3" adapter for VWR air-intake

Then, everything else is pretty simple:
1. Mounting the filter on the adapter, cutting out about 2 cm. of the filters mount length, ensuring that the filter has at least 0.5 cm. free space from the box front.
2. Closing the air-filter box exactly as it was before.
3. Mounting the air-filter box back on car.

Finito. ☺
No visual changes from the outside, but my VWR air-intake now uses the universal cotton gauze filter, that may be easily cleaned using the cleaning kit from any cotton air-filters manufacturer (such as K&N or BMC).


Odometer: 57,000 km.

48K service

Engine oil change.

Full synthetic Wolf Vitaltech 5W40 (VW 502 00) + MANN HU 719/6x oil filter.
The oil has a very good specifications and suitable for hard working engines.

Also I've added an advanced oil additive Xenum VX 500 in order to ensure best engine performance and to prolong its life.

Odometer: 48,000 km.

Intake air filter cleaning

It's recommended to clean air filter at least each 30K km.
I decided to clean the filter after 25K km. after performing preliminary checks at 15 and 20K km.
The clean process for the foam ITG filter, that located under the hood of VWR cold air intake is simply enough. Just followed the instructions of the filter manufacturer.
Its very important to exactly follow these instructions, if you want to keep you filter (and the engine) safe and working for a long time.

The foam filter need to be oiled with special foam air filter oil. I used this one from Castrol:

Foam Air Filter Oil

 After the cleaning and oiling, the filter was returned to its intake box.

By the way, if you want to see how to clean air foam filter by yourself, you're welcome to follow this link. Thanks to vwgolf.net.au forum member Lucas_R.

Odometer: 44,100 km.

40K service

We're passed 40K km.
This is the regular oil change service, but it was done with some little additions.

Oil: Engine oil (Valvoline SynPower 5W-40, VW 502 00).
Filter: Mann HU 719/6x.

Also, the cam follower was replaced with the new one.
I'll show you comparison, that may be interesting for the 2.0 TFSI car owners. Two cam followers, that you can see in the picture below, passed 20K km.

Cam followers after 20K km.

The left one worked harder, because of HPFP upgrade. In general, the higher fuel pressure leads to the higher wear of the cam follower. The right one was installed prior to this upgrade and worked with the stock fuel pressure.

The brake fluid was changed from standard DOT4 to ATE TYP200 DOT4.

ATE TYP200 brake fluid

 Its advantage is higher boiling point, then stock fluid, that critical in the hard working conditions. Also the suggested change interval for this fluid is 3 years as opposed to only 2 years for the stock DOT4.

The brake lines was changed to stainless steel ones from HEL performance.  

HEL brake lines

This line kit eliminate that 'spongy' feeling often found with rubber hoses under extreme braking condition. 

That's all for now.

Engine Oil change

Oil and original oil filter were changed. The service was done in official SEAT garage.

Valvoline SynPower 5W-40, VW 502 00

Oil filter

I change engine oil at least each 10,000 km. At this time, the gap between the changes was 7,800 km.

Odometer: 21,500 km.

Volkswagen Racing air-intake

The important thing for high-output turbo engine - is a proper cold air intake system.
I chose the Volkswagen Racing cold air intake (VWR) system, that (by the way) recommended by APR.

VWR intake

This system is selected not by accident. According to dyno tests, it's allow the engine to produce the maximum power and very good air-flow starting from low RPM's and this is especially important in high RPM range. It's delivers gains as much as 9% greater at peak power, than the stock air-intake. Also, it has an excellent build quality.

The system comes with certificate of authenticity with a hologram sign and serial number.

VWR Certificate of Authenticity

VWR system was mounted by TIG Motorsport Engineering
As your may see, this system has a very solid and professional build and looks great.

VWR air-intake installed

I like how it performs. Now, I'm started to hear the engine "breath" in the middle-high RPM's :-)

Odometer: 18,900 km.