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Originally Posted by sspade
I picked up a K&N drop in today for 53$ from AutoZone. Best call for me at this point considering the almost nonexistent increase in power you can expect from an aftermarket intake system.
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That may or may not work well for you. Filters serve a very important function: filtering particulates out of the air that enters the engine. You get maximum air flow with no filter, but your engine wouldn't last long. You get maximum filtration with minimal airflow, but that's obviously not the best idea either. Any filter is going to be a compromise one way or another. Since BMW doesn't make money by replacing engines under warranty OEM is going to lean towards better protecting the engine.
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Definitely a learning point for me with turbo engines or maybe just BMW in general not gaining much from aftermarket intakes right out of the box.
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+1. The more you know about how engines work the less inclined you should be to replace the air intake. There may be some gains to be made, but the stock intake isn't the least bit deficient, so they're slight at best. If anyone would know best how to improve the air intake it would be BMW, so it's logical that a BMW upgrade would be the one to go with. But when BMWs own advertising says
Upgrading to a BMW Performance Air Intake System will unleash gains of up to 3 horsepower and 3 ft-lbs. of torque I'm not about to drop a grand on it.