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Anybody use Longflo air filters?

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sparkydave

sparkydave

Jedi Knight
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Just curious, I had picked up a spare Zenith Sromberg carb and manifold off eBay, and it came with one of these attached. Well, one of the latches on my stock setup never worked right, and it was a pain to pull the whole thing off to tune the carb, so I went against the federal clean air act and put the Longflo on. Makes an interesting hissing when I stomp on the gas, and seems to make a little more noise at high speed, but it seems okay. Would a K&N be any better? Just wondering how the foam element in the Longflo holds up compared to K&N's washable filters.
 
I currently have Longflow air cleaners on both my TR4 and my Sprite (both have SU carburetors). I haven't had any problems with them. The foam element in the Longflows is washable. I don’t know how well they actually filter the air, but they have to work a lot better than the stock (wire mesh) setup on my TR4, which I could actually see through. I suspect they only kept rocks and larger birds out of the combustion chamber!

I haven't noticed a hissing sound on my Sprite, but the SUs on my TR4 make a distinct hissing sound when I accelerate hard. I suspect the SUs on my Sprite hiss as well - The exhaust system on my Sprite is just much louder. SUs just hiss... that's typical for them. I don't know about Zenith Strombergs.

One thing I don't like about the Longflows is the cheesy plastic plugs that come with them to plug the extra holes (for crankcase ventilation return if your setup requires such). They don't fit right - too loose. I had to get a couple of plugs from Lowes.
 
I've had them on mt TR4 for a couple of years. No signs of wear and tear. I've put about 6 or 7 thousand miles on the car since I installed them and cleaned them a couple of times.
 
11/18/2016. Longflow foam air filters; a cautionary tale. I have two English cars and a 1970 Datsun 240 Z. This story concerns the Z with triple DCOE Weber carbs and a radical camshaft. Bare with me; because of the cam, the Z engine is very cantankerous until warmed up to full operating temp. Even when warm, the engine will fall on it's face if too much throttle is applied under 2000 RPM. Well yesterday morning while warming up the Z for a drive, the engine went really off song. I turned the engine off and popped the bonnet, white smoke came pouring out! I jumped out and unlatched the bonnet and was welcomed by the sight of the front Longflo foam air cleaner on fire! I didn't see that one coming. I'm not trying to say anything bad about the Longflo product, but rather my lack of thinking the situation through. I have a tweaked engine that likes to back fire through the intake manifold and carbs, little fire balls at you mate! I'm willing to say that if you have a stock engine or slightly modified engine the Longflo foam filters will be fine. I've discovered that foam filters will readily light on fire. In my situation I will be changing to more substantial cotton fabric/more fire retardant air filters. This morning I did go out and buy a fire extinguisher to mount in the car. I blew the bloody fire out with my lungs and a full dose of adrenaline. I'm not going to count on that the next time.

Steve/stavo56
 
That is a problem with foam. Being oiled to keep dirt out and close to the throats, easy on fire from backfire. Most foam filters look good for show, but the cotton or paper elements endure backfires to a point. Glad you got the extinguisher, all old cars no matter what stage of restoration need one. Saves you from doing it all over again, just a mess to ckean up.
 
Thanks for the PSA and glad you were able to put the fire out in time.
 
P1040058.jpg002.jpgI


I use one on my Super 7 but, not on the Bugeye. Super 7 is fuel injected, spit backs are seldom. Unfortunately, elements are not available from ITG. Filters have to be replace as an assembly and they are not cheep!! SU's & DCOE's are prone to be cold nature and will spit back during the warm up so, I use a K & N on the Bugeye.
 
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If your going to use foam make sure to keep the oiled K&N oil works will if you follow the correct procedure.
I've seen pretty foam filters at shows that never saw a drop of oil
scarry thought having one backfire with fuel residue as the major contributer and no oil.
And air whistling unrestricted due to no oil thru a unoiled filter
Yikes that and foam now you have a fire.
not a good plan.
 
Question for you Bluemax--hoping no one will mind if I ask something that has nothing to do with the filter question.

What a gorgeous engine bay, I guess that it is in your Bugeye. It appears that the hose that goes from the timing cover can tees off to the rocker cover, and then it disappears as it gets to the back of the engine bay. Where has it gone? What does it attach to?

Thanks
Charlie
 
Thanks Charlie, the hose off of the timing cover and valve cover runs to the oil catch tank. You can see from this photo the catch tank in the top LH of the photo.

P1040108.jpg
 
stavo56 said:
11/18/2016. Longflow foam air filters; a cautionary tale. I have two English cars and a 1970 Datsun 240 Z. This story concerns the Z with triple DCOE Weber carbs and a radical camshaft. Bare with me; because of the cam, the Z engine is very cantankerous until warmed up to full operating temp. Even when warm, the engine will fall on it's face if too much throttle is applied under 2000 RPM. Well yesterday morning while warming up the Z for a drive, the engine went really off song. I turned the engine off and popped the bonnet, white smoke came pouring out! I jumped out and unlatched the bonnet and was welcomed by the sight of the front Longflo foam air cleaner on fire! I didn't see that one coming. I'm not trying to say anything bad about the Longflo product, but rather my lack of thinking the situation through. I have a tweaked engine that likes to back fire through the intake manifold and carbs, little fire balls at you mate! I'm willing to say that if you have a stock engine or slightly modified engine the Longflo foam filters will be fine. I've discovered that foam filters will readily light on fire. In my situation I will be changing to more substantial cotton fabric/more fire retardant air filters. This morning I did go out and buy a fire extinguisher to mount in the car. I blew the bloody fire out with my lungs and a full dose of adrenaline. I'm not going to count on that the next time.

Steve/stavo56
Click to expand...
Steve coming back;
After taking off the air cleaner screen and back plate, I looked into the carb barrel, I thought I was looking at melted plastic on the venturi. No I was looking at a melted venturi. Wow. The choke and venturi pops out on a DCOE with out too much trouble. It's a replaceable part, but here's my problem. These carbs are at least 35 years old, the choke and auxiliary venturi I have are a one piece casting; every website I've gone to show this assembly as two pieces. Trust me, what I have in my hand is a one piece casting, even the Weber Carb book that I have show's this assembly as two pieces. I don't want to start emailing, and calling suppliers about this if they don't know about really old/ thirty five year old carbs.
Anybody have any suggestions?

PS. I have found cotton gauze based filters, 3.125 high and the length and width at ten dollars less than Longflo's (no name's mentioned for obvious reasons).

Steve/stavo56
 
BCF;
I repaired the choke and venturi enough to get the car started and move it around in my shop. I started it without the air filters on, it's been a number of years since I've done this. I stated in my initial post, "fire balls at you mate"; man was that an understatement. When this engine backfires through the intake and carbs it is more like a plasma blast. It's a sight to behold. The other two Longflow foam air filters showed signs of melting. Like I said in my initial post, I am not saying anything against Longflow products, but rather my bad choice.

Steve/stavo
 
K&N's will burn as well [personal experience], as, I'm sure, the original paper element will. If your car is backfiring I think one should expect it. Some way to put out the fire is good to have. In my case it was my wife's bottle of water and my gloves.

Kurt.
 
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