10
Aug
In this day and age, our air is so polluted that its unclean and toxic particles impact our vehicles as much as they impacts us. This is why we need air filters for motorcycles. Some people believe that we don’t need them and that they are just a useless piece of equipment that brings profit to companies. Well, that isn’t the case, air filters are an important addition for the efficiency and power delivery of your bike.
Air filters purify the air that goes inside the bike in order to burn the fuel. The cleaner the air, the better the combustion. If the air isn’t clean and pure you can end up burning much more fuel for the same amount of power. Incomplete combustion was the very reason for the huge amount of smoke coming out of the older vehicles.
Now that we’ve mentioned why they’re important, let’s talk about how they work. A filter is actually multiple layers or just one layer of a material that filters pollutants and particles from the air on different levels. In order to be able to filter properly, these filters should be cleaned on a regular basis.
Let’s talk about what will happen if your filter doesn’t work properly or you don’t have one. The piston in the cylinder could jam and it will result in engine seizure due to the impurities trapped in the oil, which is one of the worst things that could happen. Due to the impurities, there will be scratches and destruction to the engine and performance and efficiency will drop drastically.
There are several types of air filters for motorcycles: paper air filters, foam air filters, cotton air filters, and liquid bath air filters.
The most popular paper filter is the filament filter. It’s not like the paper that we use on a daily basis, instead, it’s thicker and denser, however, it does have pores that the air can pass through. The paper is made so it can properly filter the air and be resistant to the pressure at the same time.
This type of filters are a little bit expensive. They are made with polyurethane oil-bathed foam. The foam works in a way that the particles get stuck on the dense oil, and the rest of the lighter impurities get trapped in the crevices of the foam.
Before other types of air filters for motorcycles existed, cotton filters were used. They aren’t used nowadays because they weren’t that efficient which led to low engine life.
There isn’t much to say for these filters because they aren’t used for bikes. They are too messy, heavy and too intense. They’re used for heavier vehicles.
