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Early BMW Motorsport Gr A Airbox

Early BMW Motorsport Gr A Airbox

The photo above shows a genuine BMW Motorsport carbon fiber airbox on a Gr A car. This airbox has seen a rough life, as witnessed by the many repairs that have been done on it, not always to a high standard. But don't fret as this airbox has since been "lovingly" restored to a much higher finish.

The most characteristic feature of this airbox is the "fake" AFM inlet on its side. This unused inlet is often seen on the early factory E30 M3 racecars and is most likely a result of the competition rules existing at that time (mid to late 80's). In fact in some very early photos one will actually see the AFM bolted on to the fenderwell, even though it was not used since all the competition cars ran throttle position based engine management with air temp. compensation (Alpha-N to most people). See the photo at bottom for an example of an unused AFM installed in the engine bay.

Note the very long intake "snout" on the front side of this airbox. It extends almost all the way to the outlet of the filer housing, leaving very little room for a flexible duct to connect the two parts (in fact on these two engines the connection to the filter housing is solid and maintained via springs). On later airboxes the snout was shortened up a bit. On the current generation German replica airboxes the snout is quite short leaving more room to fit a flexible hose.

A few other details to point out are the way that the bracket for the throttle cable mounts directly to a molded-in fitting on the airbox. Also note the fitting for the air temperature sensor, which appears unused in this photo. The current German Gr A replica airboxes use just such a location for the threaded boss to insert the air temp. sensor, although this location can put the wires for the temp. sensor quite close to the strut tower. In fact the large trumpet replica airbox has the air temp. sensor boss relocated to the filter housing in order to prevent this problem.


Early BMW Motorsport Gr A Airbox with fake AFM

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