I was talking to Rick Oliver about ordering some consumables for an RVF400.

He said "HiFlo air filters are not a performance option ... If your budget will stand it I would use the OEM air filter in your bike"

Obviously he's an expert on these bikes so I'm inclined to follow what he has to say but I was curious if there is any hard data (dyno etc) comparing the HiFlo to the OEM.

Searching here for "hiflow", "hi flo" and "hf303" gets me a few hits on posts mentioning their air filter but all just saying they used it (nothing expressing anything negative) and mostly results for their oil filters.

Thanks!

Not quite sure what you're after as even if you did b2b dyno runs for the filters you wont see a performance gain.
All they do is filter unwanted material from oil, the pressure/flow shouldn't change as that's controlled by the relief valve. Cheaper filters do the same job but with lower quality parts and/or manufacture methods. As my dad always said, buy cheap buy twice

Timon wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 11:20 am Not quite sure what you're after as even if you did b2b dyno runs for the filters you wont see a performance gain.
All they do is filter unwanted material from oil, the pressure/flow shouldn't change as that's controlled by the relief valve. Cheaper filters do the same job but with lower quality parts and/or manufacture methods. As my dad always said, buy cheap buy twice

He's asking about air filters, not oil filters....

Ah what a muppet I am, teach me not to skim read

Timon wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 11:55 am Ah what a muppet I am, teach me not to skim read

Yes, curious on HiFlo aftermarket air filter vs OEM.

I constructed a vacuum box when I did my VFR800 build and did a lot of air filter testing with this, and then some real time on the dyno. The OEM Honda filter, at least for the VFR800, was very close to the best flowing filter of the 5 I tested, which was a BMC race, and that filter isn't available for the RVF400, unless I just couldn't find it. For my current build, I just went with the OEM filter. Don't have any hard numbers, but I plan to see how it works during the dyno tuning.For a stock OEM engine, I'm not sure it really matters at all if it's the HiFlow, or the OEM. It would only come into play if you started doing the engine internals.