Quote:
Originally Posted by old ugly
but Ford never used one of those either
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The argument against the air filter isn't purely originality, it's that putting a constriction on the carb intake changes the effective atmospheric pressure inside the carb and alters its function. Other elements of the engine bay design, such as the rearward-facing intake, help compensate for the lack of a filter.
The way Ford compensated for the lack of an oil filter was to use non-detergent oil, change the oil every 500 miles, and include sludge removal on the maintenance list. Airborne contaminants would become entrained in the oil and gradually sink to the bottom of the sump.
But if you're using detergent oil, which most people are, you're already pushing that system away from how it was designed, because the detergents will hold contaminants in suspension, sending them through the engine over and over. The use of an oil filter returns this system to balance and improves its efficacy over the original design.