Air filter

[saunders1313]

I've heard about some people removing the air filter and then replacing it with some kind of cloth and supposedly they get better fe. Does anyone know what the cloth is? And why does it increase your fe over an air filter? Is the cloth still ok to use instead of an air filter?

[Daox]

Some aftermarket filters use an oil soaked foam or cotton filter media. However, aftermarket air filters do nothing for fuel economy despite their advertisements.

[justpassntime]

If you want a low flow filter buy one, don't throw a sock (cloth) over the intake and call it good. You will run into problems with crap going into the fuel system and engine.

[MazdaMatt]

I think you're confusing filter vs cloth with paper filter vs cloth filter. They are both air filters specifically designed for your car, but one is disposable and one is cleanable. Don't buy a cleanable one. I'm an idiot for buying one. They don't pay themselves back for a long time (since you have to buy cleaning and oiling pack) and they sure as hell don't make your car any more powerful.

[dann_04]

I saw an improvement with my k&n drop in filter. Yes they are expensive, but for my 03 civic it works. My escort rarely went over 2k and never over 3k so the engine never really pulled enough air for a better breating filter to be effective(65mph is at 3.5-3.6k on the civic). I also like the convenience, yes you have to clean them(eventually) but i don't drive that much so it will be a while. Do not try to make your own filter, anything that accedentally gets into the engine is a bad thing. Get one that is made for your car...and don't get a sponge one as they don't filter for very long.

[aerohead]

while there is much hype about aftermarket air filters,there is no laboratory evidence to confirm advertized claims.K&N was tested against factory micronic paper element filters and found to filter less effectively,foul the soonest.Don't know about "fabric" filters.Air filters are a dead end with respect to improving mpg.They provide virtually no restriction to the intake flow,and consequently have no effect on volumetric efficiency of the engine,even at wide open throttle.There surface area is carefully computed to do exactly this.Spend your money elsewhere.

[Johnny Mullet]

I prefer a clean engine and only use quality filters. I use Baldwin and no other brand. I am not going to get into statistics about filtering or argue on who makes the best filter because I already answered that question.

[joesgot4]

i put a k&n on my 2006 malibu and it gave me 2mpg's right out of the box

[wagonman76]

I tried a K&N on my 6000 wagon once. I did notice a bit snappier throttle response, but no better mpg. I could also buy a lot of stock paper air filters for I paid for the K&N.

[Keen]

Has anyone ever thought about putting a bigger box and filter into their car? Maybe there would be a bit less resistance. Just a thought

[Jim Allen]

Let's get a little pedantic just for clarification, shall we?
IMHO, it's a bit of a stretch to say that a free-flow filter will have no positive effect on fuel economy without tests on a lot of different vehicles. It's probably generally true and most true in the modern era where it's easy to compute airflow needs and design a system to match. But if you want to go back to the days of oil bath filters and the first cellulose filters, well, some of those were restrictive enough to be a MPG issue. There are probably some poorly designed intake systems out there these days too but I don't know of any really bad ones. Basically, unless and until you run out of airflow capacity, the intake system is not a negative factor. Considering that hypermiling is all about low revs, even a system that's might be restrictive in a high-revving performance situation has plenty of capacity. A more useful pursuit would be velocity tuning for the most economical rpm range but that's pretty hard for the average person to do

[ATaylorRacing]

I had a 98 Neon 5 speed that I drag raced....I put just over 147,000 miles on it and te very first mod was to get rid of the entire air filter system and put a fine wire mesh screen over the throttle body opening. That mod picked up very nearly 2 mpg and the car ran from .20-.23 of a second quicker in the 1/4 mile. I had the same mod on a 3.0 Sundance for over 100,000 miles with the same results. No troubles with this method, but I would not do it in a desert or dusty enviroment. K & Ns never werebeter for me and sometimes were the same as stock. I eventually was getting 46 mpg in that Neon with EOC and 41 without it...which was the EPA rating. The car had 180 hp on motor and 305 hp with NOS in use.....for you gear heads it ran 14.8 in the 1/4 on motor and 12.17 at 117 mph was its best time with NOS. In front wheel drve cars I have 33 NHRA & IHRA drag race championships and 1 IHRA championship with a rear wheel drive vehicle.
I used that Neon to win Car & Driver magazine's 50th anniversary drag race.....they had limited it to 500 entries!