K&N Air Filters
 

Who's using them
Who's not

if not why not

Please use the search engine or look around first. K&N filters have sprung up here quite a few times. Please do not multiply posts when you don't have to.

Nope, I don't use em. It doesn't help at all if you are driving to get good mileage. Plus, they let more crud through the filter and can gum up MAF sensors with the oil from the filter.

Testing to prove it:
Testing a 'performance' air filter for MPG - Part 1 - MetroMPG.com
Testing a 'performance' air filter for MPG - Part 2 - MetroMPG.com

I have over a mile of dusty dirt road between my house and the nearest paved road. I tried a K&N on my truck for a year. There was no difference in performance or economy. When I checked the filter, I found dust in the filter housing on the "clean" side of the filter. :mad:
I'll stick with OEM paper filters.

I can't wait to get my ECOMODDER.COM window stickers......I'll get 2-3 mpg AND 10-15hp just by puttin the stickers on!!!!!!! yuck yuck yuck!!!

If you want a cleanable filter that doesn't gum up MAF sensors, and has no potential issues with diesel engines, get one from AEM or Fram. They're cotton gauze material, washable, and don't require oil.

K&N filters aren't any more environmentally responsible, either. You're using soap which contains phosphates to wash out the dirt/grime/oil that is going down the drain into the public water supply, making it even more difficult to provide clean water, or further poisoning your local water table in the event that you're using a well.

Farmers out here will tell you that one drop of oil will contaminate 1,000,000 gallons of water. It's not to a harmful level, but the point is to be very aware of what you're doing.

Wash that filter out, and you're doing just as much harm as you would be by throwing that paper filter into the landfill. Where's the logic?

There's a reason that K&N doesn't make these claims on their own... they rely on fanboys to make the claims for them.

He says in his research, that at wot it might be more efficient than stock paper. Do some of the pulse and gliders use wot? would a air intake different than a geo metro negate the test results and maybe make a k&n worth wild? I sure don't like to whole allowing dirt in thing though.

WOT is normally a very bad situation. In ECU-controlled cars, enrichment happens, and the AF ratio is richened to the point where it's no longer being efficient. 80% seems to be the max throttle angle.

In carb'd cars, it just opens an enrichment circuit which is normally uncalibrated to a specific AF ratio, and dumps some fuel in there unmetered to aide in cooling the engine under high load.

Again, 80% (depending on carb config) is usually about the cut-off. In either event, K&N still doesn't make any of these claims on their own.

These threads should stop now.

well I've always used them and never had any problems, then again only one of the cars in my family have a MAF We usually drive older cars and they always have helped in fuel economy. Helped in all of my friends cars too you just have to make sure not to over oil them

Sorry didn't see any of these threads
I'm brand new to the forum

That's why you use the search feature.

Regardless of what you saw, there is an explanation for it. In this case, I fully imagine that you changed an old OEM air filter for the K&N, and saw up to a 10% increase in fuel economy. Of course, you'd have gotten the same effect just adding another paper filter. It's part of basic maintenance, really.

If you see a guy claiming that he got 3MPG from changing to synthetic oil that's the same weight as his old oil, chances are that he changed from dirty oil to clean oil, and that's where the increase came from.

It's normally all in your head. I mean, seriously - think about it - If it was that easy to bolt on 3 MPG here, 4MPG there, doesn't it seem counterintuitive that some of us here aren't getting better mileage than we are?

Man, I wish I could bolt on about 30 more MPG and maybe an extra 300 HP to my van... and increase it's load carrying capacity to maybe 8,000 LBS, and towing capacity to like 20,000... that would be the limit for my license, basically.

Yeah, that would be nice. :rolleyes:

Pulse and glide, like Christ said, recommends 80% or so throttle due to enrichment (open loop operation). However, even WOT is not going to require that much air unless you combine it with high rpms. As ecodrivers know, high rpms greatly increase friction losses as well as oil windage losses and are definitely something to stay away from.

Well the filter in my el camino only had 500 miles on it when i replaced it and looked pretty much brand new so it wasn't that it was dirty the K&N just seems to flow alot better for this old 2 barrel V8

So here's what you do:

Buy a new OE filter, Wash your K&N and re-oil per mfg directions.

Fill the tank, noting vehicle position, fill rate, pump and station.

Install paper filter, drive 50 miles of highway, fill up and do it again.

Go back to the K&N and do the same, filling up from the same station/pump every time, to keep variables to a minimum.

Go back and do the paper filter one more time, two more runs.

Average the first two, the second two, and the third two, and figure the difference.

It's not exactly scientific, but it's the closest test you're going to get that doesn't take a year to complete.

If you show enough of a mileage gain to be attributed to the filter and not just some random circumstance, I'll drop the subject.

Stick to your stock, OEM filter...

A good article at Autospeed:

Don't Bother Changing the Factory Filter. Most times it's just wasting money

Excellent Article!

My FilterMinder has told me that brand new K&N flows worse (or at least creates more vacuum on the "clean" side than the used Factory filter did.

Bob is the oil guy Air Filtration Test Tells me that they filter poorly.

My failure rate of Karmen Vortex Air flow sensors tells me that they spray some oil in the intake causing more failures of air flow sensors.

good article x2


a k&n (cone filter) decreased the mpg of my ford ranger


i think ill stick with regular ones for the time being

Thanks, What people aren't realizing is i'm asking what it has done from THEIR personal experience On my buddy's Ranger it increased it by 1.5 but he had a flat panel replacement filter Not the cone filter. idk that cone filters make too much a difference other than sound because they aren't always more efficient because of how some newer factory intakes are already made

I don't think you fully understand how unreliable your buddy's info is (no offense). Mileage is effected by tons of variables that change by the second while driving. Commuting back and forth to work each day does not return the same mileage every fill up. I'm sure your buddy didn't take any consideration to these variables when testing his new air filter. Now, consider the testing done by MetroMPG. He controlled as many variables as he could to get consistent data. Sounds a bit better, no?

If that doesn't click, consider this. When does an engine need the most airflow? When it is generating peak horsepower. At any other point in operation, it requires less air. So, by installing a less restrictive air filter, you are simply increasing the amount of horsepower you can pull through the filter. Considering a Ranger only needs ~25 horsepower to go down the highway, a stock filter is going to have absolutely no measurable restriction at 1/4 (or much less depending on the engine) of its total horsepower generation.

As has been said, the company itself makes no fuel economy promises in their marketing. That should tell you all you need to know.

If they did make such claims, they'd have to register themselves with the EPA as selling a fuel saving product, and would probably find themselves on the wrong side of legal action eventually.

Of course, they desperately want people to think they offer some fuel saving benefit, so they let their customers' incredibly unscientific testimonials do the talking. EPA doesn't care about testimonials from a legal standpoint.

how'd that work for you.....;)


lol:thumbup:



.......like fred flinstone trying to stop going downhill.......:rolleyes:


ps. I love the dyno tests that some of the aftermarket companys use
"...upto 15 extra hp..." ( yeah at WIDE OPEN THROTTLE) 6000 rpm +

now fess up who has even seen 6000 + rpm.......much less longer that MAYBE 30 seconds in a month!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lol it failed big time.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...k-n-10523.html

I like this one, the lies and B.S. for filters and intakes is typical :rolleyes:

:eek:Completely off topic.....(wasted thread anyway)

Back in the 80's some ad guy was at a monster truck show. Seems that there was a Volvo in the line of junkers to be squashed.....well due to superior body integrity, it was left up while all the others were flat.
The ad guy calls Volvo, they recreate the event for a tv ad, BUT, just in case.....they WELD A CAGE INSIDE THE VOLVO!!!!:eek:.

The commercial runs and somebody blabbed.....Volvo was busted and the ad guy was out of a client!!!!

I remember that. (no watching it on TV, but I think it's on Youtube.)

I seem to remember a commercial where a Large truck was set on top of a Volvo wagon... and it didn't crush it.

Of course, I also remember that Volvo's weigh in at like 5,000 or more for a family car.

These are just the results from the in car mileage calculator those new cars have

So how did you come by the results for your (substantially older than OBDII) car?

Butt dyno, eh?

NO!!!!

I've owned Volvo's since 1981.
My 242 Turbo, 86 744 Turbo and my 87 Turbo wagon all weighed under 3,200 lbs. My 97 960 is the heavy weight at 3,500 lbs

The S60R AWD 300HP is also a real pig weight wise coming in over 4000 lbs.

There was a Volvo ad back in the eighties of six or seven 700's stacked on top of each other but I couldn't find it.

Here is a stack of Volvo 144's stacked one on top of the other.

http://mitheral.ca/images/Polaroid/2....240.stack.jpg

A volvo 240 weighs 2900lb. A Volvo 740 weighs 3100lb. This can vary up to 200 lb depending on body style, transmission, sunroof and turbo/non turbo.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_E9VQugSUBf...lvo+740+ad.jpg

Yeah, I exaggerated on the weight a bit.

Still, they're fairly hefty cars, some of them.

TJTS -

That's the ad I was looking for, I think.

Why do I feel like I'm riding a white horse being chaed by lions and zebras and I can't get away........

because 1.) I'm drunk and riding a merry-go-round.......:p

OR 2.) I'm stuck in this thread with the OP who obviously doesn't get it!:confused: