K&N destroys another engine

[Loobed]

Originally Posted By: AVB


K&Ns are not recommended for dusty conditions.



Back in the 1980s K&N advertising claimed that dessert racing conditions is what the filter was designed for. In the 1990's, K&N advertised that their filters were being used in Dessert Storm. They even showed a helicopter with a giant filter attached to the intake. I thought it was strange considering that helicopters use turbines that can ingest small amount of debris.

 

[Loobed]

Originally Posted By: widman
Interesting opinions. Of course it should have had a filter box. He bought the truck with it installed that way.

We drive through 10 to 15 inches of water every time it rains. This city of 2 million people has no rain sewers and only 20 ft difference in altitude from the highest to lowest points, but leave the city and the regular roads are often mud, dust, or crossing rivers. Standard air intakes are usually higher, in the door frame, or protected.

I don't believe anything should be sold for off-road that isn't capable of off-road performance.

I expected to see globs of water in the intake, but the filter apparently was able to disperse it into a fine enough mist to not hydrolock the engine.

BTW, it has coolant.... Yellow. Just doesn't show in the pic I took with my phone.



Interesting. You are in Bolivia.

 

[deven]

Originally Posted By: MaximusD
They do make water resistant covers for a cai. Can't say this is K&N's fault.

+1000. Used many a K&N CAI's and never a problem. Its the placement that is the problem not the K&N CAI.

 

[cchase]

Originally Posted By: deven
Originally Posted By: MaximusD
They do make water resistant covers for a cai. Can't say this is K&N's fault.

+1000. Used many a K&N CAI's and never a problem. Its the placement that is the problem not the K&N CAI.


Again, there's more to the picture beyond water ingestion. It's the obvious DIRT ingestion that seems the most concerning, since it would happen regardless of how the truck is used.

 

[Jim Allen]

All of you who haven't yet done so, should go to Widman's website and read his past posts here on air filtration. He is living in a giant testbed containing some of the worst conditions imaginable and he has a lot of very substandard maintenance products and information on the market to overcome. The guy has some perspective!

Ultimately, this is the fault of the person who installed the wrong pieces on the truck. Or drove it beyond the capabilities of the truck. I'd say it's snorkel time for this truck.

Having had some similar experiences, I can tell you that water & oiled cotton gauze don't mix. Heavy water exposure tends to blow out the relatively fragile fibers because when the water hits, there is a moment of very high DP. Some filters can be imploded this way. The fist time he hit water, some of it was filtered and atomized... doing a very nice decarbonization job. After that, the media was blown thru and the dirt started getting a free pass. Too much water in the combustion chamber while the engine is running can blow a head gasket too and that could account for the coolant.

 

[Doog]

K&N keeping rocks out of your engine for the past 100 years.....

 

[racin4ds]

I've ran K&N filters on everything from my dirt bikes to my trucks, cars and ATV's and NEVER a single problem! Its called reading the instructions and PROPERLY OILING and CLEANING the darn filter! It kills me to see so many people jump on the band wagon and blame a K&N filter for their stupidity. From the looks of this $50k truck this guy fits the bill perfectly!

 

[440Magnum]

I'd show the owner all those images and tell him exactly why the filter/CAI setup is killing his engine.

 

[NHGUY]

In the 1970s,Filtron was marketing a green foam material as a filter for off road use....4x4s,dirtbikes...those were some pretty big openings in the foam cells.

 

[Roadkingnc]

It is installed poorly, at least the filter should be horizontal instead of verticle. I would not blame the filter, I would say poor installation or wrong application. Looks like it is sucking in roadspray too.

 

[bigjl]

Originally Posted By: djb
Originally Posted By: bigjl
[
The under bonnet pictures clearly show that the vehicle has been driven through some deep water.


The picture shows splashed-up mud that piled on top of the parts such as the brake reservoir. There isn't evidence of immersion.

Perhaps most of the splash shields have been removed.


Or perhaps the splash shields are still there and this is the result of being driven through deep water, I didn't say it was immersed.

Going through deep water is not the same as being immersed in water.

There is a disused quarry near my house that people go off roading at.

I went there in my little Daihatsu Sportrak a couple of times and after splashing through some water deep enough to touch the front lights the under bonnet pretty much looked like that.

This is not due to using a K&N filter. And I still don't think that is a K&N.

 

[NHGUY]

This is a case of a rich kid buying a new,overpriced truck (Raptor) and destroying it.You dont off road with $40K new trucks,you fix up old ones.But,like BMX and Mountain Bikes of the cycle world,manufacturers love to sell you something with the intent of ruining it,so they can sell you replacement parts or sell you a new one in short order.

 

[loyd]

There is no cure for stupid!

 

[bigjl]

Originally Posted By: loyd
There is no cure for stupid!


That made me chuckle.

I shall use it often and claim it as mine, if you don't mind!

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Once the motor finally pops, it's going to come back on Ford for making a [censored] truck.

However, when I do go cone filter for the jeep I'm going to put it in the cabin.

 

[Loobed]

This truck was in Bolivia. I do not know if paper filters for the Raptor are readily available in that country. If the truck had a paper filter and it got plugged with mud, the owner might have thrown it out just to get the truck going again (I don't know if the stock air-box would ingest all that mud and water). Without a filter, the engine would have died a long time ago in the conditions described. It is possible that the K&N type filter is better in this instance.

 

[jeepman3071]

Originally Posted By: NHGUY
This is a case of a rich kid buying a new,overpriced truck (Raptor) and destroying it.You dont off road with $40K new trucks,you fix up old ones.But,like BMX and Mountain Bikes of the cycle world,manufacturers love to sell you something with the intent of ruining it,so they can sell you replacement parts or sell you a new one in short order.


This. He probably also thought "hey I'll get the k&n for 1.7 extra horsepower since I'm all about performance not common sense".

As much as I hate K&Ns (not worth the price for what gains you get) this is an issue of rich boy with no brains. My Jeep has an airbox, and even I wouldn't go through deep water unless I had a snorkel.

 

[friendly_jacek]

Originally Posted By: widman
People tell me not to worry about it, since it is "only a customer's truck", but it frustrates me to see a perfectly good Ford Raptor destroyed by a K&N filter.


I beg to differ here. The driver enjoyed an immense gain in power, so it was all worth it!

 

[sciphi]

Snorkel with Donaldson PowerCore should cure what ails the intake. Make sure everything's rated to be immersed, don't drive through water higher than the snorkel, and have a ball. Oh, don't forget to make sure everything else is capable of getting wet.

 

[rslifkin]

I'm thinking that's seen A LOT of water. With the way my ducting from the grill to the airbox on the Jeep is run, I get a good bit of water in the box in heavy rain (it has drain holes) and usually end up with a very wet filter. However, it has not once sucked any noticeable quantity of water past the filter, nor has any dirt made it past. Mind you, it's a paper filter, so that might make a small difference.

For a filter like a K&N, if it gets too wet and washes off all the oil, it won't filter properly, hence the dirt problem. Also, for water to get into the oil via the intake, you have to be pulling a good bit of water into the intake for a while. It's not easy to get that much water past the rings.