Mine has been in for 1 and a half years now, for only 8,000km. Still looks in good form. I have the cleaning kit standing by. MAYBE I'll clean this spring.
K&N maintenance
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so if you clean it too aften then it lets dirt in? So basically the dirt thats trapped helps the filter? Its been in about a couple thousand miles. Also is there any difference in functionality between teh aerosal can of filter oil and the non aerosal bottle?
[ February 07, 2003, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: 94 formula ]
[ February 07, 2003, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: 94 formula ]
Patman
Staff member
Yes, if you clean it too often you'll see more dirt in your oil analysis. Depending on how dusty it is near you, cleaning it every other year might be the best idea.
I need to know how often to re oil my filter and clean it. Also how to clean it and what oils are best... thanks.
K&N sells a maintanence kit for this, has cleaner and oil. try JEGS, they have it
[ February 07, 2003, 12:43 PM: Message edited by: Mike ]
[ February 07, 2003, 12:43 PM: Message edited by: Mike ]
You can probably find the cleaning kit at AZone, Pep Boys, Advance, etc. in your area. If you want to keep the max air flow(with, probably, the most dirt), you could clean it every few thousand miles. I run mine about a year/~25,000 miles.
I wouldn't clean it until you can't tap away most of the dirt.
It said it can flow air w/ up to an inch of dirt on the medium.
I tap it every few months to loosen the larger particles as well as clean the airbox.
I would advise against frequent washings - Accel says their filters are good for up to 25 washings.
It said it can flow air w/ up to an inch of dirt on the medium.
I tap it every few months to loosen the larger particles as well as clean the airbox.
I would advise against frequent washings - Accel says their filters are good for up to 25 washings.
You can't have it both ways. A clean filter passes more air. A dirty filter doesn't. Maybe the K&N catches more dirt when it's partly dirty, but it can't pass more air then. It's just about a moot point...if the K&N does pass more air than a quality standard air filter (and this is open to question), it only does that at full throttle, and that's a very minor part of the operation of that engine, and never part for many folks.
Ken
Ken
Ken you totally missed it.
A paper filter DOES NOT FLOW MORE AIR THAN THE K&n WHEN DIRTY. In fact, a dirty paper filter doesn't flow much air at all, and its flow rate drops dramatically as it clogs up.
OTOH, a K&N filter flows more air than the paper when its clean. As it gets dirtier and dirtier, the flow rate drops - however if you compare a K&N and a paper filter (same size for same application) with the same amoutn of dirt on there - the K&N will outflow the paper filter. This is where that "extra" horsepower comes from.
My 4.6L SOHC V8 uses paper filters every 3 months in NJ. I drive about 800 miles in 3 months, so I know how annoying it is to get new filters every 800 miles!!!!!! Anyhow, I know its time to change the filter when my engine starts acting funny (hesitation when I goose the throttle, reduced gas mileage, etc).
I installed an Accel Kool Blue (same thing as the K&N), and after 3 months - it does get dirty but I don't feel the same symptoms as the paper filter. The K&N medium flows more air - if the center part starts clogging, air can travel on the other medium surfaces whereas in a paper element, it can travel but has to go through more resistance to do so - hence the power "loss"
My advice:
If you have a blower or turbo, don't get a K&N style filter.
I hear lots of "foam filters are better" or "K&N lets too much sand in" etc... w/o seeing ANY substantial evidence supporting either claim.
A paper filter DOES NOT FLOW MORE AIR THAN THE K&n WHEN DIRTY. In fact, a dirty paper filter doesn't flow much air at all, and its flow rate drops dramatically as it clogs up.
OTOH, a K&N filter flows more air than the paper when its clean. As it gets dirtier and dirtier, the flow rate drops - however if you compare a K&N and a paper filter (same size for same application) with the same amoutn of dirt on there - the K&N will outflow the paper filter. This is where that "extra" horsepower comes from.
My 4.6L SOHC V8 uses paper filters every 3 months in NJ. I drive about 800 miles in 3 months, so I know how annoying it is to get new filters every 800 miles!!!!!! Anyhow, I know its time to change the filter when my engine starts acting funny (hesitation when I goose the throttle, reduced gas mileage, etc).
I installed an Accel Kool Blue (same thing as the K&N), and after 3 months - it does get dirty but I don't feel the same symptoms as the paper filter. The K&N medium flows more air - if the center part starts clogging, air can travel on the other medium surfaces whereas in a paper element, it can travel but has to go through more resistance to do so - hence the power "loss"
My advice:
If you have a blower or turbo, don't get a K&N style filter.
I hear lots of "foam filters are better" or "K&N lets too much sand in" etc... w/o seeing ANY substantial evidence supporting either claim.
Patman
Staff member
In the early days of LS1.com, many guys went out and bought K&N air filters and dyno tested them, and in almost every case the numbers were super close to the stock filters and Fram air filters, in fact, in many cases the Fram showed 1hp more! I realize that's too close to call, however it just shows that K&N's claims for big hp gains are bunk. IMO, it's not worth letting in extra dirt even if it was worth 5hp.
I've just never been a fan of seeing big holes in my air filter when I hold it up to the light. Not too scientific, but enough to make me skeptical about K&N.
Patman: what they fail to test is how the filters perform when dirty.
I ran my own test using an OBD-II scan tool and the K&N provided about 1-5 more cfm of air over the paper throughout the powerband, BUT provided about a 20 cfm increase at "peak" torque (4.6L SOHC V8, that's about 2800-3200 RPM) - I used a clean Accel KB and a clean Motorcraft filter.
So the hp "gains" that K&N advertises is complete baloney when it comes to stock replacement filters. HOWEVER as the filters clog, the paper filter will not flow more air than the K&N nor will it flow close to what it did when clean.
In addition, I have yet to see conclusive evidence linking K&Ns to an increase of dirt/silicon in the engine. I have heard of blower impeller pitting from dirt that came through the K&N which makes these filters unsuitable for use in Forced induction engines.
I ran my own test using an OBD-II scan tool and the K&N provided about 1-5 more cfm of air over the paper throughout the powerband, BUT provided about a 20 cfm increase at "peak" torque (4.6L SOHC V8, that's about 2800-3200 RPM) - I used a clean Accel KB and a clean Motorcraft filter.
So the hp "gains" that K&N advertises is complete baloney when it comes to stock replacement filters. HOWEVER as the filters clog, the paper filter will not flow more air than the K&N nor will it flow close to what it did when clean.
In addition, I have yet to see conclusive evidence linking K&Ns to an increase of dirt/silicon in the engine. I have heard of blower impeller pitting from dirt that came through the K&N which makes these filters unsuitable for use in Forced induction engines.
Patman, I think you would notice a nice difference with the K&N FIPK on the Firebird. I installed one when I installed my headers and it was night and day...
I am going to clean mine at the end of every other summer when I put the car away. The filter should have about 6K miles max in that time.
Jason
I am going to clean mine at the end of every other summer when I put the car away. The filter should have about 6K miles max in that time.
Jason
I agree with metroplex about the cleaning. Both of my K&Ns state the warranty is good for a million miles or 10 yrs or 25 washings. I clean mine about every 20k-30k miles (I think my manual says to change the paper filter every 15k).
Metroplex, if you're saying that K&Ns allow dirt which would pit an impeller & paper won't, aren't you saying more dirt is getting thru a K&N? I've never heard of this example before. Can you provide any background or details?
I know guys who clean their K&Ns every month or so, & they've had the same K&N for maybe 50 washings. I'd imagine that at that point, the filter's no longer performing as designed. I also don't know how aggressive they are when they clean'em. You're not supposed to touch the media, so any brushing, scrubbing, compressed air, etc, will create breaks in the media.
I think you missed the point of adding the blower/turbo into the example.
FORCED INDUCTION is different from an all-motor normally aspirated motor.
Its like how you're NOT supposed to use compressed air to blow out the air filter. Doing this even on a paper filter ruins the efficiency of the medium.
So with a blower or turbo, you're basically using compressed air to blast at the medium - NOT good with the K&N.
However I do not have any turbocharged or supercharged motors so I don't worry about that.
The cost of buying a new paper filter for the Ford 4.6/5.4 on the trucks, Mustang GTs, and Cobras ADDS up. $16 for 1 replacement paper filter.
That means in NJ, I'd have to buy 2-3 filters a year. A Kool Blue is the cost of 2 paper filters. As long as its normally aspirated, I shouldn't have to worry about excess dirt ingestion.
oh yeah, again i haven't seen any UOAs where there was a significant increase in Si from using a K&N filter.
[ February 11, 2003, 11:31 AM: Message edited by: metroplex ]
FORCED INDUCTION is different from an all-motor normally aspirated motor.
Its like how you're NOT supposed to use compressed air to blow out the air filter. Doing this even on a paper filter ruins the efficiency of the medium.
So with a blower or turbo, you're basically using compressed air to blast at the medium - NOT good with the K&N.
However I do not have any turbocharged or supercharged motors so I don't worry about that.
The cost of buying a new paper filter for the Ford 4.6/5.4 on the trucks, Mustang GTs, and Cobras ADDS up. $16 for 1 replacement paper filter.
That means in NJ, I'd have to buy 2-3 filters a year. A Kool Blue is the cost of 2 paper filters. As long as its normally aspirated, I shouldn't have to worry about excess dirt ingestion.
oh yeah, again i haven't seen any UOAs where there was a significant increase in Si from using a K&N filter.
[ February 11, 2003, 11:31 AM: Message edited by: metroplex ]
I guess my limited experience with turbos has me at a disadvantage here. On my Saab, the turbo's well downstream of the filter, so the media only sees normal inlet air forces. The way the airbox is designed, there's no turbo-pressurized (vacuumized?) air directly striking the surface of the media. Basically, all it does is pull a greater volume of air thru the media, the same way a larger NA engine would. (That is, it sees the same air volume as if I put my K&N on a 3.0L 6cyl.) Since this engine's designed to have a turbo (as opposed to bolting one on after the fact), I'm sure the increased air volume was considered when filter size was determined.
I don't have any experience with other turbocharged cars (or any supercharged cars), so I assumed they were all set up similarly. I guess if your impeller's immediately behind the media, and/or you have a poorly designed airbox, then you could be pulling dirt thru it. But it would have to be concentrating the airflow thru a very small percentage of the media. I'm wondering if the people who are saying they have impeller damage are actually seeing the results of something else, like too vigorous/frequent cleaning, poor fit, air leaks, etc?
I, too, chose my K&Ns based on their economy. My NA's paper filter costs $15 ea, while my turbo's paper filter only costs $6 ea. Both K&Ns cost me around $40 ea. I've put about 40k miles on my NA's K&N, & have cleaned it only once so far (after about 30k mi). I've got somewhere around 20k-25k miles on my turbo's K&N, so I'll probably clean it for the first time this summer.
This is nowhere near the case. While in an intake, the air that is drawn though the filter is spread across the entire filter and the difference in pressure from one side of the filter to the other is negligible.
The caveat on cleaning with compressed air is due to the large volume of air at high pressure on a very small portion of the filter.
Compare the airflow at the MAF w/ a blown motor and that w/ a N/A motor. Also factor in the surface area of the filter that is used to filter the air (The entire panel is NOT used, most of the dirt is centralized at one part) so you're subjecting a small area of the medium to a high rate of air flow. Like blasting compressed air at the filter medium. Albeit not as powerful as 90 psi blasting point blank, same principle.
300-400 cfm w/ a N/A motor isn't much compared to some blown engines.
300-400 cfm w/ a N/A motor isn't much compared to some blown engines.
I did the math - I got the max MAF flow # at the highest RPM possible for my engine (4.6L SOHC V8) which was around 5600 RPM (I did a 1-2 shift basically) and with the barometer reading, air temperature reading, it came to around 320 cfm.
This is a normally aspirated Ford 4.6L SOHC V8.
I seriously doubt this is even close to the numbers a blown motor would see.
I think I remembered a friend dyno'ing a blown 4.6 who got around 670 cfm and that was just a mild AED setup. If you go with a conical K&N, it might spread the contact surface of the filter and prevent the problem I spoke of in the previous post.
This is a normally aspirated Ford 4.6L SOHC V8.
I seriously doubt this is even close to the numbers a blown motor would see.
I think I remembered a friend dyno'ing a blown 4.6 who got around 670 cfm and that was just a mild AED setup. If you go with a conical K&N, it might spread the contact surface of the filter and prevent the problem I spoke of in the previous post.
Patman
Staff member
I put the K&N FIPK on the first LT1 that I owned, it was a 95 Trans Am. With that mod and a catback I only went from 13.94 down to 13.77, so it wasn't a huge performance gain. I figure I got about 7hp from each mod.
To me it's not worth the added engine wear for 7 more hp. I'm not even sure I am going to modify this LT1, as my goal is to get back into another LS1 Firebird again in 4-5 years. So any mod money I spend on this car just gets wasted.
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