Project Farm Air Filter Test!

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4x the dirt at 4x the cost and the cleaning/oil kit costs another $10-$15. I'll stick to paper filters. Wix, Napa Gold, OEM. If I can see light pass through the washable air screens I can imagine the dust it's passing.

I used K&N and Green Filters in the past and after seeing the intake tube dusting they caused in my applications every 10K I threw them in the trash and went back to paper.

If they work in your applications use em.
 
Nope, not all K&N are 4x the cost. Mine was $47. The paper filters run for $20. The cleaning/reoiling kit I have is still good after 8 years which is when I bought it for another vehicle. Never had a dusted intake tract.
 
Originally Posted by wemay
Nope, not all K&N are 4x the cost. Mine was $47. The paper filters run for $20. The cleaning/reoiling kit I have is still good after 8 years which is when I bought it for another vehicle. Never had a dusted intake tract.


My application was 4x the cost. I live near the beach so sand and dust was a huge issue. If a K&N works for you go for it. I just said I wouldn't use them.
 
Originally Posted by Mike L. V.
Originally Posted by wemay
Nope, not all K&N are 4x the cost. Mine was $47. The paper filters run for $20. The cleaning/reoiling kit I have is still good after 8 years which is when I bought it for another vehicle. Never had a dusted intake tract.


My application was 4x the cost. I live near the beach so sand and dust was a huge issue. If a K&N works for you go for it. I just said I wouldn't use them.


Yeah, i got it
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I was offering a counter point of view. But i understand your reasoning completely.
 
Originally Posted by shrooms
I believe Supetech is made by Purolator.


Supertech is made by Champion. Even says right on the website.
 
Interesting comment from one of the viewers on YouTube...

Originally Posted by keld101


So I researched into air filtration technologies and published research articles on airborne particle sizes and concentrations, particle size affect on engine wear, and factors in predicting engine wear based on air contaminates. I take back what I said about the filter being saturated with flour and I believe the filter was properly oiled. Turns out it's way more complicated than it seems and even academic researchers are struggling to reach a consensus on many of the basic points. K&N claims between a 96-99% cumulative filtration in ISO 5011 testing (https://www.knfilters.com/efficiency_testing.htm). Dry filters on the other hand should see nearly 100% filtration down to their pore size (which we saw in you testing). But there's a catch, once you go below the pore size nearly all of the particulate matter should pass straight through the dry filter (though they can actually act like finer filters as they clog at the significant expense of airflow), where as the oiled filter should continue to filter out 96-99% of the particulates no matter the size. Typical flower is 89-98% 10-41μm and 41-300μm particulates, and 2-11% 10μm or smaller (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0733521084710587). In conclusion, it appears that neither dry filters or oiled filters alone can fully protect an engine from wear but dry filter are by far more effective at stopping the most dangerous debris. I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually saw a high performance car intake system that uses both technologies with the oiled filter being a maintenance free item and large replaceable dry filters being the primary flirtation.

I think the fact that you had no filter-less control to show what the count would have been with flour going straight through the system may have skewed everyone's interpretation of what's going on. Long story short, without a filter less control to compare to I could predict only vaguely similar results as what your testing indicated (and I do agree that in the continuous flow test that the particulates probably passed the counter before you checked it) but I don't think most peoples' interpretation of the results really reflects what is going on or the difference between oiled vs dry filters. Despite what simulated testing (yours and others I've found) have shown, oiled filters are doing at least a similar job at preventing engine wear as dry filters. So either the effects of 40 times the pass through of particulates is only marginal (but no less an important factor when selecting a filter) OR 60mph airflow in your system is more than real world air velocity's through the filters causing more pass through than normal OR the distribution of flour particulate sizes is vastly dissimulator compared to the vast majority of ambient air particulate sizes across the USA.

I'd love to see a control test with flour to find out if the pass through we saw is within the 1-4% K&N is promising and some measurement of how much of the 3-6um particles made it through the dry filters because I think it's way more than what viewers think and it has been shown to cause significant engine wear (https://www.researchgate.net/public...and_filtration_on_automobile_engine_wear).
 
From the quote above:
"I think the fact that you had no filter-less control to show what the count would have been with flour going straight through the system may have skewed everyone's interpretation of what's going on. Long story short, without a filter less control to compare to I could predict only vaguely similar results as what your testing indicated (and I do agree that in the continuous flow test that the particulates probably passed the counter before you checked it) but I don't think most peoples' interpretation of the results really reflects what is going on or the difference between oiled vs dry filters."

The partial counter would have been overwhelmed if flour was poured in without a filter.

What he really needed was some way to evenly distribute the flour by injecting it into the airstream to more closely represent lots of dirt in an incoming air stream. And then inject X volume of flour over Y amount of time period, and watch the particle counter throughout the test time period.
 
^^^

Dumping the dust right on top doesn't seem to be the best way to test this - the dirt would need to be added to a stream of air through filter at some rate that approximates real-world conditions.
 
"I'm one of those that's used K&N in many vehicles without issue (consumption issues or otherwise). I still know that a quality paper filter will 'filter' better. That's not up for debate."

Pretty much - me too.
 
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If it's universally accepted that a K&N won't filter as good as paper what are the reasons someone would run one on a run of the mill vehicle? Is the extra 2 hp really worth it for your wife's SUV? Personally I hate cleaning my dirtbike air filters and I would never willingly add that hassle to my daily driver's maintenance. I just don't get it. I see them as a motor sports filter only and I don't think they should have begun marketing them as some sort of superior cost saving filter for everyday vehicles.
 
The period in time (way back) that I tried K&N was when V8's were coming out with the HP of today's 4 bangers.
Anything you could put in or bolt on easily for HP was fair game.

You walk in and buy a vehicle with good power these days.
 
Originally Posted by Warlord
If it's universally accepted that a K&N won't filter as good as paper what are the reasons someone would run one on a run of the mill vehicle? Is the extra 2 hp really worth it for your wife's SUV? Personally I hate cleaning my dirtbike air filters and I would never willingly add that hassle to my daily driver's maintenance. I just don't get it. I see them as a motor sports filter only and I don't think they should have begun marketing them as some sort of superior cost saving filter for everyday vehicles.


I'm not willing to use one on other of my vehicles anymore. When I did I didn't realize they didn't filter as well, I was just a teenager trying to get an extra few hp from the anemic 305.

Now I'm sticking to whatever filters best for my 37 year old 305 and 44 year old 350 Oldsmobile. I got them this far, might as well make an effort to get every last year I can out of them.
 
Originally Posted by Warlord
If it's universally accepted that a K&N won't filter as good as paper what are the reasons someone would run one on a run of the mill vehicle? Is the extra 2 hp really worth it for your wife's SUV?


Only if your wife has the go pedal down to the floor all the time.
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Originally Posted by Warlord
If it's universally accepted that a K&N won't filter as good as paper what are the reasons someone would run one on a run of the mill vehicle? Is the extra 2 hp really worth it for your wife's SUV? Personally I hate cleaning my dirtbike air filters and I would never willingly add that hassle to my daily driver's maintenance. I just don't get it. I see them as a motor sports filter only and I don't think they should have begun marketing them as some sort of superior cost saving filter for everyday vehicles.


These are products aimed at performance-minded enthusiasts is the answer, not average drivers. The interval for cleaning is 50K miles - for me that about every 2-3 years. Part of the fun with cars for many IS the fiddling, just like cleaning the filter. I have my OE paper filters for all my vehicles that I run K&Ns in and just swap them out for the day. cleaning/re-oiling is v. simple/not time consuming. What takes time is letting it dry out after washing/oiling. Folks always go to the slight/negligible bump in power some get from these as a reason to not bother - not really different than many minor mods that we do our cars. I look at the filters as part of an overall intake system I run and yes, it does matter to me and no, the slight drop in filtering efficiency isn't a concern to me. My UOAs continue to show no-drama w/r to the proxies for air filtration. Dyno after dyno after flow bench after flow bench show that a high-flow filter (could be oiled or dry) when combined with other intake modifications on my platform (MK7 VW Golf) gives an increase in power. If it doesn't on your car or you don't care, cool!

Inked18 GOLF SW-200210_UOA_30K_clean.jpg
 
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