What Air Filter should I replace my K&N with?

[alaskanseminole]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: alaskanseminole
I'm highly considering purchasing a Wix from Amazon and driving until my next oil change. At that point I'll be collecting for another analysis. I figure if my silicon #'s drop, then I made a wise choice.

But if K&N is the culprit, then your current oil is already being contaminated as we speak, so even if you replace it with Wix at some point during this interval, the silicon numbers would still be elevated.


So its instant contamination, not contamination over time? At this point my contamination would be a little over a week. It took over 5K miles to get those #'s last time.

 

[Jim Allen]

If the oil is only in for a week, you should be OK, as I'm sure Quattro will agree. You should show a lower number than previous, though maybe the one AFTER that will be more or less normalized.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Agreed, Jim.

 

[alaskanseminole]

Thanks, gents...still learning.

 

[FZ1]

The oem.

 

[Kuato]

Side note: I've used K&N for several years. Occasionally on a UOA there will be a spike in silicon, which indicates to me that either:

A) I did a poor job oiling the filter at cleaning time, or

B) There was some heavy dust that got past the filter.

Neither one is acceptable as IMHO you should get consistent air filtration.

 

[spk2000]

K&N is a great performance filter but not so great for keeping particles out of the engine. I would switch to something different in a dirty environment unless I were racing and rebuilding all the time.

 

[barlowc]

Funny, I was about to start the same thread. Yesterday I got a UOA for our Saturn back from Blackstone. (Thread here.) The silicon number was 29 and up 68% from my previous average and was over 2x the Universal Average. I inspected things this morning and the connections, etc. all appeared to be OK, but my "white glove" test found a trace of brown-colored dirt inside the conduit.

I've been running a K&N in this vehicle since it has only 215 miles on the odometer. At 52K I properly cleaned and re-oiled it. This is the first UOA since and I think I'm going to pull the K&N and replace it with an OE or WIX paper filter.

 

[walk23]

Amsoil

 

[alaskanseminole]

Originally Posted By: spk2000
K&N is a great performance filter but not so great for keeping particles out of the engine. I would switch to something different in a dirty environment unless I were racing and rebuilding all the time.


Sounds like we did and will do the exact same thing...put an OEM filter back in the Pathfinder just this weekend (will do on Mazda too).

 

[Merkava_4]

I'm still running the Fram Air Hog on my Buick LeSabre. I've had it on there since 2005 and it's still pretty clean. A little bit of black power substance on the outside air side - but whistle clean on the engine side. I've never had to clean or re-oil it. I just hook the garage vacuum up to the blower port and blow it off on each oil change. What impresses me the most about it is the construction of it. It's made really well and it fits the air cleaner box like a glove. It's quite a bit thicker than a K&N - the K&N is 0.938'' thick and the Air Hog is 2.31'' thick.