What is worse...!

[geeeman]

My cars factory airbox sucks the majority of its air from the fenderwell area: What is worse, a premium paper filter in the stock airbox sucking up BRAKE DUST! (it gets through the filter, shows up as a dark, rust coloured residue), OR...
A K&N cone filter underhood...warm air...etc.

I have run both set-ups; the K&N seems SLIGHTLY cleaner, with no brake dust at least...

PS- the worst set-up was a drop-in K&N panel filter in the stock airbox, I was SHOCKED! by how dirty the intake piping was...!

NOTE - I am VERY hard on brakes, and care more about performance of pads than dust...

 

[uconn1150]

K&N cone filter with a wrap!

 

[joee12]

In my opinion, the K&N is worse! The reason it looks cleaner, is because it does not trap as much dirt as the paper filter. Besides sucking in more dirt, the K&N cone filter sucks in horsepower robbing hot air. I saw a magazine article in a few years back where they took a Honda Civic EX and did a dyno test with a couple of different intake systems. All of the short-ram systems lost horsepower, while the cold air units gained only a couple of horses. Car and Driver also did a test with some K&N panel filters. They took a Buick Regal GS(supercharged) and did both dyno and quarter mile tests. The K&N filter added no horsepower or quicker times in the 1/4 mile. -Joe

[ November 20, 2003, 07:35 AM: Message edited by: joee12 ]

 

[TC]

A few others in this forum have commented on the blatant pinpoint holes in the K&N media. Last night while buying oil filters, out of curiosity I pulled a K&N air filter out of its box and held it up against the store's overhead lights. Numerous pinpoint holes the size of large grains of sand were obvious, naturally occurring in the media (not defective, just "the way it is"). I quickly deduced that folks should run away -- not walk -- from these filters, although track cars that need every edge they can get might be an exception, although Joee12's comments trash even that argument.

As someone who's raced cars at club events for many years, I don't see any relevance of brake dust to your air filter -- I doubt if it's any worse than other dust which inevitably comes up against your filter, be it silicon (sand), earth, soot, tire rubber dust, etc.

[ November 09, 2003, 10:00 PM: Message edited by: TC ]

 

[BIGJ552000]

quote:

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Originally posted by joee12:
They took a Buick Regal GS(supercharged) and did both dino and quarter mile tests. The K&N filter added no horsepower or quicker times in the 1/4 mile. -Joe

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Yeah but with the stock setup you just don't hear the S/C whine up

 

[Mic]

quote:

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Originally posted by uconn1150:
K&N cone filter with a wrap!

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I produced the same sound effect on my 327 when I flipped the air cleaner cover upside down. That was 20 plus years ago.

Fram it.

Jeff

 

[AnthonyS]

quote:

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Originally posted by uconn1150:
K&N cone filter with a wrap!

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I actually find it amazing that if K&N filters work so well according to them, they are now selling wraps. Their wraps are actually foam filter material. In essence they are adding another filter or prefilter. This will definitely increase filter efficiency, but it will also reduce flow. Imagine using two air filters in series, say stock paper ones. Filtering ability goes up a lot, and flow goes down a lot too. This isn't the answer either.

The answer is to get the single best solitary filter you can and use it. I ran my car with filters in series for the sake of testing, and my second filter was very small. The power lost was just phenomenal and very irritating to say the least. If K&N filters worked as claimed, they wouldn't have prefilters (wraps) in their product line now would they?

For 99.99% of the cars on the road it is about impossible to beat the OEM design. The OEM design has more R&D and testing done for it than K&N can likely afford to spend on one application.

 

[snowman]

Anthony - according to your tests, even a paper filter did not add a significant pressure drop compared to no filter at all. So, how is it that 2 filters in series would cause a phenomenal amount of power loss?

Unless that second smaller filter you mention severely restricts all the air flow to a very small area, this is inconsistent with some of your previous findings.

 

[Bio-T]

Look at this for a filter wrap, not foam, but water resistant:

http://theoildrop.server101.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=15;t=000167