K&N filter

Advertise with us
shop deals on amazon
Shop deals on ebay
Ford SportTrac Forum

Help Support Ford SportTrac Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Both, But most of the time the performance is nice and you keep putting your foot in it more canceling out the MPG increase..

Todd Z
 
Ah crap. I have been running lately, and thus, breathing more heavily (taking in more oxygen, which is the same air that my FIPK2 takes in). This means that my heart will wear out faster, and this "getting in shape" garbage is actually killing me.



:)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I had a K&N in the Ranger I had before. Although I saw no difference in power or mpg, I did get two used oil analysis on it where the silicon level (an indicator of intake dirt) was perfectly fine.

Main problem is that a lot of people put too much oil on the K&N and that will mess up the MAF sensor. Cleaning it is not a big deal, but it's still a hassle.
 
I have a Saturn with 128K miles all of which were with a K&N air filter and Mobile 1 synthetic oil. Car is still going strong and compression and oil control are just fine.
 
There is a lot of anecdotal information out there about the dirt that K&N allows into the engine. I've read several posts about how dirt got into the intake with the K&N and not the stock filter. Also, I do recall a site that tested several air filters effectiveness by installing a very fine post filter to see how much dirt got by.



Personally, I don't care, and I would imagine that if the driving conditions are not too bad and that proper maintenance is done, most modern engines will make it to 150lk miles OK even with a K&N. However, it stands to reason that K&N filters were designed for racing conditions where engines are expected to only last a few hours of operation before they are torn down and rebuilt. Dirt in the intake in these conditions is not nearly as important as getting a the largest amount of air into the engine for the most power. For most of the rest of us folks, we don't expect to tear down and rebuild our engines after every trip or even after every season. I would happily give up a few horsepower at high rpms for a cleaner, potentially longer-lasting engine. I just use the stock filter, but change it out at least every 15k miles or more often.



To each his own, but I don't see much benefit to putting a K&N on a daily driver that I am making payments on.
 
Get a MAC. Much cheaper and if you get one early on like I did you will at least save money on replacement filters since it's made to be cleaned and not replaced. I could tell a little difference after installing mine in both performance and mpg but admittedly very little. Still, I think it was worth the $120 investment. (It does make a cool whoosh sound when you step on the gas). Personnaly, I did a lot of research and never found anything saying it was bad for your engine.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Gavin,



Were those tests performed by makers of other filters, like those high technology foam filters? The same style in my high performance John Deere riding and my Pulon Pro push mower.





Tom
 
Gavin: the K&N filters have passed all gov't tests and will not damage an engine. I ran a K&N drop-in filter in my old Mazda 626 and used that same element for 130K miles. Engine still didn't use any oil when I traded it in.
 
I've seen this study referenced on several sites but it looks legit. It makes sense: the price of reduced air restriction is increased passage of airborne grit.



Does that effect your engine life? It probably depends on where you live or where you take your ST. If you live in the desert or drive down a dirt road daily, it might be an issue.



To your question: With my K&N, I had no perceptible increase in mileage or performance. If you buy a K&N, do it for the brand prestige, the look and the whoosh. Any appreciable gains would come at high, high end when your engine is pumping lots of air.
 
The reason I started this crusade was that I was seeing people spend a lot of money on aftermarket filters based on the word of a salesperson or based on the misleading, incomplete or outright deceiving information printed on boxes and in sales literature. Gentlemen and Ladies, Marketing and the lure of profit is VERY POWERFUL! It is amazing how many people believe that better airflow = more power! Unless you have modifications out the wazoo, a more porous filter will just dirty your oil! Some will say " I have used aftermarket brand X for XXX # years with no problems. The PROBLEM is you spent a chunk of ching on a product that not only DID NOT increase your horsepower, but also let in a lot of dirt while doing it! Now how much is a lot? ANY MORE THAN NECESSARY is TOO MUCH!



Others are persuaded by the claims of aftermarket manufacturers that their filters filter dirt "better than any other filter on the market." Sounds very enticing. To small timers like you and me, spending $1500 to test a filter sounds like a lot. But if you were a filter manufacturer and you believed your filter could filter dirt better than any other media on the market, wouldn't you want to prove it? Guess what. Test your filter vs. the OE paper. It will cost you $3000 and for that price you will have the data that you can use in your advertisements. Your investment will be returned a thousand fold! EASIER than shooting fish in a barrel! So why don't these manufacturers do this? Hmmm? Probably not because they would feel guilty about taking more market share.







Now I am not saying that ALL aftermarket filters are useless. A paper filter does not do well if directly wetted or muddy. It may collapse. This is why many off-road filters are foam. It is a compromise between filtering efficiency and protection from a collapsed filter. Now how many of our trucks collapse their filters from mud and water? However, if a filter is using "better airflow" as their marketing tool, remember this....Does it flow better? At very high airflow volumes, probably. BUT, Our trucks CAN'T flow that much air unless super-modified, so what is the point? The stock filter will flow MORE THAN ENOUGH AIR to give you ALL THE HORSEPOWER the engine has to give. And this remains true until the filter is dirty enough to trip the air filter life indicator. At that point performance will decline somewhat. Replace the filter and get on with it.



Hopefully the results of this test will do 2 things. Shed some light on the misleading marketing claims of some aftermarket manufacturers and/or give us new insight on products already on the market that are superior to our OE filter.
Click to expand...



Yep, that is one of them!
 
Oklahoma is a very dusty place, and may get even more dusty if the drought holds on. I considered a K&N, but like is stated above, it only makes sense that if more air is let in, then you will also let more dust in too.



Granted, these are still small bits of grit, but in the long run, if you let enough in it may cause issues. I prefer to just buy new, high-quality, conventional filters. Plus, I don't have to worry about over-oiling and wrecking the performance of my IAC.



Besides. when I off-road in the mud, the air breather cover gets all muddy. I can imagine the K&N would be saturated if I had one.



edit: I read that link posted by fy10lyny. I'd never seen it before, but I was happy to see the WIX filters I use are pretty decent. :D
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I bought a carton of Wix filters when I got my Trac. When pulled the filter out of the box, I was surprised to see that it was a motorcraft filter with a wix part number also ink-jetted on it. I even sent an E-mail to Wix and asked them about it--they said that they were still a low-volume part number and it was cheaper to just buy 'em from motorcraft and repackage them into Wix boxes.



Anyway, I have a lifetime of Wix/Motorcraft air filters, and I just pop a new one in every Fall or 15,000 miles.
 

Latest posts

Top