performance air filter question

Pandoras box is officially open......

Personally, there is a mechanic out there somewhere who would love for you to put in a "high flow" filter...... he may even smirk when he tells you your motor is dusted.....

Seriously, there are only two ways to increase the flow through an air filter..... one is to increase the surface area of the filter medium..... the other is to make the "holes" in the filter medium bigger (bearing in mind that bigger holes means bigger dirt and more dirt gets through). Since the physical size of a high flow filter is relatively unchanged, we can see that they have opted for bigger holes.

Increasing intake flow is only required if you either modify the engine "package" to flow more air (a LOT more air) or if you have allowed your intake system to deteriorate to the point where repairs are needed..... which usually consists of opening a package and replacing a paper filter rather than washing and drying and oiling and .......

In the end, it is your choice...... the louder intake noise will give the placebo impression of more power and there may be one or two ponies to be had at WOT with good air...... but, considering that we all spend much more time with the throttle at less than half open, I can't see a one percent gain in power (at WOT) being worth the tedium of servicing an overpriced filter nor the eventuality that the filter medium WILL, at one point or another, be over oiled and has the distinct possibility of taking out an equally overpriced MAF sensor.

Now, I'm not going to quote fancy tests like the high flow filter sellers will..... I'm down and dirty..... 7.3 diesels dusted at 80,000 km and Ford says "too bad" because of a high flow air filter. Gas motors pooched long before they needed to be.... the intake tract laden with dust. Poor running and lousy gas mileage from prematurely coated MAF sensors....

Let the flames begin (and they all go like "I been runnin' my since I was two years old and it is the best thing since indoor plumbing and sliced bread"). It's your wallet and your motor... me and my paper filters wont really care where the chips fall

Jim Warman snipped-for-privacy@telusplanet.net

Pro - you'll gain a very small HP increase which will be maybe 3 to 5 HP at wide open throttle. Hardly enough to notice. You may save money on filters in the long run but you may lose engine life. Opinions are all over the map on how damaging these high flow filters are.

Con - most likely it will be noisier, let more dust and dirt in, and may void your warrant. It will be more trouble to clean then just replacing a paper filter.

One thing for certain, if they could be counted on for better gas mileage the manufacturers would use them or something similar, assuming they could count on them to filter properly EVERY time. After you wash it out and squish it dry for the third time can you be sure its even filtering properly anymore??

-- Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts:

"What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. . . Whenever Government means to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise a standing army upon its ruins." -- Debate, U.S. House of Representatives, August 17, 1789

See

. There are manyvariables but in this instance, the best performance came from the stockproduct. YMMV

My brother put a K&N on his '99 Expedition. Screwed up the performance. He took it off promptly. Good grief guys, does anybody really think the manufacturers would design a sub-optimum air intake system on purpose? They do the best they can with the engineering tools and testing they can get (within budget and schedule constraints, of course).

Maybe I need a magnet on my fuel line. Yeah, that's the secret to better performance!!!

since

I had a recent Drive Along with a ford Head Service Tech. And He said that the Oil in the Performance Air Filter, (K&N) would foul the Mass Air Flow Sensor which will decrease the performance of the engine. So if you wish to use a performance filter either get a oil baffle for the MAFS or use a Oil-Less Filter.

Only if you over-oil the filter. It has been over 90,000 miles since I installed my K&N FIPK '97 SOHC Explorer and I haven't had one MAF issue, nor have I had any MAF issues on the other two vehicles that I have installed them on ('94 4.0L OHV Ranger and '95 4.6L V8 T-bird). My Explorer has

111,000 miles on it now, many of which have been off-roading in the Arizona deserts with zero engine problems to report. I will admit though that the filter does little in the way of "seat of the pants" performance wise. I figure that by now I probably have just broken even on the savings from not buying a new filter every 12K miles. I do like the added sound when used in conjunction with my Borla cat-back exhaust and don't have any desires to put the factory airbox back on.

I seem to have to repeat myself...... your experience may be different from mine. While your desert sand may be a true test of wear in essence, I would imagine that the micron size of the sand is much larger than the micron size of your K&N..... I live in a land of red clay....... this stuff breaks down into grains like flour or confectioners sugar and can hang in the air for hours. This is the stuff that is stopped by a good qualty paper filter but slides through a "performance" filter like a hot knife through butter.

The decision to change to one of these types of filters is not one to be taken lightly.... the purchaser desparately needs to assess his/her own filtering requirements before taking the plunge rather than after dusting an engine. Remember that the whole world is not a clone of your own backyard and driving conditions in one place can be polar to the conditions in another.

Jim Warman snipped-for-privacy@telusplanet.net

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