Air Intakes: K&N vs AirRaid vs ProComp

Honestly, you pay for the R&D for K&N. Yes, they do extensive R&D for their products, and they work as claimed. I don't know about other brands, specifically, but many are knockoffs made with air cleaners of similar materials or what have you. If K&N claims they make better fuel economy and improve performance, you can bank on it.

I just purchased and installed a K&N fipk in my XJ. I've only had it for less than a week. It was easy to install with hand tools and everything fit well. I read a lot of ads that said the HP gain was

Mort

snipped-for-privacy@aust> at 4 wheel parts the pro comp air intake system is

I am absolutely convinced that for a Jeep TJ, neither the AirRaid nor FIPK do a single solitary good thing in terms of performance. Nada, zilch. I am convinced they help high-performance muscle cars like Mustangs and Camaros, but I am TOTALLY convinced they do not help a TJ in the least. Even Jim Repp, father of the Rubicon, personally told me on the phone that the TJ has a wide-open air intake system that has more air capacity than the 4.0L engine is capable of drawing through it, even at WOT and high rpms.

In fact, I would REMOVE my present K&N air filter and re-install my factory air box if my York OBA wasn't in the way. In the dusty desert wheeling conditions I wheel in, my K&N was letting fine dust through into the air intake tube. Not until I installed first a K&N Outerwears prefilter, then when that wasn't quite enough, a Unifilter oiled foam pre-filter, did my air tube finally stop collecting dust inside like it never did with the OEM air filter.

Jerry

Well, situations vary. First off, the TJ isn't a very hard breathing vehicle, so it won't benefit as much from the K&N as a muscle car. If K&N claim 5 to 7 HP increase, that's certainly believable. Now, they may have used one certain year and model to get that figure and another year, with a different design will get different results. 5-7 HP isn't very noticable, unless you can hook up to a dyno and see the results for yourself. Getting bolt-on HP is a matter of uncorking bottlenecks. If the intake isn't the bottleneck, your gains are limited.

Mort, After you have driven your Jeep for a while please let us know your thoughts. It is comon for people to post their opinions about modifications here and not have first hand exsperience. Usually it is "a buddy of mine" or "a guy told me" or it didn't work on a completely different application.

BTW - I would bet that the differnce in cost is a combination of quality and overhead. K&N is a great product but, how much of the price is because they sponsor fuel drag cars and NHRA events?

Will, I have > I just purchased and installed a K&N fipk in my XJ. I've only had it