K&N air filters are NOT A BENEFICIAL MOD!
06-02-2006, 01:12 AM
#1
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Car Info: 2005 Subaru Impreza WRX STI
K&N air filters are NOT A BENEFICIAL MOD!
I've seen this topic so many times, lets just put it to rest. Sticky please.
==================================================
K&N air filters are not wortwhile sometimes harmful!
1. Subaru's have MAF sensors which reside in our intake path. The MAF sensor controls the air flow measurements sent to the computer. This is what controls your Air & Fuel Ratios which makes your car run correctly, too rich or too lean. Running too rich or lean can cause COSTLY DAMAGES!
2. The K&N filter is oiled. The oil gets sucked into the intake path and coats the MAF sensor. This in turn makes it misreport and malfunction resulting in the wrong air & fuel ratios.
3. It filters worse than almost EVERY paper filter on the market.
4. It FLOWS worse than almost every paper filter on the market.
5. I costs about 5 times as much as it higher performing counterparts.
6. YOU STOCK FILTER IS MADE BY PUROLATOR AND PERFORMS MUCH BTTER THAN A K&N. IT WITH YOUR STOCK AIR BOX IS RATED FOR ABOVE 375 WHP!
THE PROOF:
http://home.usadatanet.net/~jbplock/ISO5011/SPICER.htm
==================================================
Save your money and do your research,
-TVG
==================================================
K&N air filters are not wortwhile sometimes harmful!
1. Subaru's have MAF sensors which reside in our intake path. The MAF sensor controls the air flow measurements sent to the computer. This is what controls your Air & Fuel Ratios which makes your car run correctly, too rich or too lean. Running too rich or lean can cause COSTLY DAMAGES!
2. The K&N filter is oiled. The oil gets sucked into the intake path and coats the MAF sensor. This in turn makes it misreport and malfunction resulting in the wrong air & fuel ratios.
3. It filters worse than almost EVERY paper filter on the market.
4. It FLOWS worse than almost every paper filter on the market.
5. I costs about 5 times as much as it higher performing counterparts.
6. YOU STOCK FILTER IS MADE BY PUROLATOR AND PERFORMS MUCH BTTER THAN A K&N. IT WITH YOUR STOCK AIR BOX IS RATED FOR ABOVE 375 WHP!
THE PROOF:
http://home.usadatanet.net/~jbplock/ISO5011/SPICER.htm
==================================================
Save your money and do your research,
-TVG
Last edited by thevanitygroup; 06-02-2006 at 01:17 AM.
06-02-2006, 01:21 AM
#3
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I put a Fram Air HOG on my WRX 06, after couple of 100 of miles of using...the car felt lots of hesitation! so then i decided to put back to stock, the car runs much better...hopefully i didnt get any of the oil (from the filter) on my MAF sensor. i threw away my 40 dollars!!!!
06-02-2006, 03:02 PM
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Hmmmm?
Does my Suby need to breath better then a Duro-Max? Dunno.
But, must admit the filtration properties on the K & N are less then stellar.
The one thing I have noticed from all my years of K & N applications (from Range Rovers to Hondas) is a big increase in throttle input (both large and small) ~ simply more sensitive to the gas after install then OEM.
Oil on the MAF worries me (it can be cleaned), and the lack of filtering worries me.
But, are all the air induction systems that use oiled filters (short and CAI) from Injen, Cobb, Secret Weapon, AEM et. al. are ALL too stupid to do their homework on flow and performance?
And are they ALL so dishonest (as to show HP increases on Dynos from OEM systems) that they are also ALL lying???
I just find this a very hard nut to swallow... Any manufactures, racing teams out there lurking that wish to chime in???
But, must admit the filtration properties on the K & N are less then stellar.
The one thing I have noticed from all my years of K & N applications (from Range Rovers to Hondas) is a big increase in throttle input (both large and small) ~ simply more sensitive to the gas after install then OEM.
Oil on the MAF worries me (it can be cleaned), and the lack of filtering worries me.
But, are all the air induction systems that use oiled filters (short and CAI) from Injen, Cobb, Secret Weapon, AEM et. al. are ALL too stupid to do their homework on flow and performance?
And are they ALL so dishonest (as to show HP increases on Dynos from OEM systems) that they are also ALL lying???
I just find this a very hard nut to swallow... Any manufactures, racing teams out there lurking that wish to chime in???
Last edited by NW OBS; 06-02-2006 at 03:05 PM.
06-02-2006, 11:58 PM
#5
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Car Info: 2005 Subaru Impreza WRX STI
hint.
most intake manufacturers already have mass quantity deals with filter suppliers on oiled filters which sometimes (not in K&N's case) yield good results in Honda's and other N/A non-MAF vehicles. it is simply to easy for them to design an intake and literally slap on a filter that comes with all of their other systems for them not to do it.
INTAKES are a fairly unresonable mod themselves as well and again sometimes harmful.
1. They PRIMARLY come with oiled filters and we all know from above what that can do.
2. They usually change the locating of where the MAF sensor sits which causes it to completely freak out in some cases. There are very few intakes that keep the location for the MAF the same. APS is one that comes to mind.
3. COLD AIR INTAKES ARE FOR THE RETARDED. Why? Because your cold air is going to go straight through your turbo and immediatly be changed to the same temp that the inside of your turbo is. Regardless if it comes in at 10 degrees cooler is going out at the exact same temp.
Stay informed.
most intake manufacturers already have mass quantity deals with filter suppliers on oiled filters which sometimes (not in K&N's case) yield good results in Honda's and other N/A non-MAF vehicles. it is simply to easy for them to design an intake and literally slap on a filter that comes with all of their other systems for them not to do it.
INTAKES are a fairly unresonable mod themselves as well and again sometimes harmful.
1. They PRIMARLY come with oiled filters and we all know from above what that can do.
2. They usually change the locating of where the MAF sensor sits which causes it to completely freak out in some cases. There are very few intakes that keep the location for the MAF the same. APS is one that comes to mind.
3. COLD AIR INTAKES ARE FOR THE RETARDED. Why? Because your cold air is going to go straight through your turbo and immediatly be changed to the same temp that the inside of your turbo is. Regardless if it comes in at 10 degrees cooler is going out at the exact same temp.
Stay informed.
06-03-2006, 12:38 AM
#7
Cold ir is great for an na, as long as the sensors are in the factory position that the ecu has been calibrated for and or the ecu has been tuned to compensate for the changes.
06-03-2006, 06:37 AM
#8
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Origami posted by thevanitygroup
1. Subaru's have MAF sensors which reside in our intake path. The MAF sensor controls the air flow measurements sent to the computer. This is what controls your Air & Fuel Ratios which makes your car run correctly, too rich or too lean. Running too rich or lean can cause COSTLY DAMAGES!
2. The K&N filter is oiled. The oil gets sucked into the intake path and coats the MAF sensor. This in turn makes it misreport and malfunction resulting in the wrong air & fuel ratios.
3. It filters worse than almost EVERY paper filter on the market.
4. It FLOWS worse than almost every paper filter on the market.
5. I costs about 5 times as much as it higher performing counterparts.
6. YOU STOCK FILTER IS MADE BY PUROLATOR AND PERFORMS MUCH BTTER THAN A K&N. IT WITH YOUR STOCK AIR BOX IS RATED FOR ABOVE 375 WHP!
THE PROOF:
http://home.usadatanet.net/~jbplock/ISO5011/SPICER.htm
1. Subaru's have MAF sensors which reside in our intake path. The MAF sensor controls the air flow measurements sent to the computer. This is what controls your Air & Fuel Ratios which makes your car run correctly, too rich or too lean. Running too rich or lean can cause COSTLY DAMAGES!
2. The K&N filter is oiled. The oil gets sucked into the intake path and coats the MAF sensor. This in turn makes it misreport and malfunction resulting in the wrong air & fuel ratios.
3. It filters worse than almost EVERY paper filter on the market.
4. It FLOWS worse than almost every paper filter on the market.
5. I costs about 5 times as much as it higher performing counterparts.
6. YOU STOCK FILTER IS MADE BY PUROLATOR AND PERFORMS MUCH BTTER THAN A K&N. IT WITH YOUR STOCK AIR BOX IS RATED FOR ABOVE 375 WHP!
THE PROOF:
http://home.usadatanet.net/~jbplock/ISO5011/SPICER.htm
Vishnu Performance Systems conducted a back-to-back dyno test of the K&N drop-in panel filter replacement vs the factory pleated paper element on a 2002 WRX. The test was run on their in-house Dyno Dynamics AWD dynamometer. The K&N panel filter lost 2 to 3 horsepower compared with OEM. The factory paper element is also oil-wetted from the factory but is not reuseable. It is oiled in such a way as to not contaminate the MAF sensor. The factory paper filter also has a greater number of folded pleats in its design. This increases the total filtering area over a flat piece of filter material. The K&N cannot incorporate this many pleats due to its gauze and wire construction, therefore its overall filtering surface area is substantially less than OEM.
Unfortunately, I do not have the link to the Vishnu Performance page that explains how they tested the K&N on a WRX since they changed their site when they began modifying the Lancer Evolution a couple of years ago.
An air filter element is either restrictive or it isn't - it won't flow better at one part of the rpm band than a comparable filter and then worse at another. A K&N will not allow your turbo to spool earlier if it is more restrictive than stock.
There are members who swear by their K&N filters but I have used them on other cars in the past and it is a hassle to clean and re-oil the filter element properly so as not to contaminate the MAF sensor in the intake tract. Even if the K&N is reuseable 'forever', I didn't want to spend the money on something that is more restrictive than the factory paper element.
Vishnu Performance also did not sell cold-air intakes for the simply stated reason that a piece of bent tubing adds no power and requires additional tuning time for zero gain.
We've all read the claims of intake manufacturers that their products increase power with no other changes. How can this be? It's one part BS and another part tuning-by-inducing-errors in the MAF sensor readings. Do you really want to tune using an intake? Any gains obtained by bolting on an intake will go away after a good dyno tuning session, which will likely result in the same net gain with a stock intake on mildly modified engines. The only situations where I could see using an aftermarket intake is for a front-mount intercooler (can't use the factory air box) or for other very high-horsepower setups using a big turbo (much larger than the VF34) where the stock intake might prove to become restrictive to air flow.
None of the above is new information. It's just that it's hard to convince folks that a pretty piece of aluminum tubing or a flashy billet BOV doesn't make more power.
--
0==WW==0
"…axles of evil…" - george w. bush
06-03-2006, 08:26 AM
#9
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A few notes on this based on my own experience:
Not all oiled filters are made the same. I have an Airaid filter, and it has almost double the number of pleats than a K&N filter and much denser material for the filter (if you hold both up to the sun the difference is obvious). It also gets dirty MUCH faster than either the paper or the K&N filters, which seems to say that it stops a lot of dirt in comparison.
It is very easy to clean the MAF sensor of any contaminants, and I recommend it to anyone who has a Subaru engine that is more than a few years old. Just remove all four screws and carefully lift it straight out. Put it on a layer of a few paper towels and shoot the whole assembly interior with electrical contact cleaner, available at any electronics store. Give it a short blast, let the stuff evaporate, repeat a few times unti any drops that fall on the paper towel are 100% clear (no visible dirt). Let it dry completely, stick it back in. The MAF in my wife's Legacy GT wagon was black with dust on the inflow side, even though I have been changing her air filter (factory paper) on a regular basis. The sensor itself looks like a little glass match head.
The worst possible filter, period, is the Air Hog. Just a glance will tell you that is a shoddy and cheap product. FRAM and Amsoil always show up at the bottom of the list when they test air, oil and other filters. Companies don't make a crap product and then miraculously make an amazing product; typically, the entire line of stuff is junk. This is all IMO, I don't have a scientific basis for the argument.
I'm keeping the Airaid oiled filter in my WRX, even after reading that test report. It seems to trap more really fine dirt than the paper one did, or the Perrin foam filter I had previously, and Arizona is full of dust finer than talcum powder. A good non-scientific method of testing how well your filter works: clean out the inside of your airbox with a white cotton cloth. Drive for a month. Do it again with a totally clean white cloth, then spread that cloth out on a table in bright light and look for any dust/dirt. I don't see any dirt when I do this, and more importantly, no oil droplets either.
Oh, and on the CAI issue: WRC cars make 300 hp and 460 tq with a stock airbox and a restrictor plate over the turbo inlet. I think a CAI is harmless, as long as it has a good filter and it doesn't screw up the MAF. The "pod" intakes are the really dumb idea.
Not all oiled filters are made the same. I have an Airaid filter, and it has almost double the number of pleats than a K&N filter and much denser material for the filter (if you hold both up to the sun the difference is obvious). It also gets dirty MUCH faster than either the paper or the K&N filters, which seems to say that it stops a lot of dirt in comparison.
It is very easy to clean the MAF sensor of any contaminants, and I recommend it to anyone who has a Subaru engine that is more than a few years old. Just remove all four screws and carefully lift it straight out. Put it on a layer of a few paper towels and shoot the whole assembly interior with electrical contact cleaner, available at any electronics store. Give it a short blast, let the stuff evaporate, repeat a few times unti any drops that fall on the paper towel are 100% clear (no visible dirt). Let it dry completely, stick it back in. The MAF in my wife's Legacy GT wagon was black with dust on the inflow side, even though I have been changing her air filter (factory paper) on a regular basis. The sensor itself looks like a little glass match head.
The worst possible filter, period, is the Air Hog. Just a glance will tell you that is a shoddy and cheap product. FRAM and Amsoil always show up at the bottom of the list when they test air, oil and other filters. Companies don't make a crap product and then miraculously make an amazing product; typically, the entire line of stuff is junk. This is all IMO, I don't have a scientific basis for the argument.
I'm keeping the Airaid oiled filter in my WRX, even after reading that test report. It seems to trap more really fine dirt than the paper one did, or the Perrin foam filter I had previously, and Arizona is full of dust finer than talcum powder. A good non-scientific method of testing how well your filter works: clean out the inside of your airbox with a white cotton cloth. Drive for a month. Do it again with a totally clean white cloth, then spread that cloth out on a table in bright light and look for any dust/dirt. I don't see any dirt when I do this, and more importantly, no oil droplets either.
Oh, and on the CAI issue: WRC cars make 300 hp and 460 tq with a stock airbox and a restrictor plate over the turbo inlet. I think a CAI is harmless, as long as it has a good filter and it doesn't screw up the MAF. The "pod" intakes are the really dumb idea.
06-03-2006, 05:44 PM
#10
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^ all valid points. great passed couple of posts. as one of your pointed out, this isnt new knowledge its just something that hasent made it around the block yet. hopefully we can get this as a sticky here and on other subaru boards.
06-05-2006, 10:14 PM
#11
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Great Thread!
This is good stuff. I will keep my stock box till I die... now why not the K&N if I clean the MAF ~ pretty simple thing, eh? Do I go STI filter instead ~ green ~ Pep Boys???
06-06-2006, 12:10 AM
#13
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^You both havent read the entire post.
The K&N flow rates are absolutly terrible for a filter that cant catch anything smaller than a oak tree. So what have we concluded from todays lesson?
1. K&N flows WORSE than almost any reputable filter available.
2. K&N filters WORSE than almost any reputable filter available.
Basically tests prove it should be at the bottom of your lists when buy a filter. See this is exactly what I mean about this topic. Even though the facts are in people still want to find a reason to spend $50+ or more on a K&N even after they are proven crap.
stay informed.
The K&N flow rates are absolutly terrible for a filter that cant catch anything smaller than a oak tree. So what have we concluded from todays lesson?
1. K&N flows WORSE than almost any reputable filter available.
2. K&N filters WORSE than almost any reputable filter available.
Basically tests prove it should be at the bottom of your lists when buy a filter. See this is exactly what I mean about this topic. Even though the facts are in people still want to find a reason to spend $50+ or more on a K&N even after they are proven crap.
stay informed.
06-16-2006, 05:18 PM
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Originally Posted by Mr. Furley
What about foam filters?