Are K&N filters worth the money?

[daveymark]

they are kind of expensive compared to their paper counterparts...

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: daveymark
they are kind of expensive compared to their paper counterparts...

for some people, the added cost+letting more stuff in their engine, is worth the supposed 1.5hp

just stick with stock

I just have my AEM shortram only to make my turbo very audible. Yes that's rice and what.....

 

[franksta]

Originally posted by: zerocool84

Originally posted by: daveymark
they are kind of expensive compared to their paper counterparts...

for some people, the added cost+letting more stuff in their engine, is worth the supposed 1.5hp

After a couple of recharges the K&N comes out less expensive.

Also, my oil analysis indicates no "more stuff" getting by than with a paper filter.

 

[JulesMaximus]

What kind of car are you thinking of putting it on?

 

[mwmorph]

It's a horrible investment.

Reusable filters take time, time is money. Drop in a new filter in 5 minutes or take an hour to wash and oil the thing and then have to watch out for oiling too much an fouling your MAF sensor?

On top of that K&N offers some of the worst filtering in the industry, It's behind everyone in filtering ability and on orders of magnitude worse in dirt accumulation capacity.

As a final cherry on top, you wont increase mpg or hp, it's mostly the placebo effect in your mind except in very rare situations. What do you drive?

http://www.duramax-diesel.com/spicer/index.htm

9 out of 10 times, OEM or OEM style will suit your needs better.

This report presents the results of an ISO 5011 test of several air filters designed for the GM Duramax Diesel. The test was independently performed under controlled conditions using a $285,000 machine at Testand Corp of Rhode Island (manufacturer of the machine). Arlen Spicer, a GM Duramax Diesel owner/enthusiast organized the test. Ken an employee of Testand offered to perform the tests at no charge. (These tests typically cost approx $1700.00 per filter). Ken, also a Diesel enthusiast and owner of a Ford Power Stroke Diesel, shared Arlen?s interest in performing an accurate unbiased test of different types and brands of diesel engine air filters. The filters used in the test were purchased retail and donated by Arlen and other individual Duramax Diesel owners. The detailed reports from the test have been compiled and are presented in the following pages. The final pages of this report present the interesting story how and why Arlen organized the test.

Compared to the AC, the K&N ?plugged up? nearly 3 times faster, passed 18 times more dirt and captured 37% less dirt. See the data tables for a complete summary of these comparisons.

I only recommend K&N if you really, really hate your car or need an excuse to buy a new one.

Even in the WORST case scenario, the difference between the best filtering and worst filtering in passing air is 0.19 inches mercury barometric pressure (a 0.6% difference) and 1.025 cubic foot per minute (a 0.2% difference).

On top of that, this test used a large(6.6-7.8L), turbocharged motor so air requirements are decently high, differences in say a 4 cylinder Accord will be smaller.

A 0.2-0.6% increase in flow is not good trade off for filtering that is so, so much less effective.

 

[mooseracing]

Like it has always been, to flow more air there has to be more gaps in the filter element. The only advancement has been in the synthetic elements that are reusable. I haven't seen any real world tests on them yet though.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: mwmorph
It's a horrible investment.

Reusable filters take time, time is money. Drop in a new filter in 5 minutes or take an hour to wash and oil the thing and then have to watch out for oiling too much an fouling your MAF sensor?

On top of that K&N offers some of the worst filtering in the industry, It's behind everyone in filtering ability and on orders of magnitude worse in dirt accumulation capacity.

As a final cherry on top, you wont increase mpg or hp, it's mostly the placebo effect in your mind except in very rare situations. What do you drive?

http://www.duramax-diesel.com/spicer/index.htm

9 out of 10 times, OEM or OEM style will suit your needs better.

This report presents the results of an ISO 5011 test of several air filters designed for the GM Duramax Diesel. The test was independently performed under controlled conditions using a $285,000 machine at Testand Corp of Rhode Island (manufacturer of the machine). Arlen Spicer, a GM Duramax Diesel owner/enthusiast organized the test. Ken an employee of Testand offered to perform the tests at no charge. (These tests typically cost approx $1700.00 per filter). Ken, also a Diesel enthusiast and owner of a Ford Power Stroke Diesel, shared Arlen?s interest in performing an accurate unbiased test of different types and brands of diesel engine air filters. The filters used in the test were purchased retail and donated by Arlen and other individual Duramax Diesel owners. The detailed reports from the test have been compiled and are presented in the following pages. The final pages of this report present the interesting story how and why Arlen organized the test.

Compared to the AC, the K&N ?plugged up? nearly 3 times faster, passed 18 times more dirt and captured 37% less dirt. See the data tables for a complete summary of these comparisons.

I only recommend K&N if you really, really hate your car or need an excuse for it to die on you for insurance money.

Even in the WORST case scenario, the difference between the best filtering and worst filtering in passing air is 0.19 inches mercury barometric pressure (a 0.6% difference) and 1.025 cubic foot per minute (a 0.2% difference).

On top of that, this test used a large(6.6-7.8L), turbocharged motor so air requirements are decently high, differences in say a 4 cylinder Accord will be smaller.

A 0.2-0.6% increase in flow is not good trade off for filtering that is so, so much less effective.

I've ran three different cars to 200k+ miles with K&N or CAI intake setups. No problems here, and I did notice a difference in performance. There are plenty of dynos that show real gains as well. Nothing huge, but I use them with no ill effects. DFW is not the cleanest city in the world either.

This is also interesting :

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/airfilter/airtest3.htm

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: Arkaign

Originally posted by: mwmorph
It's a horrible investment.

Reusable filters take time, time is money. Drop in a new filter in 5 minutes or take an hour to wash and oil the thing and then have to watch out for oiling too much an fouling your MAF sensor?

On top of that K&N offers some of the worst filtering in the industry, It's behind everyone in filtering ability and on orders of magnitude worse in dirt accumulation capacity.

As a final cherry on top, you wont increase mpg or hp, it's mostly the placebo effect in your mind except in very rare situations. What do you drive?

http://www.duramax-diesel.com/spicer/index.htm

9 out of 10 times, OEM or OEM style will suit your needs better.

This report presents the results of an ISO 5011 test of several air filters designed for the GM Duramax Diesel. The test was independently performed under controlled conditions using a $285,000 machine at Testand Corp of Rhode Island (manufacturer of the machine). Arlen Spicer, a GM Duramax Diesel owner/enthusiast organized the test. Ken an employee of Testand offered to perform the tests at no charge. (These tests typically cost approx $1700.00 per filter). Ken, also a Diesel enthusiast and owner of a Ford Power Stroke Diesel, shared Arlen?s interest in performing an accurate unbiased test of different types and brands of diesel engine air filters. The filters used in the test were purchased retail and donated by Arlen and other individual Duramax Diesel owners. The detailed reports from the test have been compiled and are presented in the following pages. The final pages of this report present the interesting story how and why Arlen organized the test.

Compared to the AC, the K&N ?plugged up? nearly 3 times faster, passed 18 times more dirt and captured 37% less dirt. See the data tables for a complete summary of these comparisons.

I only recommend K&N if you really, really hate your car or need an excuse for it to die on you for insurance money.

Even in the WORST case scenario, the difference between the best filtering and worst filtering in passing air is 0.19 inches mercury barometric pressure (a 0.6% difference) and 1.025 cubic foot per minute (a 0.2% difference).

On top of that, this test used a large(6.6-7.8L), turbocharged motor so air requirements are decently high, differences in say a 4 cylinder Accord will be smaller.

A 0.2-0.6% increase in flow is not good trade off for filtering that is so, so much less effective.

I've ran three different cars to 200k+ miles with K&N or CAI intake setups. No problems here, and I did notice a difference in performance. There are plenty of dynos that show real gains as well. Nothing huge, but I use them with no ill effects. DFW is not the cleanest city in the world either.

This is also interesting :

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/airfilter/airtest3.htm

K&N filters DO let more dirt through. This is indisputable. Whether or not the difference is enough to actually damage an engine, well, that's not quite as clear, and depends on many many other factors like the conditions under which the car is operated, how often the filter is cleaned, how often the oil is changed, the initial tolerances on the engine, etc, etc. I haven't heard of anyone who could actually trace an engine failure to K&N filtration issues, but all I'll say is that if you use K&N, be sure to keep up with your oil changes, and try not to drive it in an area that's really dusty.

It would be interesting to do long-term compression tests on two identical cars, one using K&N all its life and the other using the OEM filter.

As for dyno gains, this varies from situation to situation. The intake filter isn't the limiting factor on most stock cars. But with accompanying mods, such as a bigger turbo, freer flowing exhaust, camshafts, injectors, and so on, the filter CAN become a limiting factor, and a less restrictive system show actual HP gains. Usually no more than a couple HP, and frankly I'd rather use a larger OEM filter than the K&N.

 

[SoulAssassin]

Let me sum this thread up so we can get it over with.

Some people will say it's not worth the money.
Some people will say it's the best money they ever spent.
Some people will say it let's more dirt in your engine hurting it.
Some people will say the addt'l air it allows into your engine helps performance.
Some people will provide facts it sucks.
Some people will provide facts it rocks.
Some people will say 'well, I tried it and it sucks'.
Some people will say 'well, I tried it and it rocks'.

In the end there will be no general consensus.

/not worth the money and don't think any minor benefit it provides is worth the possible risk

 

[bruceb]

I use K&N on all my cars ... Not one has ever had any Intake or Engine trouble / failure
as a result. And it will not void most car manufacturer's warranties. And the K&N is good
for up to 1 million miles, before it needs replacement. You should clean & reoil it once or
maybe twice per year. And in my view, yes, they do flow much better than stock & it does
slightly improve HP and MPG

 

[mooseracing]

Originally posted by: bruceb
And in my view, yes, they do flow much better than stock & it does
slightly improve HP and MPG

no one disputes that they flow better......there is a reason they flow better though. And to help filter particles when you have larger openings in the media you use oil.

 

[Pacfanweb]

They only flow better when clean. After the get only a little bit dirty, their flow drops to that of the stock filter, which filters better the whole time. And is cheaper.

K&N= 40-50 bucks
K&N oil=10 bucks.

So 50-60 bucks.

Stock paper filter. 5-7 bucks.
Change it every 15-20k, throw it away.
Gonna take you minimun 75k miles to break even. This isn't even including your time, and the downtime to clean one, if you don't have compressed air to dry it off with, is considerable.

Couple this with the FACT that nearly every manufacturer has TSB's on problems caused by oiled air fiters. And the FACT that they let more dirt through.

Not worth it, IMO.

 

[dud]

I'll chip in here ... I have a K&N in my Lexus , only because it came with the car. The previous owner installed it so I have no before/after to compare it to. If I had to choose between a stock or K&N filter I would go stock. The price is considerably more and I just do not believe that I am getting that much of a performance "boost" to justify it.

Good luck!

 

[alkemyst]

K&N are decent, definitely not the best. Do they let shit past them? yes...will it cost you a noticible amount of decreased engine life? Maybe if you are looking to hit the 200k mile mark.

Apex'i actually makes the best 'cone' type filter out there right now. There Universal Power Intake filter was actually dynoed a few HP over the worst in the lineup and didn't let any visible 'dirt' past it. I may upgrade to it when I do my engine swap/turbo.

Right now my injen is decent.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

i used a k&n filter on my 05 accord v6... didn't notice much difference. it did its job rather well IMO, didn't cause any problems and my car ran smoothly from then on.

i have since changed my intake to a CAI so i have no more need for my accord's K&N.

 

[steppinthrax]

I think Zemmer or Pacific (not sure) said that they make your engine dirty. They allow more particles to flow through.

Sorry I'll take a cleaner engine over a short running one that only performs 1.5 hp better.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
i used a k&n filter on my 05 accord v6... didn't notice much difference. it did its job rather well IMO, didn't cause any problems and my car ran smoothly from then on.

i have since changed my intake to a CAI so i have no more need for my accord's K&N.

CAI and stock setups can use K&N filters.

IMHO they are adequate but there are better ones out there.

To Steppinthrax, it's worth more than just a horse and a half.

A well setup intake on a n/a engine can easily see 5WHP or more.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: bruceb
I use K&N on all my cars ... Not one has ever had any Intake or Engine trouble / failure
as a result. And it will not void most car manufacturer's warranties. And the K&N is good
for up to 1 million miles, before it needs replacement. You should clean & reoil it once or
maybe twice per year. And in my view, yes, they do flow much better than stock & it does
slightly improve HP and MPG

It tripped a CEL in my wife's BMW and it didn't seem to run as well (this was a few years ago when we still had the BMW) so I took it out.

It was fine in my old Mustangs though. I don't bother with them now. Very little to zero gain and added expense and maintenance. No thanks. If you drive pretty much any Japanese sedan I'd advise you to save your money on more worthwhile mods...like better tires or brakes.

 

[91TTZ]

The stock filter in my car was a bit restrictive and after turning up the boost, it really needed a different intake. I got a Jim Wolf Technology cone intake (uses a K&N cone filter) and it made a noticeable difference.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
i used a k&n filter on my 05 accord v6... didn't notice much difference. it did its job rather well IMO, didn't cause any problems and my car ran smoothly from then on.

i have since changed my intake to a CAI so i have no more need for my accord's K&N.

CAI and stock setups can use K&N filters.

IMHO they are adequate but there are better ones out there.

To Steppinthrax, it's worth more than just a horse and a half.

A well setup intake on a n/a engine can easily see 5WHP or more.

Alk is right-on here, and it gets really interesting when you do SRI / CAI, because it replaces the possibly convoluted/restrictive intake setup you have to begin with from the factory.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
i used a k&n filter on my 05 accord v6... didn't notice much difference. it did its job rather well IMO, didn't cause any problems and my car ran smoothly from then on.

i have since changed my intake to a CAI so i have no more need for my accord's K&N.

CAI and stock setups can use K&N filters.

IMHO they are adequate but there are better ones out there.

To Steppinthrax, it's worth more than just a horse and a half.

A well setup intake on a n/a engine can easily see 5WHP or more.

5hp makes very little real world difference on a vehicle that weighs over 3,000lbs.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
i used a k&n filter on my 05 accord v6... didn't notice much difference. it did its job rather well IMO, didn't cause any problems and my car ran smoothly from then on.

i have since changed my intake to a CAI so i have no more need for my accord's K&N.

CAI and stock setups can use K&N filters.

IMHO they are adequate but there are better ones out there.

To Steppinthrax, it's worth more than just a horse and a half.

A well setup intake on a n/a engine can easily see 5WHP or more.

5hp makes very little real world difference on a vehicle that weighs over 3,000lbs.

Yeah, intake alone is seldom a full solution.

When someone wants extra performance, they tend to do many of these little mods. In many cars, you can do a CAI, Exhaust, ECU Tune, Fuel Rail, Better Plugs/Wires, and combine it all for a 20-30hp gain to the wheels. Doesn't mean jack in a boat, but on 2,500-3,000lb cars, it can be substantial.

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: Arkaign

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
i used a k&n filter on my 05 accord v6... didn't notice much difference. it did its job rather well IMO, didn't cause any problems and my car ran smoothly from then on.

i have since changed my intake to a CAI so i have no more need for my accord's K&N.

CAI and stock setups can use K&N filters.

IMHO they are adequate but there are better ones out there.

To Steppinthrax, it's worth more than just a horse and a half.

A well setup intake on a n/a engine can easily see 5WHP or more.

5hp makes very little real world difference on a vehicle that weighs over 3,000lbs.

Yeah, intake alone is seldom a full solution.

When someone wants extra performance, they tend to do many of these little mods. In many cars, you can do a CAI, Exhaust, ECU Tune, Fuel Rail, Better Plugs/Wires, and combine it all for a 20-30hp gain to the wheels. Doesn't mean jack in a boat, but on 2,500-3,000lb cars, it can be substantial.

To get a 15% increase in hp you'd probably have installed

new exhaust
new intake
cams
header
new ecu/ecu piggy back and custom tune
plugs/wires
high flow cat

And then you realize you just spent $4000 and dozens of hours to get a 15% increase in power, when if you saved up, you could've gone FI for the price and gained at LEAST 3x more power for the time and money invested.

 

[Apex]

From all of the dynos I've run, those "CAI" systems always lose power with the hood closed, even with a very powerful (80mph, 12000 CFM) fan. They almost always show a power gain with the hood open.

So, if you drive with the hood closed most of the time, CAI systems will make you lose power. If you drive with the hood open or with no hood all of the time, you'll probably gain a few hp.

For drop in filters, there are some that show a gain, some that show no change. K&N and BMC filters both show a gain on the current gen M5/M6, though a pretty minor one.

 

[NaOH]

alright, here's the low down. If you're only putting in a drop in, then I'd say no. Getting new intake piping plus filter? Maybe. Its only worth it if you start doing more mods. As for killing the engine, mine us fine and is at 140K.