Team-BHP - K&N filters

Quote:

Originally Posted by mohit

Hey Satya, you have driven your car with a paper filter and now a stock replacement K&N.... any changes?

i had the performance k&n filter for 3 years.other than making the exhaust louder ,i did not see any differnce in performnace.
maybe as dragger had said,i had not got it installed properly .and so the hot engine air used to affect the performance.
the FE was okay.

but during rains whenever i used to switch over to my OE filter,i used to find better ovearll perforamnace including FE.maybe the better FE was becasue of lower speeds during rains.

as a result ,i sold my performance filter to fellow bhpian ,who now has it on his esteem.

regarding the stock replacement filter,i feel the FE has improved slightly along with the performance.
after fitting the stock replacement filter.i have got 18kpl with and w/o AC on a mulund-karnala-mulund drive at speeds of 80-100kph.

also i am getting 14kpl -15kplwith AC within the city.
to be on the safe side ,i feel the stock replacement is better as u need not do any mods .just fit it into the airbox.

but as dragger says ,if fitted properly the performance filter may give u better results.

i have a universal filter. remove it once in a while and give it a good brushing and tapping to get some of the muck off. try and brush the muck away, avoid embedding the muck in the filter pores. K&N also has some kind of fluid that they use to wash the filter. the universal filter gets clogged faster that the replacement filters as they are exposed. i also have a pipe guiding in cool air form my grill to the filter so that area gets dirty faster. by the way K&N says a bit of dirt build up on the filter is good...check their site for more info.

Quote:

Originally Posted by amitoj

Also, if u drive in a dusty terrain(aka india), then its a good idea to clean the filter more often than the manufacture recommended period.
Which brings me to another question... how do you all clean your K&N filter?

clean it with k&n cleaning oil.u dont need to clean it very often.maybe once in 30k kms.
and be careful not to clean it with comprtessed air.

hey people...its been proved that the K&N filter performs efficiently even with 3 inches of dust settled on it..so the cleaning shouldn't be a problem and as satya said just make sure you never used compressed air to clean your filter...what needs to be done is ...the filter has to be washed and re oiled...but after washing when your re-oiling the filter utmost care should be taken beaucse if you over oil the filter...then the oil gets sucked in with the air...and what happens with that is there is a deposit of the oil on the throttle body circumfrence and the MASS AIR FLOW SENSOR...that can lead to failure of the sensor or in a carb engine the oil can settle on the carb and hence the car will keep stalling over and over again...so well the next time you think about getting your K&N filter cleant...just remember it isnt a stock filter so take care..hehe...cheers...!!:)

i have a different opinion on this product i have inquired and done a lot of research out of 15 mechanics i have asked only 3 of them have agreed saying that it actually improves per formance the others said that it was a placebo due to all the hype about it and considering the price of it i think many peple would not want to have these installed in their cars i think the cars original filter works perfectly for the car!

Quote:

Originally Posted by anoops

i think its mainly to do with the cost factor. most manufacturers try and keep the building costs and parts cost as low as possible, hence more profits. a palio 1.2 K&N replacement filter costs about 4k (not the universal filter) while the regular filter costs about 300 bucks...

I am not convinced about it. As Satya said, it would make the car dearer by 3.2K. Now, when you are talking about mass production, I'll not be surprised if the cost comes down to less than 2K per car. Now that is not big money at all. The Filter is supposed to give performance boost as well as improve mileage (if installed well).

I would say if Palio starts giving 13kmpl (instead of 12 kmpl) and delivering 75bhp instead of 72bhp, I am sure it will attract lot more Indian customers. (Palio is just an example, mileage figures approximate).

http://home.usadatanet.net/~jbplock/ISO5011/SPICER.htm

I see a lot of performance minded enthusiasts in this forum using K&N, I too am a veteran K&N user, I would like all to read the above link, I had already found this out with my own personal tests and this link above just confirms my findings as well.

Another fact is that stock intake boxes like the ones on VTEC or Accord V6 are designed to draw in fresh cool air from outside, most K&N kits get installed inside the engine bay where during regular car operation,they draw in hot air which is not good for combustion, remember why intercoolers are put in turbo engines, to cool the already compressed and heated air. There was a performance test done on a Acura Integra GSR which used a RAM air modded airbox which was actually a thermally isolated air box drawing fresh air from the front of the grille, and a K&N conical inside the engine bay, the performance drop was significant, this was posted at the Honda-Tech forum.

I also did a extensive air box testing on my Gurkha, the original BTL airbox draws air from inside the engine bay, that works out fine for relatively cooler Germany where it is slated for, turns out to be a nightmare in stop and go summer in India, by diverting the air intake to the front, my operating temp dropped by 3 degrees and engine performance went up significantly with less detonation, I then bypassed my inefficient BTL muffler and gained quite a few HP from that and my engine operating temp now never exceeded 80C where in summers it was normal to see 90C. Turbo in itself is a very good muffler and the OM 616 engine is inherently quiet in nature so the overall noise gain wasn't' much, actually the engine took a very nice and aggressive note.

Threads merged. Thanks amitoj!

Quote:

Originally Posted by iceman91

agree with dragger...piper cross is made for racing not daily use.

Not true. Just depends on which type of filter you fit. If you buy one made for racing use and fit it on your car, it may not be the best.

I recently fitter a Pipercross replacement panel on my Octi and it's running beautifuly. No, I'm not going to claim any improved performance, but the filter, along with the switch to Motul synthetic, has most definitely made my car smoother. I chose the Pipercross replacement filter as I don't want an increase in intake sound, and I prefer foam filters over paper ones. IMO, they do a better job in dusty conditions.

K&N definately has the best brand recall and PR agents ever, but there are other filters out there which give better performance.