k&n air filter

[illflem]

It all boils down to use what you're comfortable with. If it lets dirt by don't use it, but don't assume everyone else's passes dirt just because yours does. I highly doubt K&N would sell a filter that kills engines, it just isn't good for business.

 

[Big P]

This isn't ment to be a flame to the K&N doubters but what is the bottom line. Is this "extra" dirt and grime in the motor going to cost us 50,000-75,000 miles on a 350,000 mile motor, I'm just guessing here. Most of us don't keep our trucks that long anyways, besides putting in high flow injectors and fueling boxes with 50psi of boost has to be harder on the motor than the K&N. Educate me.

 

[thepitts]

Just my own thoughts

I was wondering if the ones who still have the stock air box with the K&N are the ones with dirt problems? There does seem to be a problem with sealing the filter in the stock air box. I have the 0880 with the prefilter and all looks good and so do the numbers. I do think you need to run the prefilter. JMHO

 

[Steve M]

Welcome to K&N Engineering, Inc.

Manufacturer of the World's Best Filters.



K&N Filtercharger®

One Million Mile Limited Warranty



EXTENT OF WARRANTY:

Any defective Filtercharger® element properly returned to K&N will be replaced by K&N. K&N will not be responsible for any other expenses incurred by the customer under the terms of this warranty, nor shall it be responsible for any damages either consequential, special, contingent, or otherwise; or expenses or injury arising directly or indirectly from the use of the Filtercharger® element. Any Filtercharger® element returned to K&N must be sent at customers' expense along with a completed Warranty Claim Card and proof of purchase. K&N reserves the right to determine whether the terms of the warranty, set out above, have been properly complied with. In the event that the terms are not complied with, K&N shall be under no obligation to honor this warranty.



http://www.knfilters.com/warrnty.htm



Not in my truck... Even the lowly Fram filter company warrants their filters against damaging your motor. K&N states in writing that they WILL NOT. If they don't have enough faith in their own product to guarantee that it won't damage my engine, I don't want any part of it. Yeah yeah yeah... it has to be installed properly. So does a Fram.

 

[SamPap]

My K&N Eperience

The first Bomb that I dropped in was a K&N. After reading the posts on this topic I became concerned and wanted to inspect my turbine blades. Well, upon inspection I found an oily build up on the blades and the opening (inlet) of the turbo. I am suspecting that this oily substance is from the oil in the filter. Will this harm the turbo and of so what can I use to clean it off?



Also, if it is determined that the oily substance does harm the turbo, what would be a comparable replacement filter?



BTW, I had a couple hundred miles at the install and now have about 5K.

 

[sdalton]

Ram4Sam, I am typing slowly, so you can more easily read what I say. I had oil on my turbo blades. I had grit on my turbo blades, I had grit post K&N filter. I sealed it two different ways. It was the stock box. It was oiled from the factory, and not me. It may have been a defective filter, but the benefits that this filter provided were not worth the possible damage that could be done to the engine. Another resson for there being no silica recorded in the oil analysis is that the intercooler could have trapped a lot before it entered the engine. In any case, these questions have been asked before, at the TDR and a large amount of people have had problems with their K&N filters, just like me. I am not saying you will have problems, but what I saw was enough to scare me away from their product.



It is your engine, take the risk if you like.

Quote: MPagnucco: "Is this "extra" dirt and grime in the motor going to cost us 50,000-75,000 miles on a 350,000 mile motor, I'm just guessing here. Most of us don't keep our trucks that long anyways, "

Since you dont think it matters. Why dont you put that in you classified add when you try to sell your truck, and see if the potential buyers feel the same way.

I for one would not buy a vehicle if I saw it had a K&N stuck on it.

 

[Big John]

I still do the maintenance on a '94 I sold to a friend. There has been a K&N in it for the last 170K. No problems, no dirt, on film, no problems with turbo, rings, etc. I am carefull when installing it to grease the outside gasket good. I have been running K&N for as long as I can remember on both gas and diesel engines.



I had a problem on my wife's "98 360 one time when the mechanic at the Dodge dealer installed it wrong after some warentee work. I checked it as soon as I got it home and corrected the seal. No problems after 72K miles.



I do not doubt that some have had problems with them just like we all have different experiences with different products. My experiences have all been good and I run them in all my vehicles.



I switched to oil bath air filtration after some very expensive repairs years ago on agricultural machinery with dry filters. They have always served me well.



It is a personal decision and one I am happy with.



Big John

 

[pwr2tow]

All I'am going to say is my truck had a K&N 0880 and the foam prefilter, I never saw grit on anything in the air intake before the K&N and after I removed the K&N , but I sure saw grit on the air intake components while useing the K&N filter.



Ron

 

[Ram4Sam]

typing with one finger(index, of course)

SDalton, I am typing even slower for you



I had no trouble reading what you wrote. Perhaps you couldn't keep up with me. This filter works fine for me, based on science(oil analysis) and the evidence(clean intake tract). I don't know why you had so many problems, maybe you got a bad filter, who knows. I have tried three different filter setups using gauze filters, stock box(extra holes), a ScottyII setup and the Volant fresh air box, all with no dirt problems. (again, science and evidence) This includes numerous trips on desert dirt roads during off road race support so plenty of dirt was available.



Quote: MPagnucco: "Is this "extra" dirt and grime in the motor going to cost us 50,000-75,000 miles on a 350,000 mile motor, I'm just guessing here. Most of us don't keep our trucks that long anyways, "

Since you dont think it matters. "



Evidently, you weren't reading very closely as I never said that.

Based on my expieriences, science and evidence(there's those words again) MPagnucco's assumption of "extra dirt" is not true so I don't see where it has much validity. (no offense to MPagnucco)



As for selling my truck, I have sold numerous vehicles(of different types) with a K&N filter and it has never been an issue. If I remember right, it was always a positive selling point. I am not the least bit worried about selling my truck with a K&N filter in it. There are plenty of people in the world who make their decisions based more on science and evidence and not so much on emotions.



Sam

 

[sdalton]

Ram4Sam, I am now zzzzz typing zzzzz so slowly zzz for you zzzz that I am falling zzzzz asleep zzzzzz. I hope zzzz you can zzzz keep up zzzzz.

I guess this is a case where you get one very bad product, and it permanently jades you. I dont think I have heard much complaints from the re 880, Most are from the drop in replacements.

I would have no problem using the RE-880 with the prefoam filter. Dont you have to cut a hole in the firewall for that one?? I would love to see K&N come out with a BHAF with the prefoam element.





This debate is all in fun and in no way meant to hurt anyones feelings. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

 

[Big P]

If you read my sig it says that I have a JRE cold air kit which uses a K&N re088 filter with the foam pre filter. I've had it for about 17000 miles so far and I have no dirt, oil, or grit in the turbo blades.



Ram4Sam, I guess I should have posted like this

Is this extra dirt and grime

I ment it sarcasticly



sdalton, I'm not worried about the next buyer, I got the truck for me to enjoy, not the next guy. Besides I trade my trucks to the dealer anyways.

 

[mchelius]

From the horse's mouth

I emailed this question to K&N, and there reply was:



Dear Customer,



I have had another customer report the same thing about the Turbo blade failure if you use a K&N filter. I have search extensively to try and find some type of technical service bulletin or something in writing about this. Cummins does state in their FAQ part of their web page, that do not recommend high flow air filter like K&N be cause the dirt that is allowed through the filter will cause piston and cylinder wall scoring.



First off the Magson-moss warranty Act states, that unless a dealer provides you the air filter free of charge under the warranty, you are free to use any make of filter, and the dealer can not void the warranty.



Second, Turbo fan blades do get dirty and do turn black with the very fine dirt that passes through paper air filters as well as K&N filter.



Third, Since Cummins has a very vested interest in Fleet Guard filters I wonder how biases they are. Here is a independent test conducted on K&K filters and paper filters. You be the judge.



Our filters are tested by an outside, independent laboratory. They have been proven to stop at least 99% of particles on a SAE dust test. This test uses particles as low as the 0 - 5 micron range and goes up to 20 microns. For comparison, a paper filter also stops 99% on the same test and the OEM minimum standard is 96%. Foam is generally the worst media with a typical efficiency rating of 75 - 85%. To get higher ratings, the foam must be more dense and therefore way more restrictive. The "tack" characteristic of a K&N allows for increase filtration without loss of flow as well.



The testing procedure used is SAE J-726 using ISO Test Dust. This test is the standard of the air filter industry. The test procedure consists of flowing air through the filter at a constant rate (airflow rate is determined by the application) while feeding test dust into the air stream at a rate of 1 gram per cubic meter of air.



As the filter loads with dust the pressure drop across the filter is increased to maintain the prescribed airflow rate. The test is continued until the pressure drop increases 10" H2O above the initial restriction of the clean element (in this case . 78" to 10. 78" H2O). At this point the test is terminated. The dirty filter element is then weighed. This weight is compared to the clean element weight to determine the total Dust Capacity. The amount of dust retained by the filter is divided by the total amount of dust fed during the test to determine the Cumulative Efficiency.



The K&N filter achieved the following results:



Dust Capacity: 305 grams



K&N Cumulative Efficiency: 99. 05 %



K&N Initial Pass Efficiency: 97. 11 %



OEM Paper Cumulative: 99. 29 %



OEM Paper Initial Pass: 96. 47 %



Holding the filter to the light is useless, pin holes are normal. That is what makes a K&N filter. There are actually dozens of microscopic fibers that cross these holes that when treated with oil become somewhat transparent but still capture and hold the very fine particles. Spray WD-40 on a piece of paper and it will be transparent too. On the same hand, they allow the filter to flow more air than paper or foam. The filter is 4 ply cotton gauze unlike some competitors synthetic material filters. The synthetics do not have the very small fibers that natural cotton does. Also, the oil can be pulled off of a foam filter contaminating electronic sensors. It will absorb into cotton and stay in the media.



We got started over 30 years ago making filters for motorcycles and off road racers. The filters did so well that these guys wanted them for their cars and trucks. We started making filters for these applications and here we are today. If they did not work, we would not still be here and growing every year.



We now make filters for Chrysler/Mopar, Ford Motorsports, Edelbrock, Rotax Engines, and Harley Davidson. We come as original equipment on the 2000 Ford Mustang Cobra-R. We even made filters for the Apache helicopters used in Desert Storm because of maintenance problems with the original paper design. Now we are on the new unmanned Predator plane being used in Afghanistan. If they work in these conditions they will work for you. Links to the filtration tests are on our web site at http://www.knfilters.com/images/factstab1.gif and http://www.knfilters.com/images/factstab2.gif



Hope this Helps



Thanks for writing

Fred Ridge

Tech. Support



:-{}

 

[Steve M]

Soooo, why don't they offer the same warranty as the others instead of hiding behind the Magson(sp?)-Moss Warranty Act?

You can use any filter you want but if a filter fails and causes engine damage, you can usually go to the manufacturer of the filter for compensation. K&N states in writing that they will not stand behind their filter if it fails. The others state in writing that they will.

If you use a Fleetguard/Cummins filter and it fails causing engine damage, you won't have to go through all the arbitration frustration trying to decide who's going to pay for the damage.

Wix and Fram have both paid for damages caused by their oil filters. They stand behind their product. K&N states in writing that they will not.

Cummins/Chrysler can't void your warranty if you use an aftermarket filter but, if that aftermarket filter fails and damages your motor, Cummins/Chrysler are not responsible for the damage. The aftermarket filter is. That leaves you or the aftermarket filter manufacturer to pay for the damages. Good luck. K&N states in writing that they will not pay for any damage their filter might cause. No such thing as a defective K&N filter? Their warranty sounds like they're not so sure.

 

[Shovelhead]

Gee Steve, somehow I'm getting the feeling that you don't use a K&N air filter on your truck.



Others do. (Like me)



Now it's time to go to the garage, get the big shovel and bury this poor dead horse.

 

[jwilliams3]

It is amazing how passionate us TDR members can get over an air filter!!:-{}

--Justin

 

[Steve M]

Is it that obvious? How embarassing!

 

[Jumbo Jet]

It is amazing how passionate us TDR members can get over an air filter!!

It's just some of us are used to using our own common sense and don't necessarily rely on 'expert' opinions without actually testing ourselves.



I read the same BS a few months ago and immediately went out, took the hose off the turbo outlet and wiped all around inside the turbo with a very clean white cloth. Not a speck of dust, oil, metal, etc. on the white clean cloth.



Now that speaks to me a whole lot more than a bunch of expert prattle from a few know it alls!



Thank God this is a country where we can make our own choices and be totally happy about them. Otherwise we would have to kick every bad mouthing smart sumbastitching mothers around just to reprove the points we've already made.



BTW - my K&N has 58,000 miles on it too. I did the wipe test at 36,000.

 

[BigMike]

This is fun!Oo. Oo.

 

[Ram4Sam]

What a bunch of buttinski's.....

Hey, this is between Dalton and me!!!!!!!!!!!Oo.



Dalton, I too have had a bad experience with a product, just like you and K&N. I have been permanetly jaded against this product for over 30 years. In high school, my friends and I bought a bunch of Budweiser beer. It must have been a defective batch, after I drank a bunch of those Bud's, I barfed all over the place! I figured it was a case where I got one very bad product and it has permanetly jaded me! :-laf



All in fun it is. Besides, you can't hurt my feelings, I have a teenager in my house.



Sam

 

[sdalton]

Ram4Sam, dont these people understand that this is our thread now??? Oo. Not to divert from the subject too much, but it sure is hot and humid down here. How is it in your area?? Ok, now that is all I could take of being nice. K&N sux, BHAF rules. There I feel much better.

As for the K&N giving the results of their tests on their filters??? I respect that about as much as what DR Performance advertises.

Oh, I forgot to tell you to re-read this post. I was typing pretty fast. Oo. Oo.