2nd Gen Non-Engine/Transmission K & N Strikes again!

[Vaughn MacKenzie]

The main issue with K&N from what I've seen is a quality issue, most of the time the filters are good, but too often they are defective out of the box, which is what happened to me. My filter was properly installed and it was obvious the dirt was coming straight through the media. It was preoiled from the factory but I added more. Then I carefully cleaned it and reoiled it gave it one more chance, but it still let a lot of dust through. I then held it up to the light and could see all kinds of pinholes much larger than the diameter of a hair and that's when I tossed it. . . no more Kenny & Norm air filters for me.

 

[SRay]

View attachment 81463

View attachment 81467

View attachment 81464

View attachment 81465

View attachment 81466

All common rail pistons from 2004. 5-2007 Cummins

These could be injector issues too, running too hot, etc.

When piston rings wear out or break, they can cause blow-by which blows the oil away from the bore and piston skirts. Then they get hotter, expanding and start rubbing each other until complete failure.

In my 2130 John Deere tractor, after a year since engine being overhauled, #2 piston broke at the top above the piston ring. The 1. 5 inch piece of aluminum smashed in between the head and piston, crushing the top ring in the groove and causing blow-by which blew away the oil and scored the skirt until engine seized. The piston came out looking like the piston HHhuntitall is holding and with the crushed area from broken aluminum. A new piston and sleeve is all that's needed to get running again.

I'll look for that piston, I think it's still around somewhere here in my garage.

 

[HHhuntitall]

Those don't look too bad. I've got a bunch around here you can see daylight through(out of the '03+ engines) They are unrecognizable. Most are compliments of "Crazy Larry" and an... . ahhhh... . "unintelligent" owner. We've been cleaning around the shop, so I'm not sure where they are... . I had two 5gal buckets full of 'em by the side door. I was going to get pictures of the rings side by side with new ones, but I didn't have a new set of the older model rings. I gotta go to Cummins later this week I guess... .

 

[SRay]

View attachment 81488



View attachment 81489



View attachment 81490



View attachment 81491

 

[HHhuntitall]

Yep. Were they running a big programmer? Or did they just run it with a bad injector? I've got an '04. 5 that I told the customer he needed two injectors. It was missing pretty bad. He kept running it, and around a month later, he called me and asked me if I had a motor. #6 came apart in it, too, and whacked the starter off the side of the motor.



That one is impressive carnage. I've never had one break the cam off and chew it up!! Talk about a WTF feeling!!! :-laf I'd have liked to have been nearby when it did it... . not too close, but close enough to hear it!! Usually, I don't see an auto that does that unless they're sled pulling or drag racing. That'd make for a good advertisement, right there!!

 

[SRay]

I was told the engine had no oil in it. The owner didn't say why, just told my buddy to replace the Cummins and be done with it.

 

['strokeThis_'07]

The second engine in my 03 put a hole through the block almost exactly like posted. I chalked it up to a fluke oil pump failure, as it was on stock programming and that's about the only other thing to chuck a rod like that, is oil starvation.

The melted pistons posted would almost certainly be failed injectors. Been there with my 07

 

[SRay]

Strokethis07: sounds like you've had not much luck there. Were the 03 engines high mileage as to why they failed twice?

I have 2 friends with early 2003 dodges. One has nearly 500,000 k (312,000 miles) and the other has 205,000 miles (Texas truck bought from arlington motors and brought to Canada)

Both seem good. The 500,000k one had quite the trouble for a while until I met them last year. Now the truck is getting better with my TLC.

I verified with the guy today about the pistons posted that were from his shop. He said those were bad injectors.

 

['strokeThis_'07]

Strokethis07: sounds like you've had not much luck there. Were the 03 engines high mileage as to why they failed twice?

The original engine melted two pistons... my dad had the truck at the time, probably around 110k miles on it, give or take, and started having a hard start issue. I was working full time and really didn't have time to come up and look it over, so he took it to a now-former Dodge dealer and had the injectors replaced under warranty. Less than 200 miles later, it blew up.

Dad calls me, I tell him I bet there's a piston or two melted, dealer says no chance, yadda yadda, guess what? They pull the head, and voila! Two melted pistons. They declined warranty because "the melted pistons were a pre-existing condition and caused the injectors to fail. " That's exactly what they told him. Now, how in the hell do pistons melt if not from failed injectors? They don't, that's how (unless pulling a grade and just flooring it, and even then you're not likely to on stock programming). So they rebuilt the engine (same block and head, I believe everything was reused other than the two pistons replaced) so this is what I refer to as the second engine; this rebuilt is the one that threw the rod.

Now it has a 6. 7 that I swapped in and runs real good, 107k on the 6. 7 I swapped in, hopefully it lasts a good long while.

 

[HHhuntitall]

Now it has a 6. 7 that I swapped in and runs real good, 107k on the 6. 7 I swapped in, hopefully it lasts a good long while.

Ahhhh, I'm so jealous... ...

 

[SRay]

My dodge mechanic put a 6. 7 in his 2006 mega cab long box truck. All 5. 9 wiring harness, no emission crap, banks programmer, and 50 hp injectors. It runs very good!

 

[HHhuntitall]

I did that for a guy in '07, and two in '08. The guy from Infinite Power and Design sold me the preprogrammed hardware on a pallet. Then he screwed me on several sets of exhaust... ... . got to me for over $1500..... And H & S came out with their programmers, so that was a much cheaper route. I always wanted one for myself, but at the time, used longblocks were up around $7200.....

 

[SRay]

HHhuntitall: maybe buy a wrecked 2007. 5 and up and sell the rest of the parts? That what my buddy did. Not sure how much he paid though.

He also gets 6. 7 engines that people either melted pistons, never change the oil or did whatever to them that ends up with them getting another 6. 7 installed and we rebuild the wrecked engines cheap (depending on what is damaged)

 

[HHhuntitall]

I haven't been able to outbid any of the core guys in the wrecking yards to get one, yet. I figure as they get older, I'll get one, I'm just too darn cheap. If I need one in a bad way, I may get one. I REALLY want to take one and P-pump it..... There is no substitute for Cubic Inch!!!

 

[BIGNASTY]

What one?

Ok you have me convinced that I should get rid of my Stock Box Air replacement cleaner from Air-Aide (not sure of spelling) but looking at Geno's what one? the Mopar (very thick) that looks like Fram orange or the Fleetguard

 

[HHhuntitall]

Ok you have me convinced that I should get rid of my Stock Box Air replacement cleaner from Air-Aide (not sure of spelling) but looking at Geno's what one? the Mopar (very thick) that looks like Fram orange or the Fleetguard

Big, if'n I'm not mistaken, the Mopar is made by either Fram or Wix, and should be fine. I run all fleetguard in stock trucks, or mildly modded. This truck's brother, owned by this guy's brother, is a 96 12v, with mild pump mods. IT's got 150k more on it, but it's almost always had the Fleetguard filter run in it, occassionally a Wix. NO issues so far..... well, unless you count the failed window motor, failed driver door lock, failed A/C compressor, and stopped up evaporator..... :-laf

 

[tuffs93]

HH, I lost the first engine in my 04 to a K&N filter ( my own fault for not checking closer ) After rebuilding it went back to stock filter and never had trouble until the truck was stolen last year. I bought a 01 about 4 years ago and the owner told me he had just put a new K&N filter in it. Well I got side tracked and did'nt get to it for about 2K miles. When I checked it, it was clearly pulling dust by the corners. Took pictures of it, intake full of dust and everything. When we went to SEMA the following fall, I showed the pictures to a rep. from K&N . He looked at them and said, bad install, your problem, and walked away. I have'nt used a K&N since on anything. There such a big company, they don't care.

 

[HHhuntitall]

No new news to me Tuff!! Here's a pic of a piece of the piston ring. This piece was still wedged in the piston, opposite the galled sides. Wore and finally broke. A new ring is alongside it for comparison. The other 11 that came out of it look similar..... the upper rings are almost wore into, the secondary ring is worn too... . Remember, though, I had this filter siliconed into the houseing. There was NO AIR EXCEPT THROUGH THE FILTER! Ok, so a lot of people aren't surprised by this, and niether am I. I just thought a few pics would be interesting..... Remember, this engine only has around 202k on it. These rings wouldn't look so bad if it had 600k on it!!

I have talked to K&N. After the runaround, and my getting rather short..... perhaps I should say hateful, they said if I could prove it was their filter, they'd investigate, and potentially compensate the owner for the rebuild. I'm not up for the legal challenge or waste of my time. I passed the info on to the owner. They wanted documentation of everything... ... . yeah, they're big enough, they don't care. They could spend $5000 a day for a week and they'd just write it off. I can't do that. Neither can the owner. Sooooo, here's the best I can do.

 

[SRay]

The only way to win against big companies is to stop buying their products. As long as everyone continues to buy K&N, K&N will continue with what their doing. I have bought their filters too and ended up throwing them in the garbage. They still got their money's worth and my wallet is thinner and the landfill has extra space taken up.

 

[mpaulson]

I personally will never use any of the aftermarket filters again. I had an AFE system in my current truck and got sick of noticing that the filter was dry every month and that the intake had oil film in it. There's no second guessing the Fleetguard filter, Cummins owns them and they would not design and sell a filter that is substandard for there own engines, so I have the stock box back in and rest easy knowing that my motor is being filtered properly as the designers meant it to be.
By the way, when I had the AFE in, and set my chip on a mid range setting, if I layed into the go peddle, the O/H consol would chime and say "service air filter" lacking air flow!!!!!!!.
When I went back to the stock box and filter, I never got this message and the filter minder never gets sucked down. So the big deep OEM filter flows better than the AFE ever did and I'm protected. I should note that I have added a 4" pipe to the bottom of the box down to under the bumper for cool forced air also, but when I close it for winter or heavy rain driving with the RV sewer drain valve that I added into the pipe, I still don't get any warnings to service air filter messages.
Maybe if you are pushing major horse power, then you may need something different, but on the same hand if you are doing that, then one must be ready to pay becasue you are more likely to break something anyway reguardless.