Skip

I have a friend named Tim that put over 480,000 miles on his Chevy truck, and never even had the heads off. He put a K&N air filter on it almost from the day that it was new. I have never heard of anyone having any engine problems from a K&N air filter.
I have seen hp gains on a dyno with them also. Not enough that you would notice in our GX's but it is still there.
A TRD is just a K&N or a copy of one. Just buy on of them before they close up!.

LexLuder

I will leave this discussion plain and simple, It is my money, my truck and my business if it breaks down due to the air filter, meantime I will continue to use the filter and if any new gadget arrises i will for sure buy it, what the heck it's my money.

GXPrado

Absolutely, it's your money and choice on what to do with your car.

K&N doesn't do anything really. High flow, high particulate matter ingestion. You get a few specs of sand or grit in your cylinders and will score the hell out of them. Sand doesn't compress, it cuts metal. It cuts seals.

Your engine is a giant air pump. It sucks in air, uses it to ignite the fuel, and pumps it out the rear. Simple.

If you let more air in, how is it helping if the rest of the system stays the same? You have the same diameter intake, ports, headers, exhaust.

Drink a gallon of water.
Now do it with your mouth opened wider. Does it go through your system any faster?

Why do you think Lexus double-filtered the intake of the V8? Is it possible they are trying to maintain durability or that particulates may affect long-term durability so they want to avoid contaminants?

Does noise equal more power?

Does slightly higher intake flow outweigh the added protection of OEM filtration?

How long does the K&N maintain it's flow rate? How often are you realistically going to checkup on it?
OEM keeps consistent and you simply replace when dirty.

As for MPG's, not sure that is going to help you with the filter oil clogging up your MAS and pumping dirt into your engine.

Not saying the K&N is going to destroy your engine but if you're looking for optimal performance, buying a new OEM filter frequently is going to do more than one K&N.

Just my opinion of the product. People can buy whatever they want, I make no judgements of the owners.

lyxxsx1

All,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the K&N filter. Personally, instead of any performance boot, I am more interested on the long term saving by replacing the OEM (which was quoted @ $25 each) with a life time K&N version ($50 with a clearning kit). I was hoping the K&N would offer a similar performance.

Thanks,

PitBull

GXPrado, that was very well said. That is what I was trying to communicate.

GXPrado

Sam,
You can try online Toyota parts dealers for a bulk rate on OEM filters. Typically you can get them a few $ cheaper this way, sometimes much cheaper.
If you examine the OEM filter, it is a substanial product. I haven't seen anything to match the quality. I have not found any reason to go other than OEM for air filters.

YMMV

Skip

The only reason Toyota or any other mfg use paper filters is to sell you more of them in the future.
K&N style filters work and last the life of the car. The only downside is that they must be cleaned and reoiled.
No one on this board has provided any proof that they harm an engine. It sounds like some have never seen an engine.
If they are so bad, why does TRD sell them?
Sorry for the rant, but I get tired of hearing how the sky is going to fall, just because someone changed a part on their car. Hell they paid for the car, let people do as they please!

PitBull

Skip, I don't think the sky is falling, but I hear that a huge earthquake is going to hit the west coast in the next 6 months and Calif. is going to fall into the ocean

GXPrado

Everyone is stating their opinions. There is no rant, unless you consider the pro-K&N comments rants too.
A Ford is of lesser quality than a Lexus right? Is it illegal or dangerous to sell a product of lesser quality for more money? No, that's smart business if people are willing to fall for it. Same with anything, including filters.

But you want facts? Here you go.

ISO 5011 Test:
The ISO 5011 Standard (formerly SAE J726) defines a precise filter test using precision measurements under controlled conditions. Temperature & humidity of the test dust and air used in the test are strictly monitored and controlled. The test was independently performed under controlled conditions using a $285,000 machine at Testand Corp of Rhode Island (manufacturer of the machine).

Filter Efficiency:
Filter efficiency is a measure of the filters overall ability to capture dirt.


Accumulative Capacity:
“Accumulative Capacity” is a measure of dirt holding/loading capacity before reaching the maximum restriction limit - Initial Restriction + 10 IN-H20.


Accumulative Gain:
"Accumulative Gain" is the total amount of dirt that passed through the filter during the test.


Dirt Passed Versus Total Test Time:
This graph shows each the duration of each filter’s test versus dirt passed (Accumulative Gain).
(Note: The Purolator was reported to have a seal malfunction during the test and passed more dirt than it would have with a good seal.)



Restriction to Flow:
The Restriction to Flow curves graphically show how each “clean” filter responded to a steadily increasing flow of air up to 350 CFM.

The Flow Restriction response curves for each filter have the same basic shape. However, note how the AC Filter, which passed the smallest amount of dirt and had the highest dirt capacity and efficiency, also had the highest relative restriction to flow. The less efficient filters correspondingly had less restriction to flow. This illustrates the apparent trade-offs between optimizing a filter for dirt capturing ability and maximum airflow.

“The reason I started this crusade was that I was seeing people spend a lot of money on aftermarket filters based on the word of a salesperson or based on the misleading, incomplete or outright deceiving information printed on boxes and in sales literature. Gentlemen and Ladies, Marketing and the lure of profit is VERY POWERFUL! It is amazing how many people believe that better airflow = more power! Unless you have modifications out the wazoo, a more porous filter will just dirty your oil! Some will say " I have used aftermarket brand X for XXX # years with no problems. The PROBLEM is you spent a chunk of ching on a product that not only DID NOT increase your horsepower, but also let in a lot of dirt while doing it! Now how much is a lot? ANY MORE THAN NECESSARY is TOO MUCH!

Others are persuaded by the claims of aftermarket manufacturers that their filters filter dirt "better than any other filter on the market." Sounds very enticing. To small timers like you and me, spending $1500 to test a filter sounds like a lot. But if you were a filter manufacturer and you believed your filter could filter dirt better than any other media on the market, wouldn't you want to prove it? Guess what. Test your filter vs. the OE paper. It will cost you $3000 and for that price you will have the data that you can use in your advertisements. Your investment will be returned a thousand fold! EASIER than shooting fish in a barrel! So why don't these manufacturers do this? Hmmm? Probably not because they would feel guilty about taking more market share.

Now I am not saying that ALL aftermarket filters are useless. A paper filter does not do well if directly wetted or muddy. It may collapse. This is why many off-road filters are foam. It is a compromise between filtering efficiency and protection from a collapsed filter. Now how many of our trucks collapse their filters from mud and water? However, if a filter is using "better airflow" as their marketing tool, remember this....Does it flow better? At very high airflow volumes, probably. BUT, Our trucks CAN'T flow that much air unless super-modified, so what is the point? The stock filter will flow MORE THAN ENOUGH AIR to give you ALL THE HORSEPOWER the engine has to give. And this remains true until the filter is dirty enough to trip the air filter life indicator. At that point performance will decline somewhat. Replace the filter and get on with it.

Hopefully the results of this test will do 2 things. Shed some light on the misleading marketing claims of some aftermarket manufacturers and/or give us new insight on products already on the market that are superior to our OE filter. "

LexLuder

You made your point clear, but, you sound too bright to be a regular vehicle owner or you copied from some article or you are a person that work's for a X brand let's say an engineer in some big filter company, by the way I see baldwin and uni do a great job, do they sell a filter for the 4.7 engine??

PitBull

Lex, based on this new to you information. Are you now interested in using the good old OEM Toyota/Lexus filter, which was spec'd by the Toyota engineers and manufactured to though spec's?

Skip

Show me in the real world where anyone has had an engine harmed by a K&N style filter!
Anyone can copy a graph, so just show me some engine damage.
If they are so bad, why does TRD sell that style of filter?
Graphs are cute, but do not prove anything about engine damage.
I have had K&N filters on cars and trucks for close to a million miles and have not seen any problems.
My experience comes from usage, not reading some comic book graph.
I you do not like them, do not buy them, then you have zero to worry about.
The filter does not know if it is on a Ford, Chevy or Toyota. It will still work the same.

LexLuder

No, no matter what is shown in that spec sheet will change my mind, I love the sound of the truck as it growls when pressing the gas pedal, I do believe that this is annoying for some people but not for me, specs sheet's are made by man, they built the machine that made the test, they can change the setting's so certain product which are bad and cheap look good and expensive, my question, the machine they invented, how can they prove the correct amount of air went through the filters for each filter, how do I know that when ac delco's filter was tested they dindt use a filtered cylinder of air and when they tetsted the K&N filter they just used dust and blated it with a pressure hose, I may sound crazy, but where you there when this test was done, even if Consumers Report did this test I will change my mind, I have been using them for years and have never had a engine break down due to them, remember the filter companies are loosing sales to K&N and others who have the same type of filters, what they do then, is try to scare people with the man made graphs.

gs400jon

So when are you guys switching from the subject of filters to religion?

GXPrado

??I don't understand the hostility. Every question you asked has been answered in the previous post.
If anyone wants to know why I don't like K&N, they can read this thread.

I can ask the same of you, please provide proof it is as good or better than OEM. However, as I said before it is up to the buyer. It's your money, enjoy. I make no judgements of the owners, just the products.

The graphs are results of an independent ISO test. ISO= the international standard of testing so that to be an ISO test, must follow very specific guidelines. ISO is a worldwide standard, as you may know.


I