Okay - there's probably someone will an answer to this -

Installed the K&N FIPK intake because I understood here in California that it will pass the smog tests - and that it has been recommended over the stock intake -

Great results - more responsive acceleration etc... until the "Check Engine" light went on - and about the same time also - the car became sluggish and less responsive - less than with the stock intake.

Anyone have a similar experience and what is the solution?

Thanks - I understand that the computer probably doesn't know what to do with the increase amount of air and got confused? or did the K&N not get installed properly or ?

Here in Northern California -
2000 GS400

 

Ant,

Welcome to ClubLexus!

I moved your post here to the '2nd gen' GS forum area from the 1st gen and deleted your post in the 3rd gen. This is where it belongs

Check to make sure the fittings are tight. on both ends of the intake (at point it enters engine and where filter attaches).. sounds like what happened when one of the ends came lose when I had my SRT intake on. Car may have gone into 'limp mode' or just may be running poorly.

Did you reset your ECU / disconnect your battery when you installed the intake?

 

As Dave said, reset yout ECU and disconnect the battery.

 

I've had the K&N FIPK for about two years now (40k miles) with ZERO driveability issues...
Like the others have said, check your fittings etc. And yes, it will pass smog in Cali-should have the CARB sticker right on the tube...

 

To go a little further - to reset the ECU pulle the ECU-1B fuse from under the hood and for good measure disconnect the battery. Let it sit for an hour, or overnight would be better.

I had this problem with my SRT after I had let the car reset for 45 minutes - I receonnected and it was still having problems. So I gave it an hour and that fixed everything .

Hope this helps,
Jonny

 

K&N intake was my first mod. Bought it brand new and it installed very easily. Reset ECU, no check engine lights or leaks. Drove with it for a month and felt I lost alot of off the line power. So I threw the stock one back on and BANG!!!! Power came right back. I sold that sucker on the classifieds. Just my experience.

 

That's coz it probably trades off low end power for some upper end HP & TQ gain. You can make up for loss on bottom end with TC, VB and LSD 3.76 mods and then pull away from your competition with the power gained from the intake at the upper end.

This discussion on the benefits of various brands of intakes has been going on these forums for YEARs with very little substance for anyone to realistically draw any valid conclusions from them.

At a certain point everyones butt-o-meter reports just end up doing nothing but confuse people further. I personally have chosen to take no value in reading these subjective reports as it has gotten us nowhere in the 4+ years that I have been reading threads started such as these.

Yes there were some "attempted" dyno runs, but for one reason or another were not definitive in the findings.

In an effort to resolve this quandary, the NorCal members are doing a dyno shoot out comparing the HP/TQ gains from Stock to SRT, Stock to K & N and finally compare SRT to K & N.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...0&page=1&pp=15

The baseline dynos are happening tomorrow on 3 different cars. After these baseline runs, we will mod the cars with the different intakes, reset the ECU's and then run all three cars a week later on the same day and same dyno.

This is about as consistent a testing as we can possibly manage.

As a side note, we will also be adding the S & S headers to 4 cars with various different mods to see what gains will be achieved as well.

Stay Tuned for a full report after the final dyno numbers are run at the end of April .

 

I hear ya RMMGS4. When I was researching about intakes, there is so many threads and opinions on this topic that you could read for hours. But like you said there is a lot of variables that contribute to how these intakes will work on your car. It will be nice to see some dyno numbers.

 

I appreciate your understanding of my position. Note: I was not flaming you or Gigant1, but if you read the thread, both of you have opposing views. At the same time, there may be logical reasons why both of you experience what you did.

I'm hoping the dyno runs will help contribute more useful information that everyone can benefit from.

We also plan a little track testing in the following month as well, so that will hopefuly tell us more.

 

Can't wait for the test results. Any one of the guys have those TRD and K&N panel filters? Curious to see what gains if any comes from those.

 

We did have someone with a TRD type filter. We actually did a test before with the PLP filter on an IS300, which basically is a panel. The results did show roughly a 3-4 HP gain, but since we only did 3 runs, it was difficult to say whether the difference was real since an engine can vary in HP up to 10 HP between runs without any changes.

We deemed the results inconclusive. We would need to do something like 6 runs stock with 1 hour cooling between three runs and then do another 6 runs with the filter change. From that we might be able to take an average and determine the HP gain. The time and money to do such a test was just not justified just to prove a 3 to 5 HP gain.

It is only by the good nature of the local members up here that we are getting the testing done that we are getting. Believe me, everyone doing multiple runs over two or three weeks is paying out of their own pocket so that we can get these results and for everyone else to benefit.