Trying to decide wheter or not to put a K&N drop in or keep the oem paper filter. Looking for some opinions.
Thanks

 

Put a drop in on mine at about 8000 miles. Upon taking the paper one out I noticed how cruddy it looked after only a short period. When I put the K & N in I didn't notice any power gain or fuel mileage increase. Just recently check the filter last week while changing oil and it is cruddy already also. Think that I'll put a new paper one in just to protect the TB. I got it at Wally world for $32 so its not a great loss, just hate to see all that dirt going in the intake.

 

I bought the K&N about 4K miles ago. When it's time im going to replace with paper. Just keeps the system cleaner and ford made them with paper so i cant go wrong with it. Im just worried about the oiling so im going back to stock. No increase in mpg or power.

 

Oh I'll clean it and do a light re-oiling but I'll just keep it as a spare or use it in the summer.

 

No problems with my drop-in. 5,000 miles so far.

 

I have had one for 6,000 miles. Can't tell a difference. I checked it when I changed my oil. It was still very clean. No problems, but I can't see any changes for the better.

 

Wom Imho.

 

I dropped one into my '01 Screw (before I traded it in for my '04). I didn't pay attention or notice any mileage increase but an obvious - and immediate - improvement was the throttle response. There was no lag between the pressure I put on the gas pedal and the response from the engine. That alone was worth it!

 

Put mine in soon after buying the truck. Even if you don't think it helps in proformance you will save on replacing the filter in the long run.

 

I just put the K&N 77 series kit on my truck. So far I have about 1,000 miles on it, and haven't had any problems. I haven't noticed any positive or negative effects. The only thing that took a little getting used to is the sound it makes at WOT or while the motor is under load. It's hard to describe the sound, but lets just say you hear the motor a lot better

 

This question is sort of like "coffee is good" "coffee is bad", I had a K&N in my previous 01 F150 and have the Fram Airhog in my current (took both out of the box and they are identical) only difference was the Fram was about 15.00 bucks cheaper. Never had a problem with either.

 

My Ford salesman reccomended the K & N drop in, I put it in at about 300 miles. So, don't know if it improved performance or MPG, but since my MPG is good, andd the truck runs very good, I don't worry about it. I just did the cleaning and recharge at 17,500 miles. It saves a lot of money over paper filters.

 

I'm pretty much just crossing over from the high performance Mustang community, and I've seen people make one mistake time after time: over saturate the filter with oil during cleaning. When you put to much oil on the filter the excess has only one place to go... down stream, passing the MAF & into the motor. The oil going into the motor really isn't a problem (it's a VERY small amount over time), but as it passes the MAF it coats it's elements. The effect of this is the MAF losing it's ability to properly measure air.

Let's say at 3,000 RPM's your MAF normally read's 3.08 volts. On a 90mm LMAF that's roughly 465 kg/hr. If the element is saturated with oil it's only going to see a portion of that air, and a motor that runs like crap!

As you can see from my above post, I'm not for or against these filters... I run the 77-series myself. Even if it doesn't give me any power or any extra fuel economy, I'm just glad it cleans up the engine compartment a little!

 

How much can the K&N filters really save when the paper replacements are only $7 at Meijers (like Target or Wallyworld). Figuring in the time to clean and re-oil, and only needing 1-2 per year, it seems that it isn't worth it for these trucks.

 

I had one in my 98' F150 and I didn't care for it because it didn't fit very good and the seal around it was junk, it started peeling off almost as soon as I bought it. My fiance just bought a 02' F150 and his came with one, he wanted my opinion and I told him to throw it out and get a paper filter, the rubber seal on his was also disintegrating so I guess I'm not the only one who had that problem.

Also, cleaning and recharging them is a nasty and time consuming job, make sure you don't get any red tinted oil on your driveway...
I read a study that compared many different paper filters and K&N drop in type filters. It showed that you really don't get any air flow increase and if you do its nominal. IMHO I think the drop-in give a placebo effect. Neither myself nor my fiance saw a MPG or seat-of-the-pants performance gain.