So basic car car tips for better mileage say to replace the air filter every 70,000-100.000 miles. Well those of us with a K&N or another brand with washable air filters have a better bonus of reusing the same filter. So I've got the K&N Series-77 and K&N recommends cleaning the filter every 50,000 miles. Well two years and 20,000 miles left me with pure black water streaming from my filter when I cleaned it. I forgot to take pics during the before and initial cleaning, but heres some others:

The whole kit. I cleaned out the TB a little more, planning on doing a port and polish sometime this month. K&N Recharge kit was $12 at AutoZone. Dad can also use it on his K&N he has in his Harley.



All cleaned out. It was a dark red/black color before this. The runoff rinse water was pure black with two years of dust. A simple runoff will not clean as well as K&N's kit.



Reoiled (I think I went a little heavy):



After drying and reinstallation, she fired right up and feels a little easier to breathe now. Scratch that as a simple 30 min DIY truck maintenance. All I can say is I will be cleaning this out at least every 10,000 miles- not 50,000.

-Alex



P.S.: I was talking to "The Kent" from here and v6f150.com trying to talk him through taking the mechanical fan off his truck for efans.

 

I would stick to the reccomended cleaning interval. If you over oil these filters they can put oil on your MAF sensor causing inaccurate readings. They even make oilless reuseable filters. I think AEM makes them.

 

Right. Thinking of a few reasons mine was so dirty I think I will hold out long enough. I live down dirt roads and such, so I guess that was expected. Seeing as I'm moving to Tally in a few weeks, I don't expect as much debris so now I see I wont have to clean it as often. I think K&N was stating 50,000 miles thinking everyone lives in the city?

 

Yea, I've been running my K&N for about 20,000 miles so far and it's dingy as hell, but per K&Ns recommendation, If you can still see the mesh, the filter is still good to go.

 

Nice job Raptor and to The Kent, if your filter is only 20000 miles old you still should have lots of life, just get a recharge kit.

 

I know this. That's pretty much what I said. I said it looks dirty as hell, but I'm not cleaning it until I don't see the mesh. Then I'll clean it.

 

im cleaning my next weekend, along with the wax and claybar and what not. so did u clean out the actual intake tube? or just the filter cone?

 

As you can see in the first pic, I decided to do a whole intake clean-up afternoon. I used some TB cleaner and a toothbrush and got all in there, wiped up the mess, disconnected the tube, cleaned out the little grime inside, polished it in/out, cleaned the conical head filter and also the rubber connecting tubes and SS brackets. It feel more peppier and it got its neato but subtle whistle back when holding it at 32 TPS (65-70 mph). I love it because I've had some people ask if I had a turbo

 

I noticed your engine is mad clean. I need to clean my entire engine bay out. I've neglected doing so since I owned the truck. Oops. Now that I have all this open space from removing the A/C lines and mechanical fan/shroud your eyes get directed to the dirt.

 

Kent, whatever you are smoking, you need to lay off of it. I haven't touched my engine bay since February.....its the dirtiest part of the truck!

Edit: I found a few cans of engine degreaser in my garage, so that will be one of the few things going with me to Tally, along with my K&N filter care kit and detailing cabinet...you want me to take anything else from my house to help you out? Maybe I should just load my shed on a flatbed...

 

I can't tell your engine is dirty. Have you seen mine? Yea, you know that bitch is dirty. It's grey.

 

I live on a dirt road so **** you.

 

I used to live on a dirt road before I moved here 3 weeks ago so **** you too.