K&N

K & N offers over 1000 stock replacement applications, hundreds of universal clamp-on filters and dozens of Filtercharger Injection Performance Kits. Their goal is to provide the highest quality component at a competitive price. A K&N Filtercharger will be the last filter you will ever buy for your car, truck, motorhome, motorcycle, ATV, boat or jet ski - Guaranteed.

The primary function of an air filter is to clean the air before it enters the engine. If this is true, why do we see so many engines, especially expensive competition engines, without air filters? The answer is airflow. An engine's power output is proportional to the volume of air it can ingest at any given rpm, assuming the fuel management system is capable of sustaining a near perfect air/fuel mixture ratio. The most minute restriction in the air induction system will cause an engine's optimum power output to drop.

Maintaining optimum, unrestricted flow becomes a problem when the air must pass through a filter element. Conventional paper elements are very resistant to air flow because the filter material or medium is very dense. The greater the restriction the greater the power loss.

K&N engineers have made vast improvements in performance, durability and serviceability by directly addressing these inherent compromises. In the early '60s, K&N developed an oil impregnated cotton air filter gauze which exceeds the minimum filtration standards while offering little restriction to air flow. As a result, the first K&N filter element was manufactured by sandwiching several layers of surgical gauze between two sheets of wire mesh. The medium was then pleated to reduce the filter's overall size and to increase its surface area. Finally the cotton gauze was oiled to enhance it's filtering capabilities. The original concept exists today and remains the basic component used in all of our automotive, industrial, marine and motorcycle air filters.

K&N's oil-impregnated, cotton-gauze element is the basis of our filter, as well as K&N's overall dominance of the reusable air filter market. The process is expensive but well worth the effort. To further make the point, consider that square inch per square inch, our filter will flow an average of 50 percent more air compared to the average paper filter without sacrificing filtration efficiency.

Paper vs K&N

By comparison, paper filters are made from compressed fibers. The spaces between these fibers provide microscopic holes the air must pass through. One by one, these holes become plugged with dirt and dust particles. Once a hole becomes plugged, the air must find an alternate route through the medium. As the filter collects more dirt, its resistance to air flow increases because there are fewer and fewer holes left open and as restriction goes up, horsepower and fuel economy go down. But to meet minimum filtration standards, the paper must be thick and/or the fibers must be tightly compressed and dense. Therefore paper elements that provide adequate filtration are restrictive to air flow by design. Any paper element that could flow as much air as an equivalent K&N would not provide safe filtration. Additionally, as a paper filter becomes more and more clogged, the pressure inside the filter drops while the atmospheric air pressure (approximately 14.6 psig at sea level) outside the filter remains the same. It's like using your lungs to draw the air out of a plastic milk bottle. When the pressure differential becomes too great, the bottle will collapse. The same thing could happen to your paper filter, although it is unlikely. But what will happen could be just as severe. An excessively high pressure differential created by a restricted filter can literally pull dirt particles through the paper medium. In other words, the performance of a paper filter, i.e. air flow through the filter and its ability to protect your engine, DECREASES near the end of its service interval.