Admittedly, my memory isn't what it once was, but I honestly cannot remember the last time I cleaned my K&N air cleaner elements. I do remember doing them while still living in Beaufort.
That said, I doubt that they have more than 6,000 KM's on them since then, so I'm very (VERY) tempted to just ignore them for another year or two....or so. After all, doesn't K&N tell us that we should clean them something like every 30,000 miles or so??
Any thoughts?
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I have K&N Filters on my Ford F-150, my wife's Lexus RX300, and my Speedster. I clean the filters on the truck and the Lexus every 6 months. I have cleaned my Speedster filters once since I got it a year ago and I'll probably clean them every other oil change which would make it every other year.
The best way is to have a 1/8" pipe plug in your air cleaner top cover. When you first install your K&N filters, connect a manometer to that fitting and go for a drive. Log the reading under acceleration and cruise. Just go drive the car now. When you think the gas mileage is getting bad, hook up the manometer and take some readings under the same parameters. If it's double the inches of negative pressure, clean your air filters. This is a very positive and static test and probably you will know something is wrong way before you get to this point. Air cleaners are a really cool asset to cars!
The dirtier they get the more they filter out stuff, to the point that they even filter out air, hence, you notice stuff like black smoke and rich idle and bad mileage!
Hope this helps......Oh....and this works for fuel filters as well........Bruce
The best way is to have a 1/8" pipe plug in your air cleaner top cover. When you first install your K&N filters, connect a manometer to that fitting and go for a drive. Log the reading under acceleration and cruise. Just go drive the car now. When you think the gas mileage is getting bad, hook up the manometer and take some readings under the same parameters. If it's double the inches of negative pressure, clean your air filters. This is a very positive and static test and probably you will know something is wrong way before you get to this point. Air cleaners are a really cool asset to cars!
The dirtier they get the more they filter out stuff, to the point that they even filter out air, hence, you notice stuff like black smoke and rich idle and bad mileage!
Hope this helps......Oh....and this works for fuel filters as well........Bruce
Bruce,
You need to change your name from "aircooled" to "manometer". Just saying.
Robert...How bout "Manoman" or "Manometer Mama"....Thanks for the chuckle !
No mystery about using one....they're just more accurate than a vacuum gauge and never need to be calabrated.......Bruce
Don't mess with success. Drive the thing. Dork around this winter if you must.
Robert...How bout "Manoman" or "Manometer Mama"....Thanks for the chuckle !
No mystery about using one....they're just more accurate than a vacuum gauge and never need to be calabrated.......Bruce
I change my vote to "Manoman". Now we need to get you a superhero outfit with cape and a large "M" on the chest.
If I had any Photoshop skills I would have done it already.
When you arrive to help the people will exclaim Man-O-Man look who's here, it's Manoman!!
Stan Wrote: "Don't mess with success. Drive the thing. Dork around this winter if you must."
I got that just as a wave of laziness overtook me (again).
Maybe I'll wait til sometime next year.....jus sayin'... I'm really good at doing nothing.
Some people claim that K&N filter gauze, when just cleaned (and oiled) is not at it's most efficient, and some really fine dirt makes it through and into the engine, wearing rings and cylinder walls. The filters actually work better when slightly dirty (again, so some people claim). I've read that a lot of off road racers that deal with a lot of dust use oiled small cell foam over K&N's or another filter altogether. Leave them for now, Gordon. It takes a lot of dirt on them to make them flow less than even a new paper filter. Al
I've read of other filters that are as free breathing as K&N's but much better at filtering finer particles, but the pics just look like they're the same construction, so I don't see how they'd be much different. Any body done research on this?
IIRC, I cleaned them last when I was still in Beaufort, so maybe three years back (But I honestly forget - I had a LOT going on back then).
Given that, and that I didn't drive her much in those three years, I probably have less then 3,000 moles on since the last clean and oiling. The K&N website says to clean them every 50,000 miles or so, but if we're conservative and clean them after 30,000 miles, that would be about every TEN YEARS.
I guess I'm good for another few years, for sure.......
Back to riding my bike.
