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Re: [TR] K & N air filters

To: mhooper@indiefilmnet.com
Subject: Re: [TR] K & N air filters
From: Michael Porter <mdporter@dfn.com>
Date: Sat, 19 May 2012 13:26:11 -0600
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On 5/19/2012 12:17 PM, Mark Hooper wrote:
In the past I have installed K&N filters on my motorcycles and my TR6 for the
following highly technical reasons:

/start technical reasons

1 - They look pretty.
2 - They let me fit nice shiny filter enclosures

/end technical reasons

They certainly do flow more easily than paper filters.

I've only had limited experience with a K&N. My GT6 came with ones that, admittedly, hadn't been properly maintained (hadn't been cleaned and oiled to spec). It also burned oil at a prodigious rate. When I did an emergency ring job on it, the cylinders looked as if they'd been smoothed with fine sandpaper (virtually all engines that have been broken in properly and had the oil and filter changed to schedule will retain some evidence of honing underneath the cylinder glaze--this one had none).

That said, most heavy-duty transit engines still use big canister-type paper filters. When I first started in that business, there were a number of failures of Donaldson filters, which Donaldson tracked down to shops using compressed air to blow dirt off of and out of the filters. Even at fairly low pressures, that practice produced microscopic tears that allowed quite a bit of dirt to pass through the filter, so they began recommending that their filters be tapped gently to dislodge caked dust and be reused until they no longer met specs, since they had found that the finest dust particles tended to plug the pores in the paper advantageously--they stopped the small particles from passing the element. (This is a practice that's probably unsuitable for normally-aspirated gasoline engines, since most big diesels today have turbos assisting cylinder charging, which means they can tolerate a bigger pressure drop across the filter, and most HD diesels have _really big_ filters with lots of excess capacity.)

But, still, most cars today typically run paper filters, and thanks to the minimal bore-washing that occurs with good engine management and fuel injection, will typically run several hundred thousand miles with regular maintenance. Moreover, for most Triumphs, the real limiting factor for flow is the engine itself, not the carburetors or the air filters.


Cheers.

--


Michael Porter
Roswell, NM


Never let anyone drive you crazy when you know it's within walking distance....

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