wat's the best air filter?

[audiblack]

what is the best aftermarket drop in air filter for our cars?

i have the K&N in my car i was wondering if ITG is better or another brand?

[Villains]

Originally posted by audiblack
what is the best aftermarket drop in air filter for our cars?

i have the K&N in my car i was wondering if ITG is better or another brand?

I don't think any of them will make much of a difference. Since you already have the K&N, stay with it. Going to any of the others won't give you any benefits.

[HyperM3]

Yeah, its really 6 to one and half a dozen to another. I have K&N also. They all do the same thing and you wont feel or notice a difference between them. Not worth losing sleep or extra money over.

[audiblack]

it aint about gaining the power or not..its about getting the best filter that does the job that its supposed to do which is filter the air...

and when should you change a drop in?? do you keep change it or just clean it up?

[HyperM3]

Basically a drop-ins benefit is that you never have to change it. Just take it out and shake it every few thousand miles. Maybe every 20k re-oil it if you really think its necessary. Other than that, leave it and forget about it.

[bhvrdr]

Basically, i have many of the aftermarket filters to be comparable in terms of quality and filterability. Perfomance gains will be negligible, but here is my recent comparison of a couple filters. I am currently running the greenfilter.

Well I got the green filter today and have done a visual inspection of both the KN filter and the green filter. Here are some non scientific, but objective observational findings. I will post airflow data logs at a later time.

1. The green filter does indeed apppear to be manufactured to higher quality standards. There is no overlap of the rubber into the filter area. Note in the picture that on the KN there is uneven black rubber overlap into the filter area reducing the effective airflow area. Green filter wins the category for fit and finish.

2. I measured the actual flow areas for both of the filters and the following are the results.
KN-- 8 7/8" tall flow area
7 3/8" wide flow area

Green -- 8 7/8" tall flow area
7" wide flow area

Both filters have a 3/4" depth of pleats.

As you can see the KN filter appears to offer a larger flow area, but since there are some uneven areas of rubber overlap, it is difficult to say if there is truly an extra 3/8" of flow. It is more likely about 1/4" more flow. Points here go to the KN.

3. Examining the actual cotton filter material itself, the green filter appears to provide a higher quality weave. The greenfilter is indeed woven (they claim a 2-layer weave) and the KN appears to be a bit more loose of a layering system described by KN as a four layer gauze. It cannot be determined which method is actually better.

4. Green filter claims that by running their pleats width wise on the filter they are able to fit more pleats on the filter, thus providing more surface area. The pleats are indeed different on the green filter than on the KN. They run width wise on the green and length wise on the KN. What is very surprising is that despite having more room to provide more pleats, the green filter actually has one less pleat than the KN filter (green = 26, KN = 27). Factor into that equation that the KN pleats run lengthwise and the KN is the all out winner in surface area. It appears that the green filter company was deceptive in their advertising on this one claiming that they could indeed fit more pleats on their filter, but failing to tell us that they did not actually go ahead and put the more pleats on their filter that they claim the can fit. KN gets the honors here for filtration area, but green wins it by providing less restriction (less pleats) so this category is a toss up.

Overall, I would regrettably have to give my nod to the good old KN. I was hoping the underdog would certainly show it's stars, but it was not the case. Although the KN has a slightly cheaper finish to it, it appears to provide significantly more flow area and more filtration area with regards to actual amount of cotton fitted onto the filter frame. It is important to note, however, that although the KN provides a slightly larger flow area, it may not actually flow more air than the green. This is because it does indeed also provide more filtration area, which is the enemy to flow. The fact that it has more pleats may point towards more restriction as well, so the only way to truly determine a winner here is with flow logs.

In our next round of testing, we will see if all this obervational data seems to be congruent with flow logs. Stay tuned.

Cheers! Mike