How much air do you guys think our little 230.5 cubic inch engine needs?

I'd be willing to bet, the stock filter and box flows more air than the 3.8 can use.

K&N is all hype. Their marketers have done a brilliant job.

They got me a few years back. I installed one on my old '98 Chevy P/U. The very first used oil analysis I ran with the K&N showed elevated levels of silicon (dirt) in the oil. Before anyone says it wasn't oiled correctly,that was with a factory oiled filter.

If you think about it,just how much filtering can a K&N do,when you can hold it up to the light and see through the filtering media?

 

I've argued for years that the K&N doesn't clean like the paper filter does, but once someone has bought one and hears the louder intake noise, they think they have more power. Noise equals power. I wish I had used oil analysis on the 7.3 we ruined. It was a nice truck until then.

 

This is exactly the way my factory filter is supposed to be installed. Air flow in the direction of the arrows.

 

This is probably a legitimate argument. I had great luck with the K&N in my 4 banger Toyotas. '89 Pickup, '93 Camry, '99 Camry. There was noticeable power and gas mileage in all of those. However, in my '03 Ford F-150 it didn't give me more power until I put dual exhaust on it... The Jeep, it's about 1.0 mpg or so more on the interstate and averages 1.0 mpg or so better than the factory filter. But, my Jeep has only 4700 miles on it.. who knows.

 

I hear what your are saying, but that is not how the factory filter is to be installed. Look at the airflow arrow on it.

 

I said basically the same thing in a thread a few months back, and provided some links to independent tests done that showed there was no significant gain in power, and less filtering ability.

There are so many people on here that use them, that it's safe to say I wasn't making any friends with that argument, so I usually don't say anything when the K&N subject comes up...

 

The stock Denso filter on my 2010 has pleats on both sides. Although it has an arrow indicating how to install it, because of its design with pleats on both sides, I doubt that there is much difference regardless how it was installed. Other designs that have pleats on one side and a metal screen or foam on the other, should be installed with the pleats facing the incoming air. That exposes the greatest surface area to filter the air.