K&N filters v/s paper filters

will last 100000000 miles but needs to b cleaned and reoiled

 

You can clean and reuse the K&N so it's less wasteful than a lifetime of cheap paper filters... And allegedly K&N has a tiny bit more air flow at full throttle, though the little Prius engine sucks so little air to begin with I doubt it's a measurable boost of power.

 

There is a slight advantage in your not having to put a dozen or so paper-n-plastic non reusable filters into your car.
However (comma!!) this slight advantage is somewhat offset by the fact that the oily gauze filter provides NO increased fuel efficiency.....and no measurable increase in BHP.
What they are good at is fouling out your MAFS from the oil/air mist that you're now injecting into your intake. If you don't put enough oil on the filter? Then it's better than not having a filter at all......but not by much.

I have a competitor's unit on my V-Rod. (Amsoil Ea)
Pretty much the same thing without the oil. I got a VERY measurable BHP boost but I also uncorked my exhaust and remapped my fuel injectors. I'm thinking that if you shove a K&N filter into a Prius, then it would be like you running a foot race while breathing through a straw. If I give you a bigger straw to suck air IN, but make you breathe out through the same straw that the folks in Aichi designed for this car, what is it that you think that you're really accomplishing?

Besides.....a K&N filter?
On a Prius?????

C'mon man!!

...at least tell folks that you're a tree hugger and you're trying to reduce landfill usage.

 

k&n supposes to flow double the air .. u can potentially increase efficiency/make more power with more air intake (ie if u blew it in with a turbo or blower u would see increased combustion).. your engine 'breathes' easier ... taking that baffle filter out of the box also helps flow .. but if its tuned and that thing also prob. reduces sound and perhaps a backpressure burb .. u may be occasionally sacrificing the noise quietness factor ..

 

Double tap.

Gotta stop doing that.

Ammo is scarce!

 

None !! An oil wetted air filter is a long obsolete design that has been abandoned on even the cheapest Briggs & Stratton lawnmower engine. Something that in dusty conditions will cause needless excess wear to your engine, can damage fuel injection and emissions parts, while giving no measurable performance or economy gain.
Your engine is well protected and will perform best with the stock paper air filter.

 

what about that baffle filter between the intake and the paper filter ?

 

That's the Hydrocarbon Adsorber. It helps reduce HC emissions from the vehicle. It has activated carbon in it to trap fuel vapors from residual fuel in the intake ports when the engine is shut down. All US Toyota models began to incorporate this feature starting around 2004.

 

Not this thread again! On every auto forum I've ever participated in!

The K&N claims better flow.
The K&N is washable, so is a lifetime filter.
Because we have an "Atkinson" cycle, we already have oil coming up from the engine into the intake (have a look at the pools of it in the intake manifold after 30k miles sometime), so as long as the filter oil is not "contaminating" more than the engine oil, I see no potential of harm.
There are those who think the K&N filters less effectively. Some have even measured this. K&N will "warrant" your engine against excessive wear for 1 million miles, in an attempt to allay that fear.
But the most important thing is you get a K&N sticker with the filter to put on your car!

 

K&N can work wonders on some cars. They can get 5-7hp and 1-2 mpg increase. This has been shown on independent dyno runs.​

The trouble is that you must use a cold air induction CAI and a larger filter to get good numbers and the engine induction must be fairly inefficient in the first place. The Prius is a good system to begin with so the results would be small. if any IMHO. Besides, if excess oil/dirt is sucked up into the intake you have just fouled your MAF and throttle body.​

I had a muscle car that I had to jack up, remove the wheel, and pull back the fender well to get at my K&N filter with CAI.​

I'd stay away from an oil soaked filter.​

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K&N makes top quality COTTON filters. Stop killing our trees by buying PAPER filters ppl! Save our Mother...

 

it is a heavy hit upfront -- likely $40 -$50 last time i bought one .. for my 05 prius - then u gotta get the filter cleaning and oiling kit , about $10 ?

 

K&N Products by Vehicle Search - Year, Make, Model, Engine Search


K&N Air Filter Released for Hybrid Toyota Prius with 1.5 Liter Engine

$53
33-2329 - K&N Replacement Filters, Replacement Air Filter direct from K&N

 

Somebody is going to have to educate me on why it's soooooo much better to chop cotton every year, instead of knocking down a bunch of loblolly pine trees every nine years, because I'm a hard sell on this idea.
Cotton is an extremely pesticide intense crop and you know what?? Although cottonseed is a cost effective alternative to healthier seeds for food production, my beloved government does not classify cotton as a food crop IIRC.
THAT means that they can (and do) use a much wider arsenal of insecticides and herbicides when they grow the stuff.
Growing pulp trees in the US is generally much healthier on the land that you use for this purpose. Bunny huggers like to point out that much of the pulp used for pulp production comes from "virgin" trees (whatever that means... ) however (comma!) you need to check the age of the "data" that they use, and you need to consider the fact that this is WORLD paper production.....not US paper production. In the US we've already knocked down much of the "virgin" timber to build houses. Have you checked lumber prices lately?
I'm thinking that the the trees that you're so worried about saving are aready either in sequestered lands such as state and national forests....or you're sitting on one that's already been turned into a chair.
Pine trees are kinda like corn with a nine year growing season. Certainly not perfect, but how many shirts do you see that are made from post-consumer recycled cotton?

Like I said before....there's almost certainly a net ecological gain from the K&N, but if you think that you're going to turn your Prius into a fire-breathing, asphalt chewing monster....or that you're going to see any fuel efficiency increase, I have some FLASH traffic for you:
You're not.

Sorry to pop your bubble, but Priuses run just about as well on plain old paper filters as they do on the "good stuff."
There are some members that report a quicker throttle response and some extra BHP or fuel efficiency.
WADR to them I think that you'll have similar performance gains from a visit to a car wash.

 

It makes no difference if the filter uses cotton or cellulose fibre (wood fibre). Both are renewable resources, and managed properly, can have minimal impact on the environment.
That being said, it can also be said making only -one- filter which would happen if you switched to the K&N, will be much easier on the environment. The filter media is just the tip of the iceberg. There is the surround, made of hydrocarbons, and in the case of the K&N, there is a metal mesh the cotton is embedded in.
Either way I suspect we are splitting hairs here. The -car- is hard on the environment, forgetting the filter altogether. And don't try to tell me a Prius isn't hard on the environment! It's 3000 lbs of material that required mining, drilling, refining, etc, etc.

For those tempted, I had a K&N on a Pathfinder. Used to wash it in the kitchen sink using dish soap (put water and soap in the sink, push the filter up and down in it, rinse, flick dry, spray new oil on the element and you're done). There were sandbars in the bottom of the sink when I was finished. But no gold.
I used motorcycle "filter oil". Less expensive than the K&N stuff, and easier to find. But it is the same stuff, as the K&N is much copied.

 

i did remove my carbon vapor trap baffle element and with the K&N installed , noticed a little more noise but more pulling power, dont know if its 5HP or 2 , but there is some increase - more air , more breathing .. not sure about the exhaust end and the cat -- sometimes those have some variability, for example - some used to have a temp valve on the exhaust to keep it closed during winter and of course when it got to some hundreds of defrees the valve would open , in the exhaust manifold or pipe after ...

 

The deal breaker for me was when I bought a car in the past with a K&N air filter.
I took it out, held it up the the sun, and and I saw all these pin holes of light shining through.
What do you think those were from?

Besides, cleaning it with detergents ( where? the kitchen sink?) and re-oiling it is not so good for the planet, or your hands.
Paper filters can last a long time. If you live in the bleached out Burbs, you don't even have dirt on them streets.
You don't have to change them as often as called for. Plus popping in a new paper filter is less dickin under the hood.

 

anything to give me more mileage and performance seems worth it to me .. i didnt get the prius so i could have low mileage and increasing it is always something to be worked on ..