| Author | Message | ||
     Ds_tiger |
Those of you who have had both> What are your thoughts on either? Flow/Dyno/ ease of use/ etc? THANKS | ||
| Ejiii |
I have used all three types, paper, gauze (K&N) and oiled foam (UNI). I prefer oiled foam just because I think it filters dirt better. I have used many K&N's over the years with no problems but I really just don't trust a filter I can see through. The FAST system in the picture comes with a K&N but I switched to foam with no noticeable performance difference.  | ||
| Sloppy |
I highly recommend staying with paper for street riders. Paper offers better filtration, it's cheaper, lasts longer between filter cleanings and it's easy to do. If your income is dependent upon your finish position then I'd use a K&N or foam. Otherwise the additional maintenance and dirt intrusion is not worth the extra HP at the top most rpm of the bike (between 6000-6500). How many times do you continuously spin the Buell engine that fast? Bottom line for me was why spend so much time and money in keeping a K&N filter clean when there was no performance gain and it's so easy and quick to just swap out a paper filter. And you need to clean a K&N much more frequently than you have to change a paper filter. | ||
| Gowindward |
"And you need to clean a K&N much more frequently than you have to change a paper filter." Buell Owners manual says to replace stock air filter at 20,000 miles, with inspections and "service" at 5,000 mile intervals prior to replacement. From K&N Web site FAQ section. 20. How do I know when to clean the filter? The general rule of thumb is that the filter needs to be cleaned when the dirt build up gets as thick as the wire mesh. The usual interval is 30,000 - 50,000 miles depending on driving conditions. We recommend that you check your filter about once a year in normal usage. List price for a stock filter is $24.65. I purchased a K&N from my local auto parts store for $46. So let's say we have a cost comparison. At 20K miles replace the stock filter with a K&N or a stock filter. K&N $46 Stock 24.65 At 40K miles replace stock filter 24.65 Total cost = $49.30 Inspect K&N Total cost = $46 At 60K miles replace stock filter. $24.64 Total cost = 73.95 Service K&N with 1/2 of a service kit. $13 Total cost = $59 80K miles replace stock filter. $24.65 Total cost = $98.60 Inspect K&N Total cost = $59 100K miles replace stock filter $24.65 Total cost = 123.25 Service K&N with second half of service kit already purchased. Total cost $59. So if you are going to put a lot of miles on your bike, which I do then there may be some cost plus performance benefits to the K&N filter. If your bike is a hanger queen, and you don't put many miles on it then the stock filter is a better bet. | ||
| Sloppy |
You forgot to add your labor...  A typical rider "might" put 7,000 miles per year on a bike. With those numbers, and even without labor (I know I prefer to ride than wash & dry & oil air filters), you're looking at a payback of ~ 6 years. Add your labor and you're looking at even longer payback -- you'd make more money by investing in a mutual fund! It's not a good rate of return for a filter that doesn't filter as well for a power increase in the top most RPM range that hardly anyone rides at for an extended period of time (unless your income is dependent upon your finish). Gowind makes an excellent point -- how frequently will you be changing or cleaning? If you ride 15,000 miles per year, then yes, it might be worth it. To me, they're not worth it. To you, it might. Do your research on Google for independent data (NOT K&N or UNI!) and make a decision based on data, not on opinions (like what mine is ). | ||
| Roadrailer |
If your bike is a hanger queen, and you don't put many miles on it then the stock filter is a better bet. ...or if you just don't feel like messing with the cleaning and oiling of the K&N. My time is worth something to me. I had one in a car that had been installed by the previous owner. I didn't even know it was in there. Cleaned it once, decided it was more of a PIA than an air filter should be and replaced it with a paper filter. The questions about the K&N filtering effectiveness only affirmed my decision to switch back to paper. Paper filters are for low-mileage garage queens? Cripes, just when you think you've heard everything... | ||
| Roadrailer |
Gowind makes an excellent point -- how frequently will you be changing or cleaning? If you ride 15,000 miles per year, then yes, it might be worth it. I don't know. Even if you're really piling on the miles (let's say 20k/year) you're only going to change the filter, what, once a year? If you follow gowinward's math, switching to the K&N would save you less than $13 per year. Again, what's your time worth? Seems like a lot of work to save a few bucks. I'd rather be out riding than sitting home watching a filter dry. | ||
| Cereal |
I thought that the primary argument was that the K&N allows more dirt to pass through it than the paper? If you are worried about saving $60 over a 5 to 10 year period, then you have gotten into the wrong hobby. | ||
| Gowindward |
Not that Bob the Oil Guy is an expert, but here's some interesting data points. www.bobistheoilguy.com/airfilter/airtest2.htm I purchased a K&N because of the service interval and I do ride about 15K miles per year. I also considered the time it would take to drive 50 miles one way to the nearest dealer (twice, because they wouldn't have the filter in stock the first trip...LOL) At the end of the day it's just like a right side scoop...It's just a personal preference as to which filter to use. | ||
| Gowindward |
"If you are worried about saving $60 over a 5 to 10 year period, then you have gotten into the wrong hobby." Being cheap is never a hobby, it's a way of life.  | ||
| Ds_tiger |
So I guess- the point is moot i do not put a zillion miles on the bike, sounds like no one has chimed in with issues performance related or fitment issues, etc- The K&N is cleanable the paper one (race filter version) is not. Thanks- Steve | ||
| Billybob |
i think buell is now making a paper race filter | ||
| Jaimec |
Tom Cutter of the Rubber Chicken Racing Garage mentioned that they dynoed their race bike (vintage BMW) with both the stock paper filter and a K&N and found NO appreciable difference in horsepower. What they DID discover was a lot more impurities in the engine using the K&N over the paper filter. Of course, he is talking about a vintage BMW road racer and not a modern Buell, but I don't think the results would be that much different. The fact that Buell now sells a paper filter as their racing filter should speak volumes in itself. | ||
| Midknyte |
my .02 Stick with the stock/paper filter unless you're going to change or remap your ECM to match. I ran the K&N for a season and checked the sparkplugs to find that the engine was running a bit hot. I went back to the regular filter... | ||
| Jkhawaii |
stock and race looks more like a cotton material than paper dosent it? | ||
| Ridrx |
A power gain will only be seen if the filter is the most restricted part of the intake tract( on cages it usually is). I suspect the stock paper filter flows very close to the same as the intake/TB/valve size arrangement so increasing the filter flow wouldn't help much because the intake tract is maxed out. You'll need bigger TB, ported heads, bigger valves, etc. to see a real gain. | ||
| Midknyte |
only be seen if the filter is the most restricted part of the intake tract de-snorkle de-snorkle | ||
| Ejiii |
Well, my oiled foam POD filter cost $14.95 at full retail and as far as filtration ability is concerned I would say that it filters as good or better than paper. I would say that if paper was better every off road vehicle would use one. Every off road motorcycle I have ever owned owned Yamaha, KTM, Honda used oiled foam filters. They work in the worst conditions and are very cost effective. | ||
| Sloppy |
Actually, the reason MX don't use paper for off road applications is because off road bikes typically run through mud and water. Paper and water don't mix. Paper has consistently shown better filtration capability than oily foam & fabric (from the information I've seen on net). Afterall, the reason they flow more air is because there's less filtration. In addition, MX bikes don't see nearly the miles that road bikes do (their PM times are set in hours, not miles), so the engines are not expected to run nearly as long between rebuilds. | ||
| Jaimec |
I love it when people compare apples (competition off road bikes) to oranges (street legal motorcycles), don't you?  | ||
| Fulgur |
I did my own tests a few years back between paper and K&N and found that the K&N filter better for longer and stop smaller particles. I will have to re-do the testing if everyone is so convinced that K&Ns actually filter worse. Weird. .....Fulgur. | ||
| Sloppy |
I started a test when a friend of mine was doing oil analysis and he started to see higher silicon particulates in his oil when he switched to a K&N filter. We weren't sure if there was even a correlation, but the physics of filtration say the greater the air flow, the lower the obstruction -- hence, larger holes and potentially reduced filtration from the K&N. (Let's put aside the arguments for Re numbers, turbulent / laminar flow through a screen -- as these can not compare to the simplictiy of Bournolli (sp?) when discussing flow through a filter) I compared a K&N behind a light source and I can see the light source permeate through -- but I couldn't see the light source on a paper filter. So I put a light layer of grease in my air box and ran 2 K&N's for 1000 miles each, then a paper filter for the same interval. The result -- a noticable layer of fine sand / grit when I ran K&N (by touch & sight!). No noticable sand / grit when I ran paper through the same mileage interval. All this together was enough data for me to support the theory that K&N's don't filter as well as paper. Last I read K&N's website, they never claim that they filter better than paper -- they're imaginatively vague on this comparison. Last I read, all that K&N garauntee's is that complies with a certain filtration standard. Of course, I did get a 2 hp increase on the K&N, but only at the most extreme of rpm (6000 to 6500 rpm), everywhere else, it was the same. The question then becomes, do K&N's filter well enough for the performance increase? That's up to each owner to decide - but it seems to me that unless you competatively race your bike, the expense, hassle and potential contamination isn't worth it. Of course, your data & analysis may be different. Share, compare and discuss. (Message edited by sloppy on May 09, 2007) | ||
| Fulgur |
Yep - I will have to look into this again then. No one has mentioned the environmental side of re-usable v's throw away, I have noticed???? .....Fulgur. |
