i jsut wanna chime in here again and jsut say that i bought mine for the ability to reuse it. I dont want to have to buy a 12 dollar filter every 3 runs or so i take my jeep on. its jsut nice being abel to clean it and put it back in. That one little mile per gallon that you loose with a clogged air filter is a big deal to me in this jeep because alot of the trails we ride are an hour away and we go out 3 times a month so that 15-16$ a month in gas i dont have to spend being able to clean it. Did i get more horses??? no none at all when i bought mine do i check the other side of the box for trash everytime i clean mine? you bet i do and i never see anytrash.

SO if youw ant a reusable filter your gonna spend 70 bucks after you get the recharging kit but add up the 15 bucks worth of gas and the 12 dollar paper filter youll buy every couple months and it pays for itself pretty quickly. Ive had mine for 2 years zero problems and its saved me at least $200 bucks.

 

I reuse my basic paperfilters like the conical ones, just take it off and from the back get the compressed air hose going and you'd be surprised how quickly that dirt pops off, never popped a hole...I've been checking.

And this was a third of the reason i bought a snorkel for the TJ in New mexico, a lot cleaner air outside the hood on dusty trails. other third was the water crossing in CO and it just looked cool.

And i'd still rather spend money on repeat filters to make sure the dust stays out, its the same reasoning on synthetic every 3k miles price difference over 200k miles and the cost of a new engine.

 

If you really want to see what your engine is doing have a Used Oil Analysis (UOA) done. Engines typically show increased levels of silicon in the oil with a K&N.

I use a stock filter in my Jeep.

 

K&N filters are junk when it comes to "filtering". Good for flow, bad for filtering. The only thing on the market thats good at both is AEM's conical Filter. Otherwise paper is still the superior "filter".

 

Nobody's saying what the result is for running a filter that lets dirt into the engine. Perhaps yall don't know, so I'll enlighten you. The valves and seats have matching angles in order for the valve to seal when closed. Usually the angle is 45 degrees, but not always. Running a filter that flows dirt....or a dirty air filter results in a condition called valve seat recession. This does exactly what it implies. It turns the straight cut angles on the valve and seat into a "concave" angle, resulting in a poor seal and loss of compression and power. It can get so bad in fact, that the valves can literally sink into the heads and eventually drop a valve. Perhaps a picture is in order.



See that exhaust valve? It's the small one in case you're wondering. It should be sitting on the surface of the combustion chamber just as the intake valve is. You can also imagine what this does to valve stem height and valvetrain geometry on the cylinder affected. Of course, this photo is a very extreme case, and this engine had a DEAD skip. However, if all of the valves are subjected to dust and dirt particles, they will chew themselves to death in short order. My advice is this. If you want to change filters from stock, be more interested in "never have to buy another one" factor than flow. I don't really want one that flows much better than stock, BUT it is nice to buy ONE filter for the life of my Jeep. After all, the gains from a better flowing filter OR intake will be minimal at best, and certainly not worth risking engine damage.

 

My 2 cents

I think that most all aftermarket filters are decent. I'm certain that some are better than others, but all too often we start splitting hairs.

I bought an AEM. Not because it's a good filter, but because it's easy to clean. I dunk it in a buck of water a couple of times then let it dry. No oil.

The best clogged filter is worse than the worst clean filter, so I wanted one that I don't mind cleaning often.

 

The image used to illustrate a valve seating issue caused by poor filtration is actually an image from a cylinder head designed to use leaded fuel running on unleaded and without valve lash adjustment.

While I believe there might be some merit to your argument despite my 20 years of running oiled air filters telling me different, this isn't representative of making an honest argument.

I carry no flag nor bear any cross in supporting one side of this argument or the other. Peoples personal experiences hold a lot of gravity for me, while simply repeating internet myths leaves me in wonderment of why someone would carry out this particular vendetta.

K&N for one has been around for well over 30 years and as someone else pointed out, they didn't get where they are today by blowing up peoples engines. The formula for any of these companies competing in this space is pretty simple as well, increase surface area and have a higher flowing filter while being bound by keeping the same percentage of dirt out as a stock filter.

Also for me the whole oiled filter debate went in the trash when Fram threw in the towel, raised the white flag and brought their Air Hog product line to market.

 

Clarification req'd
Silicon or Silica
Two separate entities
One is OK in an engine...One is very bad

 

Fine particles will get thru these oil permeated filters. Over time they will wear your engine significantly sooner. I used to run K&N until a WIX filter rep told me they were planning on making this type filter but their testing showed that excessive amounts of dust gets past. It didn't meet their specification and they decided not to compete in this filter market.

Wix is one of the largest filter manufacturers in the US and definitely highest quality. Just buy a Fram and a WIX oil filter and cut them both open..... you'll be shocked!!

Now I run OE type filter and change it frequently.