Lets talk about oil now.

 

[QUOTE=Mikey;1675742]Lets talk about oil now. [/QUOTE

too risky Mikey

 

The link with the tests (already old now) is interesting assuming that was done fairly (I take it it was).

Performance wise (what interests me), it clearly shows that the K&N flows more air and that’s the reason I started using them 275Kmiles ago for my car. So that isn’t an argument anymore, only debate here is how much hp can they gain, and as one can see there are good and bad paper filters out there, so it all depends to which one you want to compare and also how old (/dirtye) they are. I had seen some good 1" of mercury drops on an older setup of my car, which is significant for supercharged cars, possibly 2% more power (so easily 10rwhp or more for basically no money).

Car manufactures don’t have max performance only design criteria, so each model will have its compromises but that’s what everybody should already know. So for each car model’s intake/filter design there could be different gains to be had when improving them. One thing though, is that I assume that Jaguar would use the best paper filter there is, and as you can see in the tests shown there is a big difference in the performance of paper filters when it comes to flow. I have also check some paper filters in the past, and there is a great difference in filter material and total filter area...

Once you start tuning the engine for more flow, you already go way beyond for what the intake system was designed for, so more improvements can be made there, and here the K&N’s then truly shine.

Now for the younger 5.0 SC cars there is another thing to consider, and that’s that the max torque is determined by the ECU, and not what the engine could produce (hence the huge power increases after delimiting the ECU).

So improving on airflow or spinning the supercharger faster will not have an effect as the ECU will throttle down again to the max torque curve it’s programmed for.

Once you de-limit the ECU you will go way beyond to what the intake/airlifter setup was designed for, and there the K&N will certainly give you a big/cheap advantage on airflow in the confined air boxes. Larger cone filters close to the MAF units could give another effect as the airflow over the MAFs will be different, so that is something to watch out for.

So my 2 cents if you havened delimited the ECU there is probably no point in increasing airflow with better flowing filters, that would basically settle it for me to stick with OEM. But once you tune for more airflow….

 

I have used k and n in all my cars good results, I use ngk iridiums also no problems.

 

Last year, I decided to pull the OE plugs from my '09 4.2 liter, NA engine, A) to check them; and B) do an R&R, just so they didn't get "frozen" in place, due to time. While 7 of the plugs looked just fine, one had the center electrode off at a weird angle. Must have been a manufacturing defect.


I went to my local parts store, and their computer listed several plugs to choose from, and only one brand/stock number on hand. Since I wanted to get the car put back together ASAP, I went with what they had. They were Denso Iridium, IK16 plugs. They appear to work just fine.


I have to laugh, every time I hear the line about K&N filters "letting in more dirt". Yes, in order to flow more air, their filtering media MAY, and I emphasize MAY, not be quite as "fine" as some paper filters, but what the critics seem to overlook, is that were talking about particulate at the MICROSCOPIC level...........