On Dec 18, 2005, at 1:10 PM, Barrie Robinson wrote:
> I know K&N filters get a good name but do they really offer a
> fantastic difference - or is it like the other folk legends out
> there?. I suppose one should measure something (?) without any
> filters, with K&N, and then with 'ordinary' filters and compare the
> results. It is NOT good enough to belt round the track, change
> filters, belt around again and then make a comparison. Far to
> subjective! As there are thousands of companies playing with
I'm a scientist type (acoustics/geophysics/seismologist) and agree with
you about actually *measuring* something. I never believe what I read
and often have to try things myself, sometimes discovering things that
actually make things worse instead of better (autocrossers discover
this all the time :-)
However, being an experimentalist type of person, I was also skeptical
(and my car is a concours winner so keeping it original is important to
me and fitting a K&N and then removing it for shows is a BIG extra
bother). So, when I replaced the stock airbox (with a nearly new paper
element) with a K&N bolted right to the air flow meter, I was
pleasantly surprised at how much "snappier" the car felt. Really.
Fantastic? NO, but definitely noticeable. I've driven it both ways
and my own *subjective* observation is that comparing a K&N versus the
stock setup on the TR8, the K&N gives you a noticeably better driving
experience. But, as they say, your mileage may vary and no, I didn't
put it on a rolling road to measure the difference. No such things up
here in Los Alamos, NM (population about 20,000 :-) Think also about
the "state-of-the-art" back in the 1970s... getting engines to breathe
better is an idea that's been around a long time but K&Ns didn't exist
(although foam elements were popular "upgrades". I can't imagine the
Triumph engineers worrying too much about optimizing the air box
though. Getting the fuel injection system ready for production
probably occupied every waking moment they had (all the while wondering
about their jobs). Geeez, wouldn't it be great to find some Triumph
engineers who actually worked on development of the "Wedge" so we could
talk to them?
I also noted, as Fred pointed out, that the "snappy" experience quickly
diminished and may actually be worse than stock as the car started
breathing hot engine air versus the cooler air it used to get from
behind the front headlight pod. So, like the Thrasher folks have done,
I'm going to fabricate a cool air box one of these days. Yes, it's
worth the effort (to me) and Thrasher has at least instrumented and
measured the temperatures of the air coming into the engine and built
something that really works :-) They don't use K&N by the way, but
another manufacturer of a similar sort of "free flow" filter maker...
My 2 cents (for what they're worth :-)
Jim
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