carcster88

Curious, mine tend to get pretty black about 3000 miles. Just got done cleaning the filter and letting it dry before re-oil again. Part of the added dirt could be from my setup though. Just wanted to know from the open cone filter guys. Granted, it is easy to clean so not a big deal. If mine gets too dirty it will pull an 1130 lean code. Once cleaned it goes away. Blue oil is now replaced with the K&N red. And yes...I have owned these filters for over 15 years and know how to oil them correct.

Pic of my setup:

jdog

Does that small of a filter give enough air? It looks very small in the picture.

carcster88

Does very well.

heligear

You aren't supposed to clean these all that often if you read their literature, also excess oil in the filter can lead to MAF problems, so you have to be careful with that.

Litesonic

Had mine (k&n) on for ~10K miles.
Not dirty enough to clean and re-oil per the instructions I have read.

But I have cleaned the MAF and TB to get a better idle.

wwest

There's a good reason the stock air intake system primarily intakes air from ABOVE the engine lid....no road dust/dirt/etc to content with.

OGWGFIW

I have had mine on for about 11,000 miles. Have only cleaned it once. Yours being blue shows more of what is collected than the brown color that came with the KN kit. Have been thinking I will start cleaning it every 5,000 miles when I do the oil changes. Also think that cleaning every 15000 as they advise is far too long to wait....kinda like Porsches oil change advice.

Wellardmac

K&N Recommends 100,000 miles in normal use - more often in dusty use.

http://www.knfilters.com/faq.htm#4

Basically, you should not need to clean it that often.

kromdom

I have a K&N but not in an OPEN box set-up like yours which, to state the obvious, makes it more prone to getting dirty sooner.

Wellardmac

Read the FAQ I posted.

"air filters that fit in the factory air box should require cleaning every 50,000 miles and our large conical filters on an intake system should require cleaning every 100,000 miles. When used in dusty or off-road environments, our filters will require cleaning more often. We recommend that you visually inspect your filter once every 25,000 miles to determine if the screen is still visible."

David Clarke

I have the K&N and kit in my car and its due now at a little over 10,000kms for a clean. The photo in the first post of the kit in use will probably pick up more pollution than the K&N kit in mine, which will pick up more than the stock air box.

However, the major variable will be air and road pollution. The road surface will be a big contributor to road pollution, I live in a country with rock chip and road carpet surfaces. The road carpet (ash felt) is very bad for producing micro particles of both road and rubber. The rock chip less so. Concrete roads run quite clean in comparison.

Most of the air pollution runs throughout the filter and gets eaten by the engine, however I am sure that diesel particulate can clump on the filter, biggest source of this in any city are the buses.

Lastly, when it rains, all the water runs through and falls on the filter in both the above setup and the K&N kit, delivering any road film caught in the louvers and spoiler onto the filter.

Long way of saying, environment makes a big difference. If its dirty clean it. I will order a spare and swap them over every year or so to ensure that its properly dry and the oil has had plenty of time to soak in with minimal application. I do the same for my bikes and it works out well.