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Now someone here wrote about puddles and "oil getting on the sensors" and I would agree that is pretty much nonsense. You are only supposed to re-oil the thing every 50,000 miles or so and that doesn't mean dunking it in a can of 10W 40. It means spraying it with a little oil. There is no risk of oil getting on sensors, etc, unless you are doing it woefully wrong
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Puddles - again, no, unless you put the actual filter underwater. The fendors are good places for CAI's but how many times have you dunked your rear fendor up to your wheel wells in water? That's not a puddle, that's the gulf of Mexico sweeping up into your road. You shouldn't do that regardless, CAI or not. Splashing won't harm it, rain won't harm it.
i used to think the same thing that you did regarding the oiling. the only people whoever had issues MUST be idiots who didn't know how to oil properly. this was reinforced when i had a customer (i used to work in auto parts for several years) who couldn't understand why his 4.6L Mustang was bogging everytime he hit the throttle. he opened the hood and his filter was SOAKING WET!!!! that being said, i have seen the filters screw up a MAF straight out of the box, just like i posted before.
as to the puddles thing, you're absolutely right that rain or a little splash won't cause any harm. it WOULD take a very large puddle with the filter basically all but immersed in water. that being said, a lot of intake kits do locate the filter to right behind the front bumper, usually as low as possible. combine that with a lowered car, an absolute downpour, and a driver who is responsible enough to slow down a little in inclement weather, and it CAN happen. unlikely? very much so, but there have been isolated cases.
The "butt dyno" lies, and lies big time. Put me in a car that's louder but slower, and, unless I actually time it somehow, I'll agree with the numbskulls that it just has to be faster. Case in point - mechanical secondaries on a 4-barrel carb. Testing showed that the mechanical secondaries gave worse acceleration because they caused the car in question to "bog" when they snapped open. But the driver would swear it's faster because the the car would really jump when it got over the bog. Unfortunately the bog was costing more than the jump was paying back.
I hope you kids who have never actually seen a carburator except maybe on a lawnmower are not too bored by my rambling here...
It makes sense. That's like people that take vacuum secondary carbs and put screws in the linkage to make them into mechanical secondaries thinking it makes them faster. In reality all you've done was made a turd out of an otherwise good carb.
And to the poster on mech secondaries....they're really only good on a high duration cam with no vaccum engine equipped with a high stall converter and low rear gears. On an engine that is opposite of all this they will puke and bog because you're forcing the engine to take the extra fuel and air when it may not really need it.
As far as K&N's, I've had two, one was given to me free and the other came on the car when I bought it. So I can't compare or contrast. I know at a display they had in the store it had a little ball and a fan and you could swap out the filters between the K&N and the ordinary paper element...with the K&N the ball would float but not with the paper filter. But a good thing is the K&N you can wash it and reuse it as often as needed. I'm sure in the long run you'd save money reusing the K&N over and over as compared to having to replace that $5-$10 element every time it gets clogged up.
what are you trying to say, exactly? that no one runs a Focus at 5100RPM constantly? of course not, but no one runs ANY car at peak HP RPM constantly.
now, if you're trying to imply that continued passes up to 5100RPM (in other words, someone who drives with a heavy right foot) is something a Focus simply cannot handle because the engine is a POS, then i'd really like to know just how bad your experiences with a Ford Focus are because all the ones i have ever had have been rock solid, and i drove the snot out of them.
Air + fuel = power. If volume is limited at any rpm it will effect power. Of course the higher the rpm the more hp gain you are likely to feel but don't expect much on newer cars as they are setup to be about as efficient as possible. Older cars like the 80's and early 90's mustangs were somewhat restrictive on the intake so they tended to make more of a difference than on say a 2008 mustang. The HP #'s thrown out are usually maximum gain at peak horsepower and sometimes it might slightly change where the peak horsepower is in the rpm range but not usually by much. Same with exhaust as was said earlier. Cooling the intake charge or blocking heat transfer into the intake will add more power than anything but don't expect better fuel mileage. The hotter the air the less dense it is and the less total fuel it needs for 14.7:1. The colder the air the more dense it is and the more total fuel is required at equivalent rpm's.
It makes sense. That's like people that take vacuum secondary carbs and put screws in the linkage to make them into mechanical secondaries thinking it makes them faster. In reality all you've done was made a turd out of an otherwise good carb.
And to the poster on mech secondaries....they're really only good on a high duration cam with no vaccum engine equipped with a high stall converter and low rear gears. On an engine that is opposite of all this they will puke and bog because you're forcing the engine to take the extra fuel and air when it may not really need it.
I'll agree with that to a certain degree. That's why I said mech secondaries are not always the best choice for a street vehicle (and I think all of them are marketed for "off road use" only). Really, any carb will bog, mostly on the transistion between the idle circuits and cruise or WOT - mechanical, secondary, doesn't matter. But again that's due to tuning the carb. On a double pumper you have those back shooters (pumps) that cover up any bog when bringing in the secondaries with a huge shot of fuel. Low vacuum vehicles just do better with double pumpers because you need that richness, but you can use them on any vehicle and get added performance for sure (as long as you don't care about gas milleage and you can tune a carb to a certain degree). Vacuum secondaries are a little more user friendly because they size the carb to the car - the secondaries don't open up until the car is ready.
And I agree - puting a screw in the vacuum secondaries to force them open is just wrong. THAT will cause a bad bog for sure.
what are you trying to say, exactly? that no one runs a Focus at 5100RPM constantly? of course not, but no one runs ANY car at peak HP RPM constantly.
now, if you're trying to imply that continued passes up to 5100RPM (in other words, someone who drives with a heavy right foot) is something a Focus simply cannot handle because the engine is a POS, then i'd really like to know just how bad your experiences with a Ford Focus are because all the ones i have ever had have been rock solid, and i drove the snot out of them.
Mike
My Focus has almost 200,000 miles on it. Not too shabby. Get past the first 2 years of the Focus, and they proved to be a pretty decent car.
What I'm saying is that anybody dumb enough to spend $300+ on a "gadget" that promises a 3 hp gain at 5100 rpm (a speed nobody but an idiot would ever maintain) is foolish.
K&N is mainly about hype. They use statistics that are basically meaningless, and suck in the gullible.
If you want to stick $300 into performance & economy, look elsewhere.
If you want to stick $300 into performance & economy, look elsewhere.
what other $300 modifications can you do to improve HP, and are the gains any better than an intake (i won't argue MPG with you. i have never seen an increase in any of my vehicles from messing with the intake)?
I'm glad I asked the question - damn you guys are impressive! Even though some of the responses aren't related directly to the question, the information and arguements presented are impressive to a non motorhead.
Thanks!
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