Writeup: Throttle Blade Removal Mod

[df2x4]

Wow if you have K&N filter, get rid of immediately. Went to do this mod today, and there was black thick soot all over everything. Cleaned everything up, going to did again soon.

This is exactly why I swapped my K&N filter for an Amsoil Ea series filter. I got sick of cleaning oil and debris out of my intake. K&N may flow better than anything else on the market, but they sure don't keep much dirt out of your engine. Also if you over-oil them even slightly they spit oil all over your MAF and screw up the readings. No more oiled filters for me.

 

[Kevinx]

Wow if you have K&N filter, get rid of immediately. Went to do this mod today, and there was black thick soot all over everything. Cleaned everything up, going to did again soon.

On to mod, tapered edge of blade too. Throttle response is well improved. Going to be doing some more throttle body mods in store. Took a few measurements while it was a part. About a .125 can be bored out at bottom of throttle body where it tapers to smaller size after blade.

The throttle body tapers to provide a Venturi effect, and accelerate the air coloumn. Boring it migh marginally increase top end performance, but it will do so at the expense of low end torque

 

[someotherguy]

K&N's are probably just great for race engines that get retired after a season. Not for something you expect to last 200K-300K miles before rebuild.

Richard

 

[Kevinx]

Biggest problem with the K&N filter is the owners. Over cleaning, and over oiling are both the leading cause of failures. A K&N works best after about 3000 miles of use, and under normal conditions; should be cleaned no more then every 15k.

 

[lifted2x4chevy]

I got rid of mine a couple years ago for a AFE Dry filter and still have all this crap in the intake. it had to be almost a 1/4 inch thick on everything. Used a whole can of carb to clean, going to take it all a part again in a couple days and do some more cleaning. I have 228,000 on mine, i think the last time i had throttle body off was to put on throttle body spacer back in early 2000 maybe might have been earlier.

 

[df2x4]

Biggest problem with the K&N filter is the owners. Over cleaning, and over oiling are both the leading cause of failures. A K&N works best after about 3000 miles of use, and under normal conditions; should be cleaned no more then every 15k.

Respectfully, I disagree. I had my K&N on for around 20k miles with the factory dose of oil that came on it, my MAF was literally coated in oil when I took it off. Threw a CEL at me to tell me my MAF was reading incorrectly. IMO any oil on an air filter is bad oil. Also there's absolutely no reason for the increased flow from an oiled gauze filter, our engines don't breathe heavy enough for it to make a difference. There's other options that flow almost just as well with no oil necessary.

There was also a study done at some point where someone compared the amount of dust/dirt particles that passed through several popular brands of air filters. Wish I could find it, if I do I'll post it up. Basically the result was that oiled filters like the K&N did flow more air than most others, at the expense of letting a whole lot more crap through the filter and into your engine/intake. IIRC standard parts store paper filters were actually the best at filtration, although they didn't flow as freely.