Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Duratec Performance KKM vs stock paper

If you want your car to sound "good" then punch a few holes in the exhaust. Seriously, who gives a **** about sound if the car is a dog. I have the K&N drop in and it rumbles too much but definitely does give me quicker throttle response compared to the paper filter I replaced. However, that howling gets on my nerves. I guess it all depends on what you like.

I think realistically the power difference betweeen a KKM, K&N and stock is at best 0.05 seconds down the quarter mile and I doubt it would even cause any more than 0.3mph increase in trap speed. I can understand that if a car is making Huge HP then it would matter but not for our cars.

I also feel that the stock ford filter is probably a bit better than some other brands so I'm going to stick with it.

How exactly do you guys measure heat soak? I wasn't thrilled with the sounds after I took of the headliner so I put it back on. Maybe I'd be more open if I could see some numbers or something. It's still mild weather so maybe I need to wait until the summer and a bad traffic jam to see.

Torquemonster what you say is mostly true but a few points.

1) KKM suffers heatsoak at slow speeds until air moving for a minute or 2 based on my underhood heat testing.

2) KKM or K&N with airbox is best solution, high flow and protection from heatsoak. I dyno proved a 12 HP gain (K&N/custom airbox/75mm MAF vs stock airbox/MAF) WITH HOOD CLOSED which I probably should not have done for best power but I was proving my airbox theory.

3) Note that Ford uses K&N in the conical airbox in the Cobra R and Viper ACR uses K&N also. The reason they are not more common in stock cars is a) that they require owner maintainance which most car owners do not want to do or could screw up. b) now you cannot sell replacement filters.

4) Replacing that conical filter ever month or even ever 3 months for best performance will get costly over several years.