I've had an engine that didn't just want it, but needed it. AutoBravado's favorite and most accessible way to get the air you need to make your car be at it's best is to make use of K&N filtration technology, an incredible high performance filter for the air going into your car. I had been doing upgrades on one car years gone by and it tended to run a little hotter. I thought that that was okay, I mean I was getting more performance right? Well, wrong. One day, merrily driving up a violently angled hill on the way to a religious service, the engine's heat kept getting hotter and hotter still until I realized that if I shut my motor off and the radiator fluid stopped going through the engine that I'd be looking at some engine damage. I decided to leave the transmission in gear and go down the hill letting the tachometer read at a higher RPM, which would allow for a maximized radiator fluid amount to get through the block. The gauge kept reading hotter!
At this point I realized the engine was so hot that the radiator temperature was only catching up with the actual temperature that you see by the gauge. The thought popped in my head that when a week ago I was considering better air filtration and I should have bought that K&N Performance Filter, more air, less heat.
So, wishing I knew then what I know now (You can leave an engine in gear and drive going down hill in a manual transmission with the engine off so that no more combustion occurs, causing no more extra heat, and allow the radiator and motion of the vehicle to cool the engine.), I in exasperation gave up and shut down cut of the ignition and waited until it was cool enough to drive again. I checked this by putting my hands over the engine compartment and waiting until the motor was touchable. I couldn't help but wonder if something in the radiator system/cooling system had broken or my the installed upgrades were just too much. That particular day I had a tougher load: my heaviest friend at the time, 350 lbs. or more and his light wife coming with us.
Within a week I had installed my K&N High Performance Filter for better air filtration. In one more week - having noticed my coolant gauges running much cooler and the engine was running much smoother since it was getting it's air intake needs met - I set off up the same hill seeking the same religious experience for me and a challenge for my upgraded car. For a K&N Performance Filter really is an upgrade, people don’t realize that it isn’t just the super chargers or modified transmission’s that are upgrades, it’s the little stuff. I wasn't able to get the overweight friend or his wife to come to tax the small engine as I had before - they were too afraid to come! So I did the best I could to test my K&N performance filter by throwing all of my tools into the back and taking my beautiful wife with me, which caused her upset when she realized she was being a part of an experiment! So, still being 100 to 200 lbs. short of my last experience, I decided to do my best with the little motor to race up the hill and not take it easy. The car not only dug in with its K&N performance filter but it ran cooler going up that hill than it did in every day life! That filtration technology upgrade made the car desire a higher RPM . . . okay, okay it was probably just me that craved the higher RPM’s, but I was able to get away with the higher RPM without as many consequences!
The K&N performance filter is not available in all shapes and sizes for every vehicle unless you are willing to upgrade to a cold air intake. For example: my new car won’t let me go to town on this one like my old one did. That is why a cold air intake is necessary for people who happen to have cars like the both of us, which have limited K&N performance filter availability. Auto Bravado has a wonderful link for cold air and polished intakes on the Weapon R Dragon Cold Air Intake page. Don't just want a personal experience and you want techinical details too? See Auto Bravado's other article: K&N Air Filter.
Have you ever had your engine over heat after an upgrade? The K&N 33-2945 High Performance Replacement Air Filter will get more of that cooling air to get into and help your engines needs. This also allows for more stronger, straighter air flow at any RPM. Click on this link, put in your vehicle specifics and find your way to better filtration technology.
Or find my new article about getting your car cooler, and this time, it's actually about the radiator system! :) Antifreeze or Coolant.
The K&N performance filter is positively the easiest way to get your car moving faster. You buy it, you change the filter just like any standard filter and now you'll never change it again. I've bought a few of these and I still await the day it'll need cleaning because you probably don't need to clean it for 60k miles! That is 5 times the quality of the usual paper type. The only time you may have to clean it more often is if you drive in terribly dirty conditions, which is like me almost every time I drive to work at a ranch, but here's the thing. If I had the normal paper garbage, which plugs up under the slightest dirt unlike the K&N filter, then my fuel mileage would just die under those rough conditions. K&N Performance Filters are fun and easy.