Okay I'm possibly looking at picking up a k&n intake here in a week or so. Due to me doing a lot more driving I am looking to up my mpg as much as possible. Just wanted to see what the avg increase the intake gave. I realize it will probably only be 1-2mpg, but with me delivering pizza's that makes a difference in a short amount of time. So any insight would be great!

 

You will probably not notice any difference. It may sound a little bit "shwooshier", thats about it.

when you are just *****footing around town the only difference that the intake will make is that the pistons will have an easier time pulling air into the head.

Take for example my car.

I spent 1500$ on intake parts:

3.5" front mount intercooler
K/N Cone filter with MAF adapter
Wider diameter/shorter length cold intercooler pipe
Wider diameter/shorter length hot intercooler pipe

On the highway I only got about 1mpg better than I was getting before the mods. Most of that comes from the fact that on a turbocharged car a denser cooler charge makes a big difference.

If you don't retune the map for your mods then changing the filter type is mostly a waste of money. Your closed lool (partial throttle) map will always reconfigure itself so that the truck runs a consistent 14.7 air/fuel ratio (good for emissions and economy) When you go full throttle (use the open loop tune) the injectors/timing/ignition is controlled by a map that takes no look at the air/fuel ratio going out the exhaust manifold. The truck will run more rich in wide open, because the engine is under more load. (Rich = Safe) Using this intake might lean you out some, giving you some more power, but the majority of the gain that the manufacturer advertises is with a retuned map.

In other words, don't expect any of the advertised gains that you see on the internet.

For example, removing the converter on my car dyno'ed me at 23 additional wheelHP. After tuning the openloop for this on a dyno I achieved 43 wheelhp from baseline.

 

AFE!!!!

I had a big O'l K&N on my 96' it did the job but I think dust still past threw it...

I have the AFE Pro Dry S on the 05 and I really like it... I got the extra dust sock on it as well...

 

And Jp7 is also correct.. but for a ease of maintenance this thing rocks..

Rinse it out let it dry and put it back in... no oil!!!! I think I gave $159 for it its been a while....

 

If you have dust in your intake that is not good for a daily driver.

For a track/strip car I would not worry. I doubt you are going to use your ranger for this.

 

i might have a KN 77 intake for sale pretty soon. I gained absolutely nothing from it.

it looks and sounds nice, thats it

 

Try leaning yourself out *just a little* and you'll notice a difference.

.5 AFR can make a big difference.

 

I got a k&n intake I really haven't noticed any difference in mpg. it looks cool and it does help engine performance but I just haven't noticed any change in mpg.

 

Really the only intake system you might notice a increase on is the Volant intake, being a closed system. K&N and AEM just have a open filter which sucks in the hot engine heat thus giving worse performance than stock. Since your looking for just power I would get a underdrive pulley instead.

 

+1 on the volant with the box. I have a K&N but have yet to do a final mpg calc with my maf adapter and open element. I am still just running the stock box with holes in it and the K&N tube, but I can tell I picked up just a little more mpg like 1... lol. An intake isnt going to do much unless you have done more engine mods like p&p the manifolds, headers and such. Plus for the price for a flippin intake Id go for the pulleys I saw a much better gain and they are wayy cheaper.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rapala

+1 on the volant with the box. I have a K&N but have yet to do a final mpg calc with my maf adapter and open element. I am still just running the stock box with holes in it and the K&N tube, but I can tell I picked up just a little more mpg like 1... lol. An intake isnt going to do much unless you have done more engine mods like p&p the manifolds, headers and such. Plus for the price for a flippin intake Id go for the pulleys I saw a much better gain and they are wayy cheaper.

If you were getting 1mpg with an intake mod then the truck would come this way. Ford spends millions of dollars to improve mileage 1mpg.

This is the same reason those "tornado intake - 5mpg gain!" things on ebay are garbage. If this worked every single manufacturer would be doing this.
Tuning an engine involves mainly 2 things.
1 - advancing the timing to get better torque without knock
2 - adjusting the afr to get a more powerful mixture without knock

Conventional mods (intake exhaust ect) make it easier to do this. There are a bunch of different reasons why mods work or dont work. If your not going to adjust the computer then what is the point?

 

Drop in K&N is your best bet. The open air design of the K&N air intake will only suck in hot air from the engine bay. On the other hand, a closed cold intake system will do you good as to how much I don't really know.

 

Before any mods were done here's what I got: 13 in the city and 15 on the highway. Here's what I did. K&N O.E.M direct replacement, changed oil from 5W20 to 10W30 and installed a Flowmaster American Thunder 40 Series muffler 6 inches behind the cab. I'll add the phot a bit later for ya. The results: 18 MPG's in the city and 24 MPG's on the highway. I still use the factory air box.

 

here are some pics for you that I promised.

Oil:



Air Filter:



Exhaust set up:







I hope this helps. the end result was from 13 and 15 MPG's to 18 and 24 MPG's. That's a Flowmaster American Thunder 40 series. You can use any brand you wish or what ever fits your budget. This aint loud if you're wondering because the motor aint big enough for the flowmaster to be extremely loud like they usually are.The only way you can get it that loud is to put it off the header with no pipe at all just a tip right off the muffler its self. But that's illegal what I just told you. The set up you see is legal. That's a K&N O.E.M drop in Air filter. It will work just as well.

 

hey dude yeah your probably not going to notice anything powerwise but it'll make your ranger sound pretty sweet

 

I don't know how you do it then Steve, I ran 10w 30 in my truck once for about 1500 miles and it ticked like it was going to blow up and got really crappy gas mileage. It was when I was delivering pizza actually and it's all I could afford. But my K&N makes no difference.

 

buy a programmer?