Originally Posted by Raylar

Hey Steve, Love that story of scientific analysis of measuring frog jumping performance! LMFHO!

As with engine performance, there always is an actual reason, no matter how small or big that always answers the question of why did the outputs change. The reality is though sometimes its just not worth the trouble to find it depending on the net benefit.

An interesting fact here about the K&N filters for the Merc 496 which we have tested and saw some reduced power versus the good old stock Merc flame arrestor. The Mercury flame arrestor has a nice internal bell mouth opening into the throat versus the K&N filter that has a sharp edge opening into the throat. Air as most know likes to flow over and into bell mouth openings and at higher air flows this can make a measurable difference. Does the K&N filter filter air better than the wire mesh openings of the stock flame arrestor, YOU BET! Is its extra filtering needed in a boat, I guess that depends on the cleanliness of the boating enviroment you are in. If the extra filtering is not needed then the expense of the aftermarket filter and its resulting power loss make it not such a great buy.

It always kind of amazes me how much money, time and effort performance seeking users will spend trying to practice "Engine Alchemy" with some of the so called "magical" products that are supposed to make serious power and performance increases. If sometimes they would just spend their time and money looking at a lot of things on their boats especially hull straightness and condition, drive efficiencies in X-diemnsions, setbacks and prop setup and selections they would see and benefit from some much nicer performance increases.
I am an engine builder by profession and as such I can really appreciate products and knowledge that can and do create good added power and performance from marine engines.
I have to say though that there are small items like, which good oil I run, which good oil filter is better than another, which ignition coil I am using, what spark plug size wires I am using, and such really won't make enough improvement to be even measureable let alone translate into increases in boat performance on the water!
When a performance boater "GETS THE NEED FOR MORE SPEED!" they should try to spend their time and hard earned money on upgrades and improvements that will really translate into good measurable performance "IN THE BOAT - IN THE WATER!" , everything and everywhere else "DOES NOT MATTER!"

Best Regards,
Ray @ Raylar

Originally Posted by stevesxm

it was an easy fix. he finally remembered to take it out of the plastic wrap before he installed it.

seriously tho, smitty, why do you think that was ? that implies the thing acted more like a restrictor plate than a filter ... was it just sized way way too small for the demand ?

Originally Posted by Raylar

It always kind of amazes me how much money, time and effort performance seeking users will spend trying to practice "Engine Alchemy" with some of the so called "magical" products that are supposed to make serious power and performance increases. If sometimes they would just spend their time and money looking at a lot of things on their boats especially hull straightness and condition, drive efficiencies in X-diemnsions, setbacks and prop setup and selections they would see and benefit from some much nicer performance increases.
I am an engine builder by profession and as such I can really appreciate products and knowledge that can and do create good added power and performance from marine engines.
I have to say though that there are small items like, which good oil I run, which good oil filter is better than another, which ignition coil I am using, what spark plug size wires I am using, and such really won't make enough improvement to be even measureable let alone translate into increases in boat performance on the water!
When a performance boater "GETS THE NEED FOR MORE SPEED!" they should try to spend their time and hard earned money on upgrades and improvements that will really translate into good measurable performance "IN THE BOAT - IN THE WATER!" , everything and everywhere else "DOES NOT MATTER!"

Best Regards,
Ray @ Raylar

Originally Posted by articfriends

The k/n 3" x 9" air cleaner or for that matter most automotive filters in this size are just too small for bigger cube, hi revving engines and do NOT flow enough, in back to back test, a dyno"venturi" hat , a K/N 3X 14" dia filter with flow top and a auto parts store 4 x 14 paper filter all made within 1% of each other, no measurable difference. The K/N 3X 14 with a solid lid started to kill 2% or about 8-12 hp/ft lbs of tq. The car the motor is going in is My original looking 1974 Trans Am, I want to retain the factory shaker scoop when I put my motor in, I have no problem mounting it directly to the hood but I don't want to chop up the car. A common thing guys do for these is mount the scoop to the hood and put a k/n 3X9 air cleaner on the carb and it stick into the scoop just barely clearing. I have heard that these things kill hp, not because of the design of the k/n filter media but beacuse of the overall size/square inches/effective filter area of the air cleaner itself. I wanted to see this for myself, at the time we tried it we were making 565- 568 hp pulls and tuning the efi program/working bugs out. When we bolted the K/N 3x9 (which by the way I used to run on a 455 cu inch boat motor) the hp just died, back to back pulls showed hp in the 520's . The map went from 99kpa or so at 100% throttle to about 85, the air cleaner also sucked in and afr's went pig rich. Switched back to what we had been running and hp came right back. I found some tech that claimed a K/N filter will flow about 6-7 cfm per sq inch of effective area, at 3 x9x 3.14 there is 84.78 sq inches of media, 84.78 x 7= 593cfm hence the restriction. Now, its possible that there is more effective area once you account for the pleats in the design but still the same if you have a high flowing intake sytem something this small will choke it off, Smitty

Originally Posted by KAAMA

Everyone has a learning curve Ray.

I am an exterminator and I suppose I could be just as "amazed" at what you or someone else doesn't know about bugs and how to eradicate them----I could make somebody look real stupid! No matter what a person's profession....a plumber, or an electrician, or a carpenter or a computer programmer or...

It seems that what we may have learned 20, 10, 5 or even 2 years ago or less suddenly becomes kind of redundant to us because now we already know it and somehow it now "amazes" us that someone else doesn't know what we already know.

Funny thing about my own profession as a bug killer after all these years---I am still a student,---but hey, don't tell anyone!

Originally Posted by ThisIsLivin

I have to admit I was skeptical of the claims, but I've known my engine builder for almost 20 years and he has never been one to exaggerate anything. It is entirely possible that this guy had a problem that the hotter spark masked. As far as the bridge goes, I'm from Michigan and the state doesn't like privately owned bridges. As to stupid, voodoo or folklore, it is possible that increasing the voltage, current and burn time of the spark generates more heat and that would impact the flame front. Remember, in the words of Smokey Yunich, "It is easier to find 100 ways to make 1 horsepower than 1 way to make 100."

Originally Posted by stevesxm

wow. on the gtp and gtp lights cars those motors were everything under the sun but they all made between 400 and 600 hp depending on the configuration. on the cars that i had control of, i made a large carbon airbox roughly 24 x 16 that sat over but not on the velocity stacks and used what k+n called an " air conditioner element which ws just a big rectangular deal. that was fed from a scoop over the cockpit and that seemed to work ok. when i rand the airbox on the dyno there was no dif w or w/out the filter but what i as thinking at the time was that over a 24 hr race, the filter would get dirty to some degree and i wanted extra capacity. your data is great. well done on that.

Originally Posted by stevesxm

i don't think thats fair or representative of what he was saying in any way.