So a friend of mine bought a K&N air filter that supposedly has a lifetime warranty. It basically is a metal air filter which is washable and reusable with the help of some special oil. According to him he's getting about 2 to 3 mpg's more on his Jeep Cherokee, something to do with letting in more air with less dust particles... Would this filters benefit the HCH in any way? Does anyone own this air filter? I went to my local Walmart yesterday and they have the same air filter but made by another company... kinda look cheap though, the price on it wasn't, around 50 bucks.

 

I had a K&N airfilter in my Camaro in highschool. It was supposed to boost horsepower. I'm not sure they make one for the hybrid, but I'd get one if they did. I guess I never thought to look, but I will now.

 

I have a K&N on my Civic HX. I can't say for certain it does anything except decrease how often I have to buy new air filters. The K&N is washable, so you just gently hose it off, re-oil it, and put it back in the airbox. No more buying new air filters every 10-15k miles.

 

your friend has his facts crossed, by letting in more air, you are increasing the horsepower and therfore most likely decreasing your mileage. Back in my speed days, I drilled holes in my air filter and attached it directly to the input without putting the "can" back around it. This allowed the engine to suck air more freely boosting my acceleration. This lead to my near death at 17 years old while I was doing 130 mph down a straightaway and a car pulled out in front of me. I took the car over a windbreak of trees got tossed out of the sun roof somewhere around the height of the telphone poles and ended up getting a nice little helicopter ride to the hospital.

Needless to say, Im going to stick with my stock airfilters for the rest of my life.

 

You are right WWJDRV. I put one on my last car, an '02 PT Cruiser because the K&N site said that you would get an increase in mileage as well as horsepower. I never did get the increase in milege but on HP, yes. As well as a very cool 'throttly' sound on acceleration. I might do it again on the HCH just to see.

I have one on my '99 Suburban too.

 

The air filter does not "let in more air" as you claim. The thottlebody's job is to regulate airflow into the engine. The principle of a freeflowing air filter is to minimize pumping losses associated with sucking air through the filter media in the first place.

 

so when it comes down to it, ur mpg's will not decrease but you will have more HP? doesn't that decrease HP?

 

regardless, does anyone have a K&N part# for the civic hybrid 1.3L?
K&N Filters website doens't have one available.

 

You can increase horsepower either of two ways:

1) More air and more fuel
2) Reduction in parasitic loss

The idea behind an air filter that flows more easily is that at light load where you're throttling the amount of air going into the engine anyway, it reduces the parasitic loss of having to suck air through a filter. When you reduce parasitic losses, you're not increasing fuel usage at all. In fact, if you get more power from the same amount of fuel, that means you will achieve cruising speed more quickly, at which point you throttle back to your normal cruising power setting.

If you wanted to read more about the science of making horsepower, try doing a search on BSFC and getting a full understanding of what that means and how you would put it to use in the real world.