You can shut an engine off by simply placing your hand over the air intake. It's like sticking a piece of foam in your mouth and trying to breathe through it. This should give you some inkling of the horsepower it takes for your bike's motor to respire.
Meanwhile, in order for your bike to suck, all kinds of metal parts are bumping and grinding together with just a micro-thin film of oil preventing them from super-heating. Add some sand, or even microscopic dust, and you begin to have a recipe for rapid wear and/or catastrophic failure. It needs to be clean in there. According to one source, a cubic mile of air typically contains 400 tons of suspended dirt (particulate matter). And this is just the dirt you can't see.
K&N's been around since 1969. Their brand name has become synonymous with performance, and they do their best to continue to promote this reputation with aggressive marketing and convincing research data.
The most basic description of K&N's filter construction is: four to six layers of oleophilic cotton in a specific mesh pattern, which is then coated in a light oil in order to trap dust. These filters are washable, with the purchase of their filter washing kit, but doing so only needs to occur at an astonishing 50,000 mile intervals. They have replacement filters available for almost any motorcycle manufactured.
Having used these filters, I can say they do improve air flow. Engines idle a bit higher after installing one of these, and in some applications there was a noticeable power increase. But do they filter better than foam or paper? I don't know. I change my oil regularly and follow K&N's filter maintenance procedures, and have noticed no additional dirt in my used oil -- not that I'd be able to see it, perhaps. There's lots of information available online, and detractors as well, and it's always best to do your research first.
Need an updated carb tuner while you're at it? This one by Motion Pro is eco-friendly and easy to use.
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