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What the heck...I'll give it a try.  I've kept a pretty accurate record of my current fuel burn per flight hour with the old style sponge filter.  It'll be interesting to see if the K&N achieves the .3-.5 GPH improvement lonestar's website advertises.  I know that K&N's helped my race cars produce more power (dyno's are great for tuning).  I hope I get the same result on the plane.

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I use one of these in my M20J.  I noticed a slight rise in MP.  Seemed to give me about half what the ram air did and pretty much left me forgetting to open ram air.  I don't have good fuel flow equipment to compare with.  What is for certain is the quality of his thing is far beyond that of the stock filter setup...so I feel better about the job it is doing filtering the air, especially when you live where an active volcano is 40 miles away pumping crap into the air 24/7/365 Undecided


The frame did break on me after about 6 months - Challenger replaced it asap by sending me a brand new unit and letting me return the broken one in the packaging they shipped it in.

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George:  Keep a close eye on your mechanic when he modifies your lower cowling to accept the new filter if you go this route.  When I was having some other work done at SWTA, Russel and I noticed a gap between the filter housing and the cowling which allowed a good amount of dirt to enter the airbox.  A quick check of two other planes at the shop with this filter mod(one getting a new colwing), showed the exact same problem.  When I got home I pulled the filter completely out of the cowling and was appaled at the amount of crud that had been sucked into the air box.  Even though it's not in the installation instructions, I sealed the gap with some clear RTV.  I didnt have the plane long enough after that to notice if the gunk returned.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 1 month later...

I've used one for a couple of years now on my 64C and as an A&P I watch it closely. I do fly IFR and I have a big problem with these filters. Namely, the "fuzzy" stuff gets blown off of the filter screen by rain and now I'm down to just metal screen material and will probably be going back to paper of Brackett filters. I got about 1/2 inch increase in MP over the foam one but I don't think it's worth it considering the above problem.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Well the results are in...After putting 20.3 hours on the plane since installation my total fuel burn has been 206 Gallons.  Extrapolating back the previous 20.3 hours I burned 209.4 Gallons...Or a difference of 3.4 Gallons.  Divide that by 20.3 and the Challenger air intake provides a .167 G/hr lower fuel burn


This is about as scientific as I could make it, but I wouldn't put too much stock in the results.  Two of my recent flights were well above 10K for several hours and my trips averaged a bit longer on the sample than pre installation.  So "real world" it's probably slightly better but at least it's no worse than stock.


Here are the costs for the mod.  Challenger Filter kit $232.94 delivered.  Install was 1.5 hours @ $80 p/hr shop labor rate or $120.  Total cost installed $352.94


If the numbers are accurate I figure it'll take about 800 hours of fuel savings to break even on the cost of the Mod...but then again nobody makes changes/improvements to their plane to "save" moneyLaughing

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Quote: cliffy

I've used one for a couple of years now on my 64C and as an A&P I watch it closely. I do fly IFR and I have a big problem with these filters. Namely, the "fuzzy" stuff gets blown off of the filter screen by rain and now I'm down to just metal screen material and will probably be going back to paper of Brackett filters. I got about 1/2 inch increase in MP over the foam one but I don't think it's worth it considering the above problem.

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When I raced porsches and BMW's all I used was K&N's and I know from dyno testing they work and from years of track abuse they hold up. 


This was a good post and might have swayed my decision had I known prior to buying.  With that said, I check the condition prior to each flight and so far it's holding up as good or better than the old "oily" foam did.


 

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I've had one installed for five years. It appears to be in about the same condition it was in when I bought it. The instructions I have do caution that it should be re-oiled if flown through heavy rain. I've flown through light rain, with no effect on the filter. So if the fuzzy stuff is coming out, you may have a defective one that may be subject to warranty replacement.


I think I paid about $100 for it and installed it myself under A&P supervision. I figured it would pay for itself after 10-12 years or so, since it's supposed to last a long time.

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