Facts You Should Know About Air Filters 

In the early '60s, K&N developed an oil impregnated cotton air filter gauze which exceeds the minimum filtration standards while offering little restriction to air flow. As a result, the first K&N filter element was manufactured by sandwiching several layers of surgical gauze between two sheets of wire mesh. The medium was then pleated to reduce the filter's overall size and to increase its surface area.

Finally the cotton gauze was oiled to enhance it's filtering capabilities. The original concept exists today and remains the basic component used in all of our automotive, industrial, marine and motorcycle air filters.

Maintaining optimum, unrestricted flow becomes a problem when the air must pass through a conventional paper filter element.
Conventional paper elements are very resistant to air flow because the filter material or medium is very dense. The greater the restriction the greater the power loss.

K&N's oil-impregnated, cotton-gauze element is the basis of our filter, as well as K&N's overall dominance of the reusable air filter market. The process is expensive but well worth the effort. To further make the point, consider that square inch per square inch, our filter will flow an average of 50 percent more air compared to the average paper filter without sacrificing filtration efficiency.

Air flow art

Click here to return to K & N Click here to return to our home page