Over winter break I decided to clean my RB intake for the first time in the 2 years I've had it on. And man am I glad I did. I first took off the accordion intake tube, and the blue aluminum tube with the MAF, then removed the filter from the box. The filter element was caked with tons of dirt, but the air box itself wasn't too bad, just little piles of sand. Here's what the filter and box looked like:




I found that a toothbrush and a flexible plastic fork works wonders to get most of the loose dirt out without damaging the filter. The toothbrush gets the outside edges of the pleats well and the fork gets in between. The vibration of the fork as it scrapes the sides REALLY helps shake out a lot of the dirt. Here was the amount I was able to get out:




After that I doused the filter with K&N filter cleaner solution, and let sit for 10 minutes per the instructions. I then rinsed the filter by sticking the head of my garden hose inside and using a moderate flow of water. Wow it is now so much cleaner:



While letting the filter dry, I vacuumed the inside of the box. You can also use this time to clean your MAF with MAF cleaner. After the filter was mostly dry I sprayed a good coat of K&N filter oil, then reassembled everything.

Driving the car I immediately felt better throttle response, especially at mid-high rpms. This is definitely worth doing if you haven't cleaned your RB intake in a while!

 

2 years??????

 

^^what he said. if you keep having such bad routine maintenance behaviors, you can kiss your motor bye bye to an early grave. knock on wood it don't.

but yeah...performance air filters have the performance because... well, its a thinner filter. so clean more often. and clean at least once a year.

 

ya i'll be cleaning more regularly from now on... I hope there's not much that went through the filter. I think it should be fine though, seeing that the inside of the filter was perfectly clean. It did surprise me how much dirt can get lodged on the outside though!

 

wow...seems like a good couple of hours that you spent cleaning that filter.

IMHO, thats a No Thx.

good thing i have my buddy Pedro's underground car maintenance shop to do all these kind of things for a fraction of the price

 

How many miles did you drive in two years?

 

ding, ding.

MILES!!!!

anyone know how many mile k&n recomends before recharges?????

also the big secret is to not, repeat not over oil..


beers

 

i drove about 25,000 miles in those 2 years.
what happens if you oil too much? Coats the MAF?

 

restricts airflow, get's pulled into the engine, etc... just bad stuff.

 

25k miles you are fine.. i am waiting for the answer...

beers

 

For over oiling: http://www.knfilters.com/filter_facts.htm#OILING

K&N's response to manufactures saying the MAF can be hurt by the oil: http://www.knfilters.com/MAF/massair.htm

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K&N's suggested cleaning interval for filters (non specific instructions)
http://www.knfilters.com/filtercharger.htm

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Of course, if you read the PDF from http://www.kandn.com/instructions/69-6030-1.pdf
it states:

from the last paragraph on page 2.


So saying he's fine at 25k because they recommend re-oiling at 50k isn't really correct. He went 2 years without checking and they suggest every year.

 

you got it all covered..

to some extent, less is more...

the over oiling is the big fear here...

beers