Air Basics!

Air, and most importantly the oxygen contained within is inhaled into the engine to give it life. When air is first introduced to automotive system it has to pass thorough an air filter before it makes it's way to the intake manifold after which it passes through a series of gates know as valves allowing it to be sucked into each individual cylinder ( at the right time ) by the vacuum created by the retreating piston (s).

At precisely ( or if you want to split hairs..approximately ) the time the valve opens to let in the air, fuel is injected into the air stream, mixing (efficiently ?) the two together as they enter the cavity of the cylinder. On the return stroke of the piston, when maximum compression of the volatile vapor is achieved a electrical (or is that electronic) spark is introduced to ignite the volatile mix.

Blah....Blah....Blah

This combustion is needed to create force, the force that pushes on the pistons that turns the crankshaft that rotates the power shaft in the transmission. This force or torque is transferred by rotating the the driveshaft which in-turn is transferred to the rear / front / both end (s) gearbox which is transferred to it final destination, the wheels on your car.

So Where's The Air Filter Come In?

Air filtration is the process of removing particulate (foreign objects) or objects that you don't want sucked into the intestines of your engine.

Without a air filter of some type you run the risk of introducing anything that is smaller then the valve opening into your engine, from a mouse (or the acorn shells that it cracks in your air filter duct work ) to a small stone either which can be nasty to the health of your engine, not to mention regular dirt and dust. Obviously the cleaner the air the longer the engine should last.

A filters primary purpose is to remove small particles of dirt from the air before it has a chance to make it's way into the environment of the engine. Without an air filter, a certain percentage of the dirt that enters the cavity of the cylinder walls will enter the oil system of the engine, some will be blown out by the explosions that occur within, however enough can remain to score the cylinder walls. As far as the dirt that made it's way into the oil system, a majority should be removed by the oil filter, however some will make it to internal bearing surfaces were wear of the bearing and it's mating surfaces will be accelerated.

The better the filter does it's job the less dirt that is introduced to your engine. The drawback here is that the more efficient an air filter is at stopping dirt the more efficient it becomes in stopping air.

A stock air filter has a fine screen of paper / foam (or some other crap) material that will trap the smallest of particles that could possibly do damage to your vehicles engine. In the process of use (engine running) particles begin to accumulate on the exterior of the filters filtering elements with a certain percentage penetrating the filter media allowing only the microscopic of material to make it to your engine. As the filter continues to do it's job it will be come more efficient at stopping smaller particles, however it will also become less efficient in allowing an unrestricted flow of air volume to the engine, eventually starving your engine of oxygen the primary catalyst in the combustion of the fuel that is introduced.

Needless to say this will also decrease fuel economy, and because the fuel is not burning more efficiently, (since the burn of the fuel was not maximized) it would be expected that a certain amount of fuel pollutants will make it's way into the oil

This slow dying filter will decrease your engine performance and cause fuel economy to decrease.

The motto for those who wish to keep their engines the "cleanest it can be" will be to continue using high particle filtering filters. However for top performance using high efficiency filters, more frequent inspection is recommended with replacement of filters before they start to serious influence fuel efficiency and performance.

As I continue to update these pages, I'll be putting in pictures of clean, and dirty air filters and mileage suggestion as to when to replace them.

Our Fuel Injected Engines

I've listed the volume displacement of the 4.7 Liter and 5.9 liter fuel injected engines options available for the Dakota Quad. Every time your engine makes two revolutions it will suck in a volume of air equivalent to the displacements listed below.

 

4.7 liters is equivalent to: .16596 cubic feet

4.7 liters is equivalent to: 286.76 cubic inches

5.9 liters is equivalent to: .21 cubic feet

5.9 liters is equivalent to: 359.98 cubic inches

Jason a Quad owner from Washington pointed out a big boo boo I made in this paragraph, so I removed it.... don't tell me he was the only one to see this... anyway.. I'll have to come back here and rewrite this section when I have the time. 07/10/01

Don't get me wrong.....your engine will still suck in air to fill the void of the cylinder, but they'll be less air / oxygen or should I say the air will be at a less air pressure.

Consider that air occupying a space can range in pressure from a vacuum to hundreds of pounds per square in. The oxygen inside the air contained in a cylinder that's near vacuum is miniscule compared to oxygen levels contained in air in the same cylinder at 150 psi.

Bottom line: more air / more oxygen = more power / more horsepower.

 

Beyond The Stock Air Filter

 

I ran across an ad in a magazine that I'd like to share with you. Come to find out, one of the least expensive ways to boost the performance of your Dakota is to replace your air filter with a Hi Performance filter.

 

The particular ad was for K&N Air Filters. It claimed a performance boost of 5% to 10% in horsepower.

 

After reading over the info in the ad, it appeared to make good sense to me.

It reminds me of the time many years ago when a buddy of mine wanted to pit his Chevy Impala against my 1967 6 cyl. Mustang.

 

Out of site and moments before we raced I pulled the air filter and cover out of my Mustang ........yeah...... I smoked him good. By the way, driving around without a air filter under the hood can be particularly nasty on the engine.

 

Anyway, nowadays I'm more interested in fuel economy and towing power.

 

K&N manufactures accessories dealing with air/combustion performance for cars. Gee, I hope they don't mind me pasting there performance claim on my site.

The Image on the right indicates the amount of air available to the engine using various filters. According to K&H their air filter allows nearly twice the amount of air to flow to the engine.

K.N. filters, the rectangular one is the style that our Quads use.
Buy A K & N Air Filter For Your 4.7 L Quad!
Just follow the link, click the make and year, work your way to the filters!

Well.....does it work!

First off, to the people that have been following this section of the site, I wanted to say....No, I haven't put in a K&H Filter...yet! I will soon and will give a 1st hand report.

Also found out that K&H has a competitor the companies name is AutoPhysics and they also manufacture oil / lubed filters

I Don't Recommend The Following
Do so at your own risk!

I have no doubt that the K&N air filter will increase performance. If you want to get an idea how it will benefit your vehicle, just take the air filter out, check the intake duct for any dirt (clean & blow) take a vacuum and clean out the housing, leaving the filter out, but back the filter housing assembly and give your truck a twirl. Don't take off down any dusty roads, if you really want to try this trick do it on a clean roadway, no winds, and don't blame me for anything that might happen. Just because I'm crazy enough to do this, doesn't mean you have to.

After reviewing the information on the K&N web site I found no mention of how small a particle of contaminant the K&N filter will stop from entering your engine. The question that runs though my mind, when you start out with a fresh K&N filter how much dirt will the filter allow to enter the engine and how small or how much will actually effect engine longevity. Will it cost the engine a loss of: 0 life miles, 1000 life miles, or 25,000 life miles? Or is it likely that the engine will fail more likely from a component failure then if would from failure introduced by continued use of a filter such as this.

I've went into a bit of detail in this section (and I have even more to add, later) and for some it may seem like old stuff. But for some it will be.... let say .........invigorating, in any case I felt it important to cover this section thoroughly, and as you'll see when I continue to update these pages, air induction will figure heavily into getting maximum performance increases with your truck.

Well that's it for this page, If you have something to add or if I made an error somewhere above use the mail link below and let us all know.

Check the front page for the last update date.

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By the way, my name is Nick, you can email me by clicking this => Mail