barfer
I like chopping wood
I know not everyone loves K&N filters but I’m a big fan of them.
Bottom line up front: I’m really happy with this mod. It clearly pulls loads more air in and the saw is breathing better, winding up faster and I wish I could put it on a dyno to see if the torque increase is in my head.
But for certain it’s pulling more air in… so much so that when I tested it without wearing gloves (or a bar or chain on it) I could feel the air sucking, rushing into the intake. Much more than with the unifilter or the mini fake K&N filters I got off amazon that are 2 for 10 bucks
Whether you’re a fan of K&N filters or not, there’s no arguing that a larger filter pod than OEM will let more air into your intake.
I was using a foam unifilter—and those work *GREAT* but just because of the pod volume alone this K&N is an improvement.
Yes I had to drill a 2.5” hole in my cover to get the cover to fit over this silly filter… I realize this isn’t some super high compression hotsaw with a velocity stack and a long exhaust pipe getting all that scavenging advantage (I love those BTW)… all the same this K&N is *working*
I used the oil/debris marks left from the unifilter to find the exact center point for the filter before drilling out with a hole saw (note that the filter doesn’t sit in the exact center of the back cover so for anyone trying this at home I’d advise against simply measuring dead center or the back cover). After indexing the mark with a compass and the diameter I’d need where it exits the cover… I took a breathe and drilly drill drilled!
Yep it sticks out. Yep it’s ugly. But FWIW I don’t even notice it’s on there because it doesn’t interfere with my grip at all like the giant 6 inch K&N filters that will fit with this intake manifold diameter (which is 57mm BTW on a 462CM)
Those inexpensive fake k&N’s work fine but they’re tiny and don’t have the surface area to get high CFM and they get clogged up pretty quick. But they’re only 5 bucks each (shrug) and you don’t have to drill any holes in the cover
Pics of the knock of $5 fake K&N (they fit under the cover BTW)
Sure there are more and better ways to improve this particular saw but for “everyday use” this is proving very usable and is making a difference and I’m happy with it.
I could do more for sure more—but it’s still in its warranty period and if something goes wrong I’ll slap an OEM cover, air filter and exhaust back on it so I don’t get denied any warranty claim I might need it make (fingers crossed I won’t need to). After the warrant period is over I’ll decide if I want to go for full-on porting and polishing etc.
Other than the ugly hole in the cover (which personally doesn’t bother me) this was a very simple modification. K&N Part # of the filter in the pic below for anyone interested. Note that this filter has a flange ID of 55mm so it’s a tight fit… 57mm is the OD of the intake if you’re looking at other K&N filters to try I use 57mm or 58mm ID flanges if I have a choice.
Hope this is useful or at the very least amusing for some of you folks out there in interweb land
