I know those K&N reusable filters are the bomb, but I've run across another reusable cotton engine air filter made by a company called Spectre and that costs about $30 less than the K&N. Does anyone know if the Spectre engine air filter is any good?
I know those K&N reusable filters are the bomb, but I've run across another reusable cotton engine air filter made by a company called Spectre and that costs about $30 less than the K&N. Does anyone know if the Spectre engine air filter is any good?
Are you talking about the clamp on kind of K&N where you remove most of the old induction system? They dont make a lot of difference unless you have a highly tuned engine tbh....... just makes it guzzle more fuel and gives it a 'sucking' sound under the bonnet
At least that's what I'm getting from the descriptions. Could be wrong, though.
So you think I should just go with a standard paper replacement filter?
Yes they are direct replacement and I don't know if I'd spend the money on them. Typically I just get what's cheapest.
just make sure it isn't an oiled filter if your car has a MAF sensor
What Hugh said. You can use an oiled filter (like a K&N) but you must be careful not to over oil it, as the heated elements in a MAF sensor do NOT like oil, and thus you would have to replace your MAF soon afterwards. Spectre filter are okay, but, on a daily driven car, just go to local auto parts store and buy a paper factory style replacement. Despite what you may have heard, a free flowing air filter doesn't add much (if any) hp, and does nothing at all to improve fuel economy.
I'd agree with that...I do have a K&N filter in my Nissan NX2000. It might give me some small measureable amount of HP, but it's not much.
Way back, I had a bet with a friend who had the basic identical car to mine - 1987 VW Fox - that mine was faster because I took care of it better.
I was meticulous at keeping up my tune ups, oil changes and he was the opposite, but along the way he added a K&N intake...some shifter that was quicker and a fancy loud exhaust. His car certainly sounded the part of racer, but I just kept pulling away from him. We tried 0 - 60, 30-60 etc etc.
There's no substitute for looking after your cars! Both of my cars have 300,000Kms +
Signature created way-back-when by Goofy
My personal feelings on that (no hard data to back it up) is that a lot of the performance filters/intake just have an open cone type filter under the hood, so the engine is sucking hotter air in. I prefer to stay with a stock style paper filter with an actual cold air intake. I still run a system like this on my 99Z28, and when I put the cold/ram air on, I picked up almost a full 1mph in the 1/8 with similar DA
Thanks for the help guys. Stay tuned for my inquiries into brakes.
only joking but i did always have one of these stickers on my cars i use to race
Ok! Brakes questions:
After getting my oil changed, the Honda service center handed me this paper with notes on what I need to be thinking about in the future. It said that I need front and rear brakes soon, and on the checklist, the guy marked the "immediate attention required" box on all four brakes and listed them as 3mm (which I'm assuming is how much material is left on the brake pads).
There is nothing mentioning the rotors, pistons, or the calipers so I'm assuming that either they didn't look that close at the whole shindig (as they would have no reason to take the wheels off during this visit) or he's hoping to spring it on me when I say "Ok, go ahead and take care of it". Now I've watched several videos online on how to replace rotors and brake pads, so I have a pretty good idea of what's going to be done when I have it done. However, several things were not addressed:
Question 1: If I get my brake pads replaced (assuming four disc brakes instead of two front disc and two rear drum brakes), should I automatically just ask to have my rotors replaced as well, or should I wait to see what the service technician says? I'm assuming that I don't need rotors as the paper says there's 3mm of material left on the brake pads and I'm not hearing any grinding noises when I use the brakes.
Question 2: Should I go with standard replacement brake pads for my vehicle or should I look into some alternative 3rd party brake pad (for example, ceramic brake pads)?
Question 3: What can I expect to pay for brake pad replacement at a dealership service center compared to a nondealer national chain compared to an independently owned and operated local service station?
Question 4: Same as above but what if we include the rotors?
Question 5: And finally, how long will this sort of job usually take (assuming the service technicians aren't lollygagging around and wasting time on purpose)?
Edit: I have a 2006 Honda Civic EX 2-door auto transmission, if that helps any.
Last edited by DemonGeminiX; 03-30-2011 at 11:06 AM.
if it was just an oil change, then I doubt the'd have done anything more than a quick visual inspection. You can't really check the caliper until you've removed it (unless trhe disc is blue, in which case the piston in the calliper is probably siezed )
short answer - no
If there was simething wrong with the rotors, it should have been picked up when the dude spotted your "3mm" brake pads
also, your pads (assuming they've never been replaced) probably have a little metal tag on them official term = "acoustic wear indicator" they make a high pitched screech when they touch the rotor
don't waste money on "high performance" stuff. You could probably get pattern parts cheaper yourself and ask the garage to fit them for you
labour times for replacing brake pads for your car about 0.6 hours per axle
1 hour per axle (including pads)
assumiong they aren't retards
pads about 20 mins
pads and rotors about 30-40 mins
how many miles hjas the car done?
Last edited by Hugh_Janus; 03-30-2011 at 06:31 PM.
I have about 30000 miles on it, maybe a tad less, but I bought it used and got it when the odometer read 22500. I've been finding little things here and there that need to be taken care of since I bought it, but that's par for the course with most used cars. Most of it was taken care of when it was still under warranty, but that warranty has expired now, so I wasn't looking at any major costs before. I can't really complain though, it's in great running order.