kkm problems?

[jDan]

Ok I know I am going to probably make a good majority
of this website upset when I say this but here goes anyways.
I feel the kkm was a waste of my money. I live in Sacramento and right now the temp is around 105 degrees. I also have a new motor with headers. The problem that I have had for the past year or so is that the damn thing sucks up nothing but hot engine air.(which was exagerated by the headers) Thus making the thing sluggish as hell of the line. Now I admit when I am up to freeway speeds it does add a few ponies and does give it that burly sound, but thats where my praise ends. I just put my old air box on yesterday and added some heat reflective tape. The difference was amazing. Instead of taking forever to get up to speed, it actually moves off the line. If you have paid attention to the new K&N filter packs they have a box that seperates the air filter from the rest of the engine bay thus sucking up more cool air. Cool air is more dense than warm air. So the more cool air the better. If you don't believe me fourwheeler magazine did a story on it called: Project MPG. They tried the older style K&N kit and took it off in favor of the old air box with a panel style K&N and the cooling tape. They even have the dyno numbers to prove it.( they actually lost horsepower with the Cone system) I am going to keep my kkm filter however because it does raise the intake up for deep water crossings. So i'll just put the thing on before I go driving through streams. Sorry I just had to get that off my chest.

 

[AaronE19]

jDan-
if you take a look at the "header install" thread a little ways down the Under the Hood page, it might help solve the problem you're experiencing. sucking hot air is always a concern when you install headers, but another thing (in addition to insulating tape) that I've found to be helpful to retaining performance under extremely hot conditions is making sure you're getting good spark. I don't know what year your truck is, but I have a '93 and I've found that my old OHV, MFI motor really sucked it at the bottom end before I switched to Bosch 4+ and dual-core wires. I've experienced similarly poor throttle response under hot conditions in vehicles with TPI, but it's no where near as drastic. I think it's because the ECU is able to more precisely adjust fuel/air mixtures to correct for the hot temps... but then again, I could just be blowing smoke up your a$$.

for some additional insight, you could do a search for "ram air setup." there was a pretty insightful discussion on this board a short time ago about better ways to get cool air into your motor, and it usually only involves a coat hangar and some household dryer hose.

nobody on this board going to blast you for stating your opinion, everybody's here to have a good time and help out the other members when they can. that's why we have a million and four members and similar sites just have four.

hope I gave you some ideas

Aaron

 

[ilikedellcomputers]

Damn, I was just going to order a KKM Air Intake until I read this. Hey man, I hope your problem gets sorted out, for your sake and mine, cause I really want that KKM Intake!

hahaha!


Good Night

 

[jason]

Me and a couple of my friends have thought but never tried to fabricate a box around the filter element I'm sure it would'nt be so hard.I'll look in to it more when I get truck back from the shop

 

[mike91]

I own a KKM for the past two years almost and do believe there is some truth to this statement. I am currently looking into some Ranger cowl induction hoods, which are the same as in my explorer. This will definitely allow the heat to escape much easier through the top, thereby reducing temperatures dramatically. I found a new place on the net that sells fiberglass hoods (weight reduction also). If anyone doesn't want to spend lots of money, they have a 2.25 raised cowl hood for $295 - not bad. The only thing though is that shipping will probably hike the price up substantially.

http://www.up22.com

 

[CHH777]

I too have the KKM and I love it. We were hitting 112 degrees a couple weeks ago and my off-the-line acceleration was just fine.

However, I did remove the lining from the underside of the hood and the rubber strip at the back of the hood as they both just seal in heat. I also use header wrap...

 

[LukeDog3D]

Conyl,

I was thinking about removing the liner on the hood also, but do you think it could be detrimental to the paint on the other side of the hood in any way? Wouldn't the excess heat tend to crack the paint?

 

[CHH777]

I removed mine ~15K miles ago with no problems so far...

 

[AaronE19]

I'm pretty sure that, just like that stupid little heat riser that goes from your manifold to your factory air intake hose, the under-hood liner is just to help the motor warm up when it's extremely cold outside. I dunno about it damaging the paint, though. it would seem to me that Ford had enough clear coat problems in those years without further tempting fate.

my $.02

Aaron

 

[jDan]

Conyle,
Were there any other side effects to removing the head liner? I would like to try it but I must admit, I am still a little pessemistic because I still was experiencing lag off the line before my headers. But at this point I would try anything. Also has anybody had trouble getting in touch with the folks at Vanir Technologies? I e-mailed them last friday and still haven't heard back from them.
Thanks.

 

[mike91]

From my experience it takes several business days or so for Vanir to get back to you, but eventually they will.

 

[CHH777]

Actually, Sven (spelling?) at Vanir is who recommended I remove the lining and hood "boot". Again, I've had no paint problems but my headers are wrapped...

 

[rpenner54]

I have to say that the KKM was the biggest off-the line perfomance boost I have gotten so far. Sure your sucking in hotter air but at the same time your sucking in a heck of a lot more then the stock system could EVER allow in. Has anyone EVER looked at the stock intake? The holes in my 92 were about 4 square inches total if that! To top it off they were blocked by the majority of the grill and other stuff up front. You can even hear the differnce in performance of a KKM vs. K&N with stock box. When you get up there in RPM's you can tell the engine is struggling to suck air in with the stock box and K&N with the KKM its sucking away! I have to say that this still is THE best mod I have made performance wise so far. Even my Flowie muffler and exhaust didn't give the seat of the pants feeling like this did.

 

[JICI]

KKM

I added the KKM induction and Hypertech chip to my 94 XLT 4.0L OHV at the same time and it made a tremendous improvement in power and acceleration. Later I added flowmaster cat-back with little, if any, noticable gains.

 

[Rick]

My experience with the hood liner:

My '93 XL didn't come with one from the factory. The paint on my hood is now cracked with very fine lines. The lines look as though someone took a razor blade and made thousands of 1/4" - 1/2" long lines. They are hard to see until you get close to the truck. Since this is the only spot on the truck with this problem, I attribute it to the lack of a hood liner.

 

[mike91]

I have the same spots as Rick, but I have a hoodliner still on my truck. I think its attributed to a ****ty paint job. The "nicks" have been there since I picked the truck up around 3 years ago.

 

[sagaynor]

Regarding the hood liner

I just recently learned some interesting information about hood liners. It turns out that the material that the hood liner is made out of is fire proof. The liner is held in with plastic plugs that aren't fire proof. So, if there is a fire in the engine, the heat melts the plastic plugs so the fire proof material falls on the engine and smothers the flames. I don't think it does anything to keep the heat from the top side of the hood. Shouldn't really have worries about the paint. Hope this helps...
Steve