Triker56,
This statement was never more true than now.....your mileage may vary. Engine life based on ingested dust varies with how fast the required dust ounces is passed through. Granted, avoiding dusty roads or operation in the Southwestern US will forestall the destruction. But places you think are not so dusty actually have more than we think.
When K&N states they can do 96%-99% making their product appear to be all you need, remember this, the air cleaner any engine needs must be 99.9xx% not 99% efficient. Recall my earlier posting, any filter that would fall into the 99% category would be considered a failure. If you are curious as to whether nor not you are in a dusting mode now, go to this website:
Zenfolio | http://spiresart.zenfolio.com/ | Diesel Intake Dust Ingestion These are photos I have acquired in my former professional life. If you display any of this even though you do not have higher blow by or increased oil consumption, you are looking at destruction in process.
For those with paper element air cleaners, all new filter elements pass some dust when first new. Each time you change the air cleaner, use a damp cloth to wipe the dust trails from the clean air pipe as far in as you can reach. You do this so that the next time you change air filters, you are looking to see the extent of a dust trail. You do not want to see as much as shows in my photo website. A very light dust would be normal. Heavier coatings are telling you that the element or whole assembly is failing you.
Engine oil analysis on engines experiencing dusting will show elevated levels of iron, chromium plus silicon from the dust. One time oil samples are wasteful. You need to be sampling your oil at every change in order to build a trend line in order that you can see developing trends in iron, chromium, and silicon.
Here is a synopsis of Cummins oil analysis guidelines for Midrange (ISB, ISC, ISL) models:
These are the Maximum Allowable limits.
TBN, Total Base Number, 2.0
TAN, Total Acid Number, 4.5
Fuel Dilution, 5% max.
Iron (Fe), 75 PPM
Lead (Pb), 30 PPM
Copper (Cu), 20 PPM
Aluminum (Al), 15 PPM
Chromium (Cr), 15 PPM
Silicon (Si), 15 PPM
It should be noted that you should expect to see Cr numbers in the low single digits as more normal. If Cr jumps just 2 PPM it is very significant in that chromium being a very hard metal it is difficult to cause wear to it.
Knowing this, you can see that a single oil sample is not enough information to determine if you have a dusting/wear situation unless the sample comes back off the "chart" above.
Linear Mode
