Hello, I just bought an 06 Mazda 3s five door 5 speed last week and am loving it. Has anyone here installed a K & N air filter on this car and if so, what are your results?

My last car was a 1996 Nissan Maxima SE 5 speed and the K & N made a HUGE difference on the top end, not so much from 0 to 60. I am missing the ability to floor it on the freeway and blast to 100mph in a heartbeat, but the 3s is so fun to drive that it more than makes up for the lack of high speed performance. Just wondering what I can expect from the K & N. Thanks.

 

one quick point - the reason the Maxima does that is because 5th gear is set up completely differently on the Maxima than on your Mazda. They basically sacrifice fuel economy for highway performance...a guy i work with has one and it drives him crazy that, at 60mph on the highway, he's pulling over 3,000 RPM on the tach.

that said, I just bought mine so I haven't put a K&N in yet, though I plan to. I don't understand how Mazda's service manual recommends 37,500 miles on the stock air filter, which appears to be a standard paper filter, going by Schedule 1 for USA driving in your owner's manual.

are they insane?