Just curious about this. Have asked before with no reply. I get the normal few drops of oil on the air filter media from the breather vents. Will those pleats with oil on them still flow air or not? Or is it the same as those pleats being stopped up?

 

common sense tells me the oil saturated portion of the AF will prohibit air flow...with their design history and understanding of this I'm sure they take this into account and design the total AC to allow enough air to the TB to operate effectively...and oil ends up on the bottom of the AF much more so than the forward facing or top portion where the air is force fed in and swirls around the AC cover into the TB...bottom line (imo) is if it's not getting enough air one would notice a change in running condition/behavior...we've used about every type of Harley AC they make over many bikes and years and every one of them is stained from oil on the bottom and never noticed a change in how they ran..I'm OCD on AF maintenance though from my years of racing mx and cleaned our filters constantly, so never let ours get too filthy before swapping in a spare fresh clean one as PM instead of waiting to notice the change in running

 

I know its a different filter and special oil but I've just finished oiling the heavy breather filter on my FXSB so I'm gonna guess you're OK.

 

No they will not flow air if they are completely soaked and saturated. Air will take the path of least resistance.

 

 

From my experience with cars and reusable oiled air filters. Typically a freshly cleaned and oiled filter will cause a loss in performance, we actually did a test at the track to verify and saw 2 tenths loss on the 1320 after using a freshly cleaned and lightly oiled filter. And an intentionally over oiled filter lost 3-4 tenths...(That's almost a half second ) After about a week of driving after the cleaning the performance returned. Needless to say, I always cleaned and oiled my filter a week before track day.

The trick is NOT to attempt to return the filter to the same color it was when new. You just want to clean it good flowing water from the inside out and use a toothbrush if needed to lightly scrub. Rinse the cleaner from the filter real good and let the filter dry completely before reapplying the filter oil. And again, you just need a little bit... it will soak and fill in the areas you don't hit completely...

 

Does not affect it a bit. The air will flow right around it as it bounces it's way thru the medium. In fact, it will filter better.
Honda OEM car air filters come damp with oil to filter better.

Pull the filter housing and with a light, look in the throttle body at the butterfly opening. It's pretty small and now look at all that filter medium. The only time it can affect it is it gets so stopped up, it can no longer flow to fill a cylinder as atmospheric enters to fill the vacuum created by the piston going down.

 

Couple of times, I over-oiled a K&N filter. Bike would barely run. Took the filter off, cleaned it again, oiled it again (more lightly) and problem solved. So, yes, I think you CAN over-oil these filters to the extent the bike will not run well.