First time purchasing K&N filter. So here are some questions.

For our 2006 RL model, is the K&N filter about half (smaller) than the width (thickness) of our OEM Honda engine filter?? Its part number is 33-2299.

Also, when purchased, there was some red liquid/oil around the gaskets, is this normal?

Last question is, the K&N filter does not indicate which direction is UP, so is the thicker portion suppose to be facing down? Thanks

 

K&N filters dont really filter as well as stock filters.
will not gain performance either.

 

a little oil off the filter and into the Mass Air Flow sensor will ruin your day...

 

I'd honestly return it.

 

Thinner. Yes.
Liquid. No.
Thick side. Up.

 

I just called k&n. They said they pre-oil all of their filters. Plus thicker side faces down.

 

I haven't had any issues with K&N in my experiences.

The first time was in a 2001 Acura TL. I first installed a K&N drop-in filter when the car had less that 5,000 miles on her. I traded it in with 90K miles and never had an issue with the MAF. I even washed the filter and re-oiled it. The key there is to go sparingly when re-oiling. I will say that there weren't any real noticeable benefits of the filter aside from not having to buy a new air filter every 30K miles.

The second application was in our 2006 Mustang. In this case I removed the stock airbox and installed a K&N Cold Air Intake. The car is still under an extended warranty so I wanted a CAI that didn't require a tune, otherwise when I took it in for service and reverted the tune back to OEM, I would have had to swap back the stock airbox to prevent the CEL from going on. Since the K&N doesn't require a tune, i just reload the OEM tune before going in for service, and then load the performance tune after the service. With respect to MAF issues, none here either but to be honest, I've only put about 7,000 miles on the car since I installed the CAI. It only had 26K miles when I purchased the car and later put on the CAI. It's a convertible that only gets driven about 3,500 miles a year and is stored during the winter. No problems so far though and on the Mustang forums replacing the the stock airbox with a CAI is a pretty common mod and I haven't read of any widespread issues.