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Why the hostility? You can spend your money however you want to. I had a warm air intake like yours with a cone K&N on my crawler for a while and it would get clogged within one day, maybe 60 miles of dirt roads. I was cleaning it out at camp every night. I replaced it with a factory filter and air box, now I just blow out the paper filter a couple times a year.Never had those problems with mine. I've never cleaned the MAF on my Ranger, and that intake has been on it since 2002. I clean and re-oil the filters yearly. The Lightning has had that intake since I bought it in 2009. So stop spreading false facts. I use Simple Green to clean the filters and good old K & N oil to oil them. Just don't over oil them. That's the reason that MAFs get oily. Most people have a tendency to think "More is better." It's not in this case. One pass, very lightly applied, good to go.
Correct me if I'm wrong, But in theory you would be able to tell if it flows better by looking at the fuel trim numbers. If the new intake actually flowed better then the engine would lean out and you'd see the fuel trim numbers raise ever so slightly to compensate.I do believe the factory intake in a 3.0 is restrictive. I replaced mine with smooth tubing and used a later model OEM Ford filter box from a 4.0 and enlarged the opening between that and the hole in the radiator support.
I don’t have any way to measure any difference over the stock intake. So no wild claims here. It just makes sense that it should have improved something. I am happy with what I did.
I do not own a lightning