One is oil and the other is dryflow. But when I read about AEM, they made reference to K&N about their design. And then the "cleaner" for AEM is K&N brand. They made no effort to repackage or hide their relationship.

This makes me wonder, are the filters the same thing? Can we actually use K&N without oil? The filter for both is red in color. In other words, it's all marketing in making you think it's different. I can't match up the exact pics, but AEM and K&N looks exactly the same. Same shape, design, etc, etc. Are they related, or same? **This is not a question about the use of oil on K&N and MAF sensors, etc. I've been a long time user of K&N, so this is just a product or company question.

 

What's the best way to control your competition? Buy them. And that's what K&N did.

K&N uses a cotton gauze media sandwiched between metal screen. The oil is necessary for dirt to "stick" to as air passes through it. The cleaner is just a degreaser to strip the oil & dirt out of the cotton gauze.

Dry-Flow is a synthetic (plastic) media with lots of tiny pores to trap individual pieces of dirt. All you really need is soap & water to clean it. Dries quick, and doesn't have to be re-oiled.

Totallty different filter types (and personally, having owned both for many years, I prefer the Dry Flow).

K&N aquired AEM's filter business years ago. Old news in the industry.