April 11, 2013 11:33 AM PDT
Went to a K&N mostly to save on buying new filters and yeh don't think there was any power gain, tho didn't do the testing you did.
For what it is worth you can wash paper filters. - Been washing the filters in the mowers 2X/year for 30 years. - Don't really care about the mowers but my K-Mart mowers lasted about 20 years/each and have had no engine problems.