Air Filter Was Installed the Wrong Way

Just another simple question here ya'll. Couldn't find anything on the forums on this already but today I figured I'd shake out my air filter since I live in Nevada and overland a lot and the dust is thick and just did about 5,000 miles of driving and about 1000 of those were off-road on two tracks. Went to go pull the air filter and noticed it was orientated wierd. When putting it back I realized the 3 corners of the filter are round while the fourth is more squared off. The filter wasn't orientated correctly the first time so now I'm worried if it sealed completely. The top of the filter and box was clean along with I took the hose off and there was no dust in there (figured if it leaked the corrugated hose would catch dust). I'm just worried that if it didn't seal totally I may have just hurt my engine. Any advice?

 

Pull the intake and check your MAF. MAF cleaner is inexpensive and easily done. Beyond that I wouldn’t worry much.

 

Ok I'll pull the maf tonight when I change my oil. Idk if I'm gonna be able to pull the manifold tonight but I'll at least pull the maf. I hope it's ok

 

If the filter was not sealed you would definitely find fine dust upstream of the filter. If it is clean, no worries. It never hurts to clean the MAF, and takes 5 minutes. I've put extra sealing foam around my airbox because they are not the best when installed correctly. The compression from the wimpy springs is not much. At the very least I would coat the sealing surfaces with a tacky grease. I use Power Punch.

 

If it is running fine. I’d leave it well enough alone.
If you were going to have any issues, they would have likely shown up by now.
You can do what ever you like, I’ve created problems out of things that “didn’t need fixing”.
I guess......well........I’m just getting old? Lol

 

Hey, sometimes ya just gotta fix it till it breaks! lol