T AM

iTrader: (5)

I've always ran a K&N. I hand tighten every time but that nut on the bottom makes it much easier to remove.

PhoneniX

I got a k&n with my last oil change before winter storage. Advance always had a oil and filter deal and its especially worth it with synthetic ($14filter & $25 oil for $33). Anyway I am not going to recommend the K&N again, mine came with the castrol deal. Needless to say i can easily see this sheet-metal "nut" that is welded on letting a socket slip on a over-tightened install (which would be easy to do using a 1/2 ratchet and 1" socket.)

If I were buying a filter alone I'd go with their purolator gold, the filter element is just as effective as mobil1 yet it is half the cost (and it had that fram like grit for hand tightening). Then only advantage the mobil1 has is more capacity i.e. more internal folds for those who choose to trust the 15,000mi claim. No thanks I'll stick to tried and true 3k oil changes

Kurt D

iTrader: (2)

It's not about filtering its about flow and construction. If I remember correctly from the oil threads on here from a while ago, K&N offered some of the best oil flow while filtering good enough. Fram was the worst flowing and had the weakest construction (filter core collapse). Basically from the oil analysis threads, once filtration got down to smaller than the bearing clearances there was little difference in wear. High flowing filters did a better job of keeping oil where is was needed and preventing starvation. Better constructed filters' cores didn't collapse so they maintained filtration and flow.

01 ss vert

iTrader: (1)

Anytime you have a filter, you have a pressure drop across it - that's plain physics.

The amount of this pressure drop will affect flow, and of course pressure itself. Think about your air filter - if you filtered down to 1 micron, the flow through the filter would be horrible. It would be clean air, but starving the engine.

There is always a tradoff in the filtering world, and that trade off is filtering size to filtering effeciency to flow to pressure drop. Increasing the overall filter material suface size is about the only thing we can look at from a consumer standpoint.

Technically a 'dirty' filter will actually filter better (meaning letting through only smaller material that it once did), but at the cost of reduced flow and pressure.

I, for one, always have to question these 'high flow' filters - is that due to the tradeoff of filtering size and efficiency?

We, as perfomance fans, want both flow, lack of pressure drop, and efficiency.

LopeyZ

iTrader: (2)

I could be wrong but I always though K&N filters were Mobil 1 filters. I always use Wixt or AC Delco for piece of mind... I can't bring myself to use a Fram and never will. Once drove 5 miles to Autozone because the closest Walmart was out of AC filters... felt stupid for wasting the gas but I would have always worried about that Fram.

Fry_

I wouldn't use AC Delco filters any more, there quality dropped of quite a bit somewhere around 3 years ago. I was walking through the Wal-Mart automotive section and a friend of mine was working there, he showed me one of the old AC Delco filters from the back of the shelf, then a new one (yes same part #) fresh out of the box and they just weren't the same quality. If I had to buy a oil filter at Wal-Mart I'd probably just buy a Super Tech. They're made buy Champion Labs, the same company that makes, Mobil 1, K&N, Royal Purple, STP, TRD, Mopar, VW, Luber Finer, Champ, plus some that I've never heard of before, and I would expect they make other house brand filters also.