What’s your truck inhaling? Best air filter shootout!

[gfitzge2]

Based on what?

I've got a '69 Camaro and a Model A Ford that has a '72 350 small block Chevy. The AC Delco filters that are sold at Walmart are Chinese knock off pieces of shit.... just saying.

I love that Camaro. ? When we were first married I had a 57 Chevy and wife had a 69 Camaro. Boy would I like to have them now.

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[gfitzge2]

Not trying to throw any shade here. I fully support proper maintenance of our vehicles. For me however I think that as long as you use a name brand air filter you will be just fine. I think conditions of use and change intervals is the key. After all, the owners manual recommends 30,000 miles. If your driving sand, gravel roads or other dirty dusty conditions 30 K is ridiculously long. For normal street driving in not to dusty areas it is probably fine. It certainly is a good idea to inspect it on a regular basis. Now days engines can last a couple of hundred thousand miles. I really have never heard any one say " my engine went bad because I didn't change my air filter often enough or I used a non OEM brand. "

Now changing oil and oil filters, that's a completely different can of worms. ?

 

[Frenchy]

Not trying to throw any shade here. I fully support proper maintenance of our vehicles. For me however I think that as long as you use a name brand air filter you will be just fine. I think conditions of use and change intervals is the key. After all, the owners manual recommends 30,000 miles. If your driving sand, gravel roads or other dirty dusty conditions 30 K is ridiculously long. For normal street driving in not to dusty areas it is probably fine. It certainly is a good idea to inspect it on a regular basis. Now days engines can last a couple of hundred thousand miles. I really have never heard any one say " my engine went bad because I didn't change my air filter often enough or I used a non OEM brand. "

Now changing oil and oil filters, that's a completely different can of worms. ?

The only time I have seen an engine go bad because of an air filter is because they were using me drop in K&N air filter and plenty of dirt and just got past it and wiped out a few cylinders. Other than that I have not seen a case with a paper filter. The worst I've seen is the air filter gatso plug that the engine was not able to run because it wasn't letting any air through!!

 

[geophb]

Best part about a paper filter is the 2 min swap n' toss.

 

[Richard Conley]

I will soon have the K/N as I have the Ford tune kit. I will add the Roush CAI at some point. I drive really low miles - less than 4K after 13 months. It is interesting that the claimed HP gains on the Roush vs Ford tune show the Roush w/their CAI at 47HP/65FP and Ford is 45/60....that would seem to mean the Roush CAI makes the difference. The thing is that the Roush for $925 MSRP gets you the tune and the CAI and the Ford for $825 MSRP gets you only the K/N. It was a no brainer for me since my points get me about $200 off the Ford. Not worried about the K/N or Roush filter letting too much crud in.

 

[quangdog]

Been looking for the correct Wix part number for the air filter. It looks like the Wix WA10909 is the correct fit, but it's out of stock everywhere (O'Reilly's, Rock Auto, etc). Does anyone know of anywhere that has the Wix filter in stock?

 

[Buffy Blue]

Been looking for the correct Wix part number for the air filter. It looks like the Wix WA10909 is the correct fit, but it's out of stock everywhere (O'Reilly's, Rock Auto, etc). Does anyone know of anywhere that has the Wix filter in stock?

I haven’t even attempted to search or confirm the WIX part # you’ve suggested...as I’ve stated before the post isn’t a recommendation on my part...it was to inform about the capabilities both negative and positive of said filters. Choose what you’d like...The vid was scientific enough for me to switch back to OEM this morning.

 

[quangdog]

I haven’t even attempted to search or confirm the WIX part # you’ve suggested...as I’ve stated before the post isn’t a recommendation on my part...it was to inform about the capabilities both negative and positive of said filters. Choose what you’d like...The vid was scientific enough for me to switch back to OEM this morning.

My takeaways from the video: Never install K&N, OEM is just fine, Wix filters a little better than OEM, but reduces air flow a bit more as well. I drive off road a fair bit, sometimes following other vehicles on really dusty roads/trails. As a result, I plan to replace my air filter every 5K miles when I do an oil change, not every 12K. I'd rather have the slightly better filtration performance from Wix, understanding that I may have slightly reduced airflow.

If I can't find the correct Wix filter, I'll go with OEM.

Thanks for pointing out this video - I've been a fan of Project Farm for a long time, but somehow hadn't seen this one yet.

 

[Frenchy]

My takeaways from the video: Never install K&N, OEM is just fine, Wix filters a little better than OEM, but reduces air flow a bit more as well. I drive off road a fair bit, sometimes following other vehicles on really dusty roads/trails. As a result, I plan to replace my air filter every 5K miles when I do an oil change, not every 12K. I'd rather have the slightly better filtration performance from Wix, understanding that I may have slightly reduced airflow.

If I can't find the correct Wix filter, I'll go with OEM.

Thanks for pointing out this video - I've been a fan of Project Farm for a long time, but somehow hadn't seen this one yet.

Replacing your engineer filter every 5000 miles has a bit excessive if you ask me. Do whatever you wish to do because it is your truck and we're not going to stop you if you want to go set server maintenance. Also just going to O'Reilly Auto Parts and looking at the price of a Wix and Motorcraft air filter for our trucks I would rather get the Motorcraft sensor $2 cheaper and it's still the factory part that you would get at the dealership. I myself changes out every 15000 miles and does just fine. I haven't had any dust get past the air filter and with how often I go Offroad I feel 15,000 is just right for these.

 

[Buffy Blue]

My takeaways from the video: Never install K&N, OEM is just fine, Wix filters a little better than OEM, but reduces air flow a bit more as well. I drive off road a fair bit, sometimes following other vehicles on really dusty roads/trails. As a result, I plan to replace my air filter every 5K miles when I do an oil change, not every 12K. I'd rather have the slightly better filtration performance from Wix, understanding that I may have slightly reduced airflow.

If I can't find the correct Wix filter, I'll go with OEM.

Thanks for pointing out this video - I've been a fan of Project Farm for a long time, but somehow hadn't seen this one yet.

The guy who hosts Project Farm must be an engineer or similar title...his scientific approach and unbiased analysis has kept me watching his vids...the spark plug shoot out was impressive as well.
Best regards.

 

[quangdog]

Replacing your engineer filter every 5000 miles has a bit excessive if you ask me.

For most Ranger owners I'd agree. This was me yesterday, and I do this sort of driving at least a few times per month. Note that I live in an area that experiences wildfires every summer, and sometimes the smoke in the air is so thick you can hardly see the sun at noon.

I don't mind spending a few extra bucks per oil change to also swap out the air filter, given how much dust I'll suck into that filter on drives like this. I plan to keep this truck for a very, very long time, and want to pamper the engine and drivetrain as much as possible. I may be overdoing it, but the peace of mind is worth it to me.

To each their own, of course.

 

[Rp930]

Based on what?

I've got a '69 Camaro and a Model A Ford that has a '72 350 small block Chevy. The AC Delco filters that are sold at Walmart are Chinese knock off pieces of shit.... just saying.

Might make a good run.

 

[slowmachine]

After watching this video, some people currently using the K&N drop-in filter may reconsider whether that is a good idea. K&N has an enormous marketing budget, and that has helped popularize their use in places where they provide no benefit, and are even detrimental to engine longevity.

However…

If you spend a bit of time in the Mojave and Sonora deserts of the Southwest USA and Mexico, you may become familiar with the conditions that make the K&N products not only advantageous, but, in remote locations, the difference between getting home or not. People die in this environment, so it can be very serious business.

The desert is filled with deposits of a mineral called Caliche. Some people pronounce this kah-lee-chee, others kah-leek (I’ve only heard this in Texas) and any other mishmash of syllables. Caliche makes extra-fine silt, which can quickly clog a paper filter to the point where an engine will not run at all. This is where the K&N becomes useful. I would never (OK, maybe in a life-or-death situation where destroying the engine was justified to survive) use a K&N filter without a pre-filter. These are typically made of soft foam, similar to those you would find in a whole-house central vacuum cleaner system. I have them in mine. Nothing large gets through them. When they are so clogged with silt that the engine is choking for air, you remove the foam filter, brush it off, and maybe even rinse it out, knock any loose dirt off of the K&N (maybe even clean the K&N with gasoline and re-oil) put it all back together, and continue on your way. In this scenario, and in off-road races like the Baja 500 and 1000 events, the K&N shines. The problem with the drop-in filters is that they are not designed to accommodate a pre-filter. Because of this, they are utterly worthless for street vehicles, and the video demonstrates why.

For you serious off-road guys, there are other ways to solve the problem. Donaldson and other companies make centrifugal separators that are usually mounted on the top of an intake stack (think steel snorkel) mostly for earth-moving equipment that operates in an extremely dusty environment. At the end of the day, you remove the centrifugal filter, rinse it out with water, and replace it on top of the intake stack. Then you remove the engine air filter from its housing, blow it out with compressed air (they are made to withstand this type of thing) and replace it in the filter housing. Lather, rinse, repeat. Not just for bulldozers, the Army and Marine Corps have been using them on HMMWVs for decades.

Last, and only included for historical perspective, is the absolute best (in my opinion) system of all, which is the oil-bath filter. If you’ve been under the hood of a car or truck made before about 1970, you may have seen a large filthy thing mounted on top of the carburetor, or a side-mounted canister with an intake duct to the carburetor. The filter media is horsehair (synthetic, in the modern era) confined within a perforated metal container, sitting atop a lake of motor oil. The horsehair is coated with motor oil, and dirt sticks to it like nothing you’ve ever seen. Engine vibration continually splashes oil onto the horsehair, and some of the dirty stuff flows down to the lake of oil at the bottom. Periodically, depending on how dirty the air is, you remove the entire gizmo from the vehicle, dump out oil/dirt sludge, rinse the entire thing with gasoline or kerosene as many times as is required to get it clean, add motor oil, and put it back on the car. Because this is the era of 1000 mile oil changes, you might use your drain oil in the air filter. Because this is also the era where we were completely ignorant of the environmental impact, you might also put your drain oil into a sprayer and apply it to your dirt driveway to keep the dust down. Oil filters were optional equipment. There were threaded plugs on the side of the block where you could attach the lines. I have been all over the desert with this exact setup, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that I have hundreds of thousands of miles under my belt doing it.

If you’ve ever stolen the toilet paper roll from the gas station to refill your Frantz filter, you know all of this stuff already. I love modern trucks, but they do lack something in the way of sustainability that these antiquated systems excelled at.

I’m off my soapbox now, please return to tailgate dampers and “overlanding”

 

[FordFreak]

Wildfire smoke and a few moths

 

[HenryMac]

Wildfire smoke and a few moths

I hear ya... the smoke is oppressive. And the moth's.. WTF? They're everywhere, right?

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