I have a '95 f-150, 5.8L. It's about time to get a new air filter for it. My question is what is good, bad, etc? Any suggestions for a new filter? I've heard that K&N's aren't always that great, and the Airhogs are similar to the K&N's. Any specific brands I should get? Or perhaps just go to Wally world and pick something up. Thanks.

 

You know we all hate Fram, right? My only comment is to ask you to please not purchase the Fram product. Inferior products demand a loss of sales - which will either further hurt thier bottom line as it continues, or the development of decent products to replace those that are not as good.

As long as you keep your paper stock replacement filters clean, you'll be ok. The K&N's don't give you any gain, really. Little to none, I should say. Plus they do not filter as well as you stock paper filter. Course you do save money with a K&N.

 

What it is you dont like about Fram filters? thats all Ive ever used & yet to have any problems with them. Oil or air. thats all they make is filters, seems like a product you could trust.

 

Poor anti-drainback valves in their oil filters is my top concern. Second is the presence of CARDBOARD in the filter. They claim it is for a better bond between the glue and the actual filter element. Sure, in an OIL-only environment the cardboard shouldn't be bugged. But water does get itself in the crankcase. Water + Cardboard = failed oil filter. They also have larger openings in the filter media which allows unfiltered oil to return, making up for thier increased pressure drop across the filter media itself.

The air filter's, I don't know how you can mess up an air filter. But I didn't think you could mess up an oil filter, either. I did notice more dust in my filter housing on top in my 300-6 that I (stupidly) changed to a Fram air filter (convenience, sorry). With my Motorcraft it seemed to seal better.

My main point is that if we don't show Fram that their product isn't worth buying as it is, they either have to change or keep the uninformed people buying their product with commercials which makes their products MORE expensive then a quality Motorcraft filter. Wix would be my second choise in filters, Wix/Napa Gold. Motorcraft and Purolator are my filters of choice. If Motorcraft is good enough for Ford from the factory, it's good enough for me. If I can get it in Motorcraft, I'm gonna get it.

 

I am curious as to where all these facts came from and who ran the test. If they are on a website please post a link. I would like to read this.



Thanks,
guzzler96

 

I've ran a variety of filters over the years. Had well over 300,000 hard miles on my father's 1972 F100 with standard steering and standard brakes as a farm truck with a 302, 3 speed column shift and only used fram filters.......If you want a dust environment....try grain farming, hay baling, and whatever else you can throw at it.....It never missed a beat, and getting closer to the 400,000 mile mark, it started to chug a lot of oil due to worn crank and cam bearings, as well as worn valve seals and guides. That truck earned it's time, and I repplaced the engine afterwards and had a few more year's use out of it until it was sold recently. I was planning on restoring it, but the parents sold the farm and could no longer store it for me, no place to store it myself as I live in an apartment, so off it went. Fram makes a fine product, I've heard good and bad, and as yet have to see a reason NOT to use them, based on personal experience. We used frams on everything we owned on the farm, and most if not all of our equipment lasted better than 10-15 years, as we were not rich, not could we afford top of the line rigs.....but we gave everything regular oil changes/maintenance, and never suffered a breakdown from a filter flaw, oil breakdown, etc.

Fram's motto....Pay me now, or pay me later. I won't say others are bad, but I've never had a problem with fram.

 

That's alot of my pickup gets put thru. In the summer it's on a farm alot of the time...hauling bales, flying down the field tailing a dusty combine, and everything else farm affiliated. Also theres lots of mud, snow, and dusty roads.

 

Heres a few....

http://minimopar.knizefamily.net/oilfilterstudy.html

http://www.ntpog.org/reviews/filters/filters.shtml

http://www.hybridhut.com/tech-oil_filter_review.htm

http://wetwesties1.tripod.com/oilfilterstudy/



I have personally been involved in a lengthy oil filter study (one of my previous career requirements) and fram scored the lowest of 20 filters tested. Baldwin (my personal choice and top scoring), Wix, and Fleetguard were tops in all test conducted.

To answer your question... Air Filters...

We also tested air filters and found that non-oiled paper elements do not fair as well as their washable, oiled conterparts. (K&N being one of these). Horsepower gains were almost none existent when switching between filters. Dirt particles were filtered better by the oiled filters over time however, a high quality paper element did perform well... The key here is service and quality.

I personally use K&N air filters and have used them for 30 years never once having a filter related failure on any car, truck or motocross, enduro bike I have used them on. I have abused them under some of the worst conditions possible and their service has reinforced my belief in the product offered. Granted, you have to service them and that is one aspect I like about a washable filter (Not just K&N). I feel that a higher quality product is produced if it must hold up for multiple years (or services) instead of being mass produced and tossed every few thousand miles.

IF I decided to use paper elements it would be Baldwin or Wix...

http://www.baldwinfilter.com/

http://www.fleetguard.com/fleet/en/i...?SMIDENTITY=NO

http://www.wixfilters.com/

 

Guzzler - Slide down to the Oil & Lubrication forum, all the information you could possibly want to know (or anybody!) is locked away deep in those wonderful archive's. The Fram issue has been hashed over many times.

Band, studies that I've seen showed the paper elements to filter better than a new, out of the box K&N. K&N also admits that paper elements have a better filtration until the K&N starts to become dirty, which the dirt actually helps to increase filtration potential/capacity. But at this point, the flow starts to go down. Interesting that this may potentially be reversed?

As for performance gains..I did have a K&N on my old car, and I believe it did have a little bit better TOP END pep. But I digress...

NOTE: For air filters, the stock F-150 intakes are NOT known for their sealing-capacity. My old truck was on a farm, so that may have potentially been part of the problem. I can't really see any filter performing better or worse...it REALLY is hard to mess up. If you're worried about a seal, just smear a bit of vaseline just around the edges of your bottom lip, and then replace. Or RTV...whatever you'd like. And as I note the poor sealing of the airbox, this is one reason that the K&N FIPK actually returns better results, it stops any leaks there may be, gives you a sealed intake.

 

Some Motorcraft parts are better than what you can pick up at the local parts store, but would you honestly spend 5 dollars more per vehicle to put in top of the line filters when you are in the business to make as much money as possible? I have always used FRAM because my dad has always used FRAM, and he used it because his dad always did. In that whole time there has never been a single failure or problem related to filters. My dad gets a minimum of 500,000 miles on every vehicle that he buys. He swears by FRAM and so do I.

 

Fram makes many types of filters, and that's all they make. My word of advice....change your oil and filter on time, change your air filter regularly(I like K&N air filters for everything, and clean mine every 50,000 miles as recommended, or once a year, whichever comes first) and you won;t have to many problems. Use a good quality oil, and change it eery 5000 k or 2500 miles and you should be fine. If you do a lot of city driving, and very little or no highway driving, change it a bit earlier, say 2000 miles or 4300k(roughly)

The reason I'm not a huge fan of Wix filters is the fact I had one burst on me once, and it damned near cost me an engine.

When I converted to power steering on the 69, I had to switch to a shorter filter, and fram was the only one to offer one with the same gasket, but shorter body length. In better than 60,000 miles, regular oil changes, the truck ran like a top, compression down by 2 lbs in the lowest cylinder, and no smoke, or major oil consumption in an FE block 390 punched out .060 over, prior to my selling it. I miss that truck btw...and am looking for another like her.....