Let me start by saying, I obsess over maintenance. I've used K&N, Volant, AFE, [email protected] filters, and Donaldson Powercore, on various GM trucks, Mopar and Ford cars throughout the last 20 years. S&B Filters are pretty [censored] hard to beat with their 8 layered cotton gauze. AFE also makes quality stuff. K&N, is garbage, and everyone knows that. I was involved in the original air filter study back in 2003 from a GM Duramax Diesel forum. After that, many people in the power and performance community went back to stock.
Today, in my 40's, I'm more into filtration than flow and high quality stuff. I'm not opposed to spending more on a better product.
I picked up this 1995 Impala SS in August with 59k original miles from the original owner, who was a GM engineer, as a weekend toy to keep it close to stock and put a few miles on. It had a K&N system already on it and that was the first thing to go, when time allowed. I had to find a stock OEM airbox and fabricate some intake tubing to get rid of the resonators. When I pulled the intake apart, I looked inside and wasn't the least bit surprised at what I saw. Now, I have no idea how long the intake had been on the car, because it was actually very clean. I looked inside the tube and ran my finger along the plastic and that just confirmed what we've always known. K&N filters are really junk. I don't understand how anyone can still buy them, or why they haven't changed their design yet. Marketing hype I guess.
Anyways, here's some pics.
See below for a comparison on high quality paper filters.
My quest for a better air filter...
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I don't get this. I had a 2003 Dodge Dakota 3.9 with K&N drop-in air filter for 9yrs. I only cleaned it 1 time at 50K miles. Zero dust, spotless inside the factory air box, air tube, throttle body etc. I've seen a lot of pictures like this but only on the cone type air filters. Are the tube clamps maybe to blame here. Look at the air tube picture, there are no clean clamp marks.
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I don't get it either. Everything was tightly sealed.
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I spend way too much money on Rockauto. I've done lots and lots and lots of reading on air filters. My 392 Challenger runs a MAHLE air filter as OEM. MAHLE provides the OEM filter for the Hellcat, that can support over 700HP, so, surely the 500HP Scat Pack 392's could benefit from the same. Anyways, this MAHLE filter flows at between 1000 and 1400cfm, which is fantastic, considering the K&N, AFE oiled equivalents have published flow rates of ~740CFM. So, this OEM MAHLE filter DOUBLES the airflow of oiled filters, and actually FILTERS the air, which is the entire point.
So I got to looking into MAHLE. They seem to make high quality stuff, and is OEM equipment on Mercedes, Audi, BMW and Porsche it seems. They dominate the European market. Surely one of their oil and air filters can be good enough for my 24 year old GM small block Chevy. I got on Rockauto and picked up a couple MAHLE, HASTINGS, and PENTIUS air filters to compare side by side.
MAHLE - Yellow paper 93 pleats
HASTINGS - White paper 95 pleats
PENTIUS - Yellow-ish paper 77 pleats.
The only thing I don't like about the HASTINGS is the excessive amount of rubber on the back, cutting down on airflow. More pleats = more surface are = better flow and more are to actually filter. So in short, the more the pleats, the better the overall efficiency.
Thanks for the post and pics. What was the price difference between filters?
PENTIUS - Made in Korea
HASTINGS - Made in Morocco
MAHLE - Made in Mexico
I guess we can call these "paper" but in reality, they're nanofiber and look pretty awesome under a microscope.
Here's looking at the Florida sky through them.
PENTIUS on top
MAHLE in the middle
HASTINGS on the bottom
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So, you can clearly see more light through the PENTIUS filter and you can see the HASTINGS and MAHLE are simply loaded with way more pleats. They're all priced about the same on Rockauto.
HASTINGS $3.11
MAHLE - $4.26
PENTIUS - $3.05
I know some of the prices are cheaper because Rockauto gets you with shipping. Also, all 3 companies make oil filters and from what I'm reading, HASTINGS and MAHLE are top of the line in quality for oil filters. I personally don't care for Advance (CARQUEST), AutoZone or Napa stuff. Lots of that stuff is Chinese garbage. HASTINGS (CLARCOR) pretty much owns the market for air filters and they are the parent company of PUROLATOR, AIRGUARD, and ATI filters. They do specialize in the commercial industry with heavy equipment and over the road trucks.
I'm currently running MAHLE oil and air filters in my entire fleet.
I've also never had any issue with over oiling a K&N, AFE or Volant filter with MAF issues or anything else throughout the years.
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I like the Mahle stuff. Used one of their Oil filters on the Civic. I still have to cut it open and post it.
Price difference isn't that bad. Thanks for the additional pics.
[censored] you are a hairy beast...
LOL, I'm actually not. It's just my wrists, which is odd. I'll shave it next time!
I found a stock airbox for $40. I even drilled out a perfect secondary intake opening and sealed it off to the fenderwell. Home Depot rubber intake piping totaling
$20.
Good job on getting it back to stock and good pictures but I disagree with you on the "napa stuff".
Do you know what the efficiency is per ISO 5011 on any of these air filters???
Efficiency matters... And without any real information then it is just a wag.
By the way the NapaAiir filter made by Wix is 99.5% per ISO 5011... The highest listed efficiency number I can find...
Wix is 99.5% per ISO 5011.
Purolator is 99% per ISO 5011.
STP premium is 98%. .
Regular STP is a atrocious 90%.
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Originally Posted by bbhero
Wix is 99.5% per ISO 5011.
Purolator is 99% per ISO 5011.
STP premium is 98%.
Regular STP is a atrocious 90%.
Well the Fram Ultra air filter says it is 99% per ISO 5011.
Motorcraft is 98.5%.
Regular Fram doesn't say in their website. Older information said it was actually 99% has well. May well still be that good I'd bet..
Hastings.. I haven't found anything where they state their ISO code filtration numbers..
We tend to forget just how much volume of air goes through our motors every minute. Multiply that over hours and hours and hours and it extremely high. Even a 1% difference in air filters is kind of a big difference. That's why I'm candidly astounded that the STP is only 90%. That's a true "rock" catcher 
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There's nothing wrong with any of the brands you've compared so far. Don't sell Fram or NAPA/Wix short for air filtration, either. For those wanting numbers on Hastings (or Baldwin) filtration, the company has been forthcoming with their oil filters, and might be the same for their air filters. There have been reports at least in a couple threads here about some pretty high efficiency on air filters, but I certainly can't say if those are specific to some big diesel application or another.
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Originally Posted by Garak
There's nothing wrong with any of the brands you've compared so far. Don't sell Fram or NAPA/Wix short for air filtration, either. For those wanting numbers on Hastings (or Baldwin) filtration, the company has been forthcoming with their oil filters, and might be the same for their air filters. There have been reports at least in a couple threads here about some pretty high efficiency on air filters, but I certainly can't say if those are specific to some big diesel application or another.
Mahle claims 99.9% efficiency with the ability to filter particles as small as 3-5 microns, while allowing exceptional flow rates.
Hastings claims 98.7% per ISO 2015.
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