Quality differences in champion e-cores?

[daemonite]

I was looking at the E-Cores at my local autozone. It seems the Valucraft ones are badly made, the pleats when looking through the hole are never straight or evenly spaced.

Which makes me think, did Champion just fold less media into bigger pleats?

Are there media capacity differences between AC Delco, STP, SuperTech, Valucraft, etc? Are they the same media? Does it matter between USA or Mexico made?

Which would be the best E-core? I'm guessing Delco?

 

[labman]

When I was lower on the learning curve, I found AC's of unknown origin had about half again as much media area as ST, STP, and other well liked filters here, Purolator and Hastings. Fram was a very poor last, having half that of ST with next lowest. Of course, I still have no good way of evaluating media quality.

Once again, ''made by'' does not mean ''the same as''.