Here's another question for the club members here. i was wondering if anyone here is using the RAM FX air filters? they are suppose to be supior then the stock filters if a few ways. one they are made of foam and they can be washed and then treated with a treatment that will then trap the dirt and fine micro particals. the one thing i like is they can be used over and over again. they say they are even better then the K&N filter which is a really good filter. the main thing i notice they claim is that they don't restrict air flow with a lot of miles on them. which in turn would give you better gas milage. they are made for the off road and racing circut but i see more and more people are getting them for their performance cars. can anybody shed more light on this if they are using these filters? thanks NEO GEO

 

The price was reasonable, so I bought one, but I have yet to try it. The filter looks great, with lots of layers of foam, but I am concerned about all the oil I see on it. If you press the plastic bag that it came in against the foam, quite a bit of oil oozes onto the bag.

I wrote to them, saying it's very generous of them to provide so much oil, but maybe it is too much. If you have too much oil you risk some of it coming off the filter and getting into the intake and fouling the throttle sensors.

So I asked them how can I tell if this is a safe level of oil? And if it is too much (which is what I believe until they prove it otherwise), how do I reduce the oil on the filter to a safe amount? They responded as follows:

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"First what you see in the bag is not oil, but Dirt Retention Polymer. There is a natural equilibrium of DRP in the filter, so any extra DRP that is impregnated into the filter during manufacture will migrate to the exterior and collect on the inside of the bag.

After taking the filter out, just lightly clean off any excess you find with a cloth or paper towel. It will then be ready to be installed in your car's airbox where it will provide you 10's of 1000's of miles of protection for your car's engine.

The extra DRP is one of the side-effects of the viscosity of the polymer which we exploit to make our filters the best in the world. After a dirt particle is captured by the DRP that coats the air passages running through the Aerofoam, it absorbs the polymer and then itself becomes a capturing agent. This transformation from captured to capturing is one of the main reasons that our filters offer superior filtering performance to competitive products.

And this viscosity is also one of the properties that insures that the correct amount of DRP is on the filter, instead of too much. There is a natural equilibrium of DRP in the filter, with any excess migrating to the exterior. Therefore, there is no loss in filtration performance of your filter, even with the amount that you may soak up prior to installation."
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I'm still not sure some of the "DRP" won't fly off the filter once installed, so I'm gonna wait till I can blow off the excess DRP with an air hose (or something similar) before testing it.

Even though it does have a very "free-flow" look, be advised most SC owners have found the stock filter superior to the K&N, even though you'd think the less-restrictive airflow of the K&N would be an advantage. You can read more about that on the SC forum.

 

Thanks PERRY for the update on this, i'm still debating whether to get one or not. i just received a e-mail from a person that (has one) said the same thing. The excessive poylymer will run out onto the floor. he said i will have to put something on the floor to catch the excess. but other then that you could wash it as many times as you like. this person has a SC and he said the way and the location was designed is really the problem. but he still likes it. if this filter filters like it says it does well it should be great. and the way i'm driving my LS-400 which is only seasonal like from april to october that's like 7 months on the road and put away for the winter months there should be no problem. I also noticed that a few BMW and other foreign owners are using this filter too, i checked this by looking for who won the filters on e-bay. i you decide to use yours let us know how you like it. NEO GEO

 

just wanted to update my post and let you know that i just installed my new FX air filter and it is a real nice product. installed it in minutes and fits like a glove. i'm sure this filter will do a great job on my LS-400 and will save alot of cabbage in the end. NEO GEO