DG Rider
Member: Triple Clutch Club
Lifetime Member
So a few months back i did this review on elf foam filter oil: Multi - Review: Elf Moto air filter oil
Keep in mind while reading this: Mfg's are not in agreement as to how much "tacky" is useful or necessary for effective air filtration, though it would seem a tacky solution would be more useful in trapping dirt.
In that review, i summarized by saying that I thought this oil was good, but seemed to take a while for the solvent carrying agent to evaporate and leave behind residue as tacky as some other brands. My specific thinking was the Honda brand FFO, which i remembered as being very tacky.
A week or 2 ago, i ordered an extra filter to rotate. They come pre-oiled from Honda, but to my surprise, the oil on the filter was not plentiful, nor was it really any more tacky than the elf stuff. So now I'm wondering if age is getting to me, and the Honda stuff really wasn't that tacky...or if Honda changed formulas.
My intention was to order the Honda stuff to simply dump more on the new filter, as i need to change it soon. For whatever reason, its becoming hard to get it from amazon in less than 2 weeks. So instead, i chose some Maxima FFT brand, so while cleaning the new filter, i decided on a little experiment...and note that all bottles were shaken vigorously prior to pouring...
My old 700 air filter DOES NOT FIT a 500 as it 1st appeared, so its just been laying around all nice and clean for months. I also laid out some cardboard and poured a bit on it as well.
On the left and right are the oils, with their respective splotches circled, and a "pour" on the cardboard. Notice that my attempt to make a controlled pour didn't work very well, as both of these products are very thin from the bottle:
In fact, after pouring both, i started to suspect that these 2 different products came from the same source, though later that seems to have proven not to be true.
While watching all the excitement, i recalled that i have a tiny bit of UNI left from a few years ago (i did run UNI oil on the stock filter several times). So i added a wildcard...
You'll notice on the filter that the pour was much more controlled ( I also poured it on the cardboard, as you can see below the arrow), and thats because the UNI oil is MUCH thicker than the other two. Almost, if not more viscous, than gear oil.
I think there is a specific reason for this: If you hold a UNI foam and stock filter up to light, you'll immediately see that the UNI is more porous. That's one of the ways it flows more air...so it could be that thicker oil is necessary to stay on UNI filters, or to be an effective attractant to dust. As i said, i ran uni oil on my stock 700 filter several times (UNI is among the cheapest oils you can get). Nearly 9K miles and no oil usage tells me it works fine on non UNI filters, so...
The real experiment is what happens in the next 24 hrs. I've already checked back after maybe 2 hours, and here are the results:
On the cardboard:
The elf has literally saturated into the cardboard to the point where it's more like a stain, with not too much left at the surface. The UNI remains thick and tacky, but has stayed on the surface pretty well. The Maxima has also stayed on the surface, and further differentiates itself from the elf by being the MOST tacky, followed closely by the UNI, and the elf having mostly penetrated the cardboard, has no real tackiness to the touch.
I don't know if the penetration aspect of the elf (or the less penetration of the others) is a good or bad thing, but i can tell you right now that if i were to blow dust across this cardboard, the elf is going to come in last with the amount trapped. But...the filters aren't made of cardboard, are they?
On the foam filter:
Here's where it gets weird...
On the ACTUAL foam filter, all 3 of these seem neck in neck. All will leave "spiderwebs" of residue in the beam of my flashlight (after dark:30 by the time i checked, hence no pics) for several inches of pulling away after touching. Honestly, i can't say one seems better than the other, and i must note that the elf seems much better in that regard than it seemed when i 1st bought it. Maybe i'm just blind...or stupid? I should note that its much warmer today.
Tomorrow i will check at 24 hrs, take some pics, dump either the Maxima or elf on my new filter, and report back.
Keep in mind while reading this: Mfg's are not in agreement as to how much "tacky" is useful or necessary for effective air filtration, though it would seem a tacky solution would be more useful in trapping dirt.
In that review, i summarized by saying that I thought this oil was good, but seemed to take a while for the solvent carrying agent to evaporate and leave behind residue as tacky as some other brands. My specific thinking was the Honda brand FFO, which i remembered as being very tacky.
A week or 2 ago, i ordered an extra filter to rotate. They come pre-oiled from Honda, but to my surprise, the oil on the filter was not plentiful, nor was it really any more tacky than the elf stuff. So now I'm wondering if age is getting to me, and the Honda stuff really wasn't that tacky...or if Honda changed formulas.
My intention was to order the Honda stuff to simply dump more on the new filter, as i need to change it soon. For whatever reason, its becoming hard to get it from amazon in less than 2 weeks. So instead, i chose some Maxima FFT brand, so while cleaning the new filter, i decided on a little experiment...and note that all bottles were shaken vigorously prior to pouring...
My old 700 air filter DOES NOT FIT a 500 as it 1st appeared, so its just been laying around all nice and clean for months. I also laid out some cardboard and poured a bit on it as well.
On the left and right are the oils, with their respective splotches circled, and a "pour" on the cardboard. Notice that my attempt to make a controlled pour didn't work very well, as both of these products are very thin from the bottle:
In fact, after pouring both, i started to suspect that these 2 different products came from the same source, though later that seems to have proven not to be true.
While watching all the excitement, i recalled that i have a tiny bit of UNI left from a few years ago (i did run UNI oil on the stock filter several times). So i added a wildcard...
You'll notice on the filter that the pour was much more controlled ( I also poured it on the cardboard, as you can see below the arrow), and thats because the UNI oil is MUCH thicker than the other two. Almost, if not more viscous, than gear oil.
I think there is a specific reason for this: If you hold a UNI foam and stock filter up to light, you'll immediately see that the UNI is more porous. That's one of the ways it flows more air...so it could be that thicker oil is necessary to stay on UNI filters, or to be an effective attractant to dust. As i said, i ran uni oil on my stock 700 filter several times (UNI is among the cheapest oils you can get). Nearly 9K miles and no oil usage tells me it works fine on non UNI filters, so...
The real experiment is what happens in the next 24 hrs. I've already checked back after maybe 2 hours, and here are the results:
On the cardboard:
The elf has literally saturated into the cardboard to the point where it's more like a stain, with not too much left at the surface. The UNI remains thick and tacky, but has stayed on the surface pretty well. The Maxima has also stayed on the surface, and further differentiates itself from the elf by being the MOST tacky, followed closely by the UNI, and the elf having mostly penetrated the cardboard, has no real tackiness to the touch.
I don't know if the penetration aspect of the elf (or the less penetration of the others) is a good or bad thing, but i can tell you right now that if i were to blow dust across this cardboard, the elf is going to come in last with the amount trapped. But...the filters aren't made of cardboard, are they?
On the foam filter:
Here's where it gets weird...
On the ACTUAL foam filter, all 3 of these seem neck in neck. All will leave "spiderwebs" of residue in the beam of my flashlight (after dark:30 by the time i checked, hence no pics) for several inches of pulling away after touching. Honestly, i can't say one seems better than the other, and i must note that the elf seems much better in that regard than it seemed when i 1st bought it. Maybe i'm just blind...or stupid? I should note that its much warmer today.
Tomorrow i will check at 24 hrs, take some pics, dump either the Maxima or elf on my new filter, and report back.
