Talk me out of it!

[asilverblazer]

3 hours ago, Chuck FB said:

 

I wouldn't want to be the one towing the utility trailer with a half ton, not if its the weight of the trailer AND 10000 lb of steel being packed on it or worse yet if its an enclosed trailer pushing the wind and loaded up like that. I've pulled ball hitch open deck 20 foot utility trailer with very little load on it, or a light load in I think its a 20 or 22 foot enclosed and that's fine with a half ton as long as its got a brake controller and the brakes work on the trailer. I will never wrap my head around a half ton being able to safely handle a 13000 lb trailer even if the manufacture claims it can at speed on a road. 

My point was pulling a heavy load in of itself isn't nearly as difficult as a large enclosed or travel trailer. 

 

Most I've had on a half ton was 8.5k on the axles of a 27' travel trailer, 4k on the truck rear axle, 3.5k on the front axle, GCW was 16k, it was 500 overweight on the rear axle, a smidge over GVWR, 1k over GCWR. Curb weight of the truck unhooked was a little under 7k, right at 1k of available rear axle capacity. Weight distribution, sway control and trailer brakes it was manageable, but listening to the motor turn over 3k rpms all the time got tiresome.

 

At that time, the highest rated half ton GM had a GVWR of 17.7k with a maximum trailer weight of 12k.

 

 

[Chuck FB]

16 minutes ago, asilverblazer said:

My point was pulling a heavy load in of itself isn't nearly as difficult as a large enclosed or travel trailer. 

 

Most I've had on a half ton was 8.5k on the axles of a 27' travel trailer, 4k on the truck rear axle, 3.5k on the front axle, GCW was 16k, it was 500 overweight on the rear axle, a smidge over GVWR, 1k over GCWR. Curb weight of the truck unhooked was a little under 7k, right at 1k of available rear axle capacity. Weight distribution, sway control and trailer brakes it was manageable, but listening to the motor turn over 3k rpms all the time got tiresome.

 

At that time, the highest rated half ton GM had a GVWR of 17.7k with a maximum trailer weight of 12k.

 

 

 

I see now what you were driving at, wind resistance + weight = uh well, not a great experience in a variety of ways. 

 

I've only moved an enclosed trailer with a couple of sleds in it around the farm yard so far with my gas 1 ton so that was not much of a test although I realized from that, that the mirrors sure could stand to extend further than they do. Others on here have talked about pulling a certain amount of weight fifth wheel wise with the gas 6.6 although I don't know if rpms experienced were mentioned but it only stands to reason that it will have to rev some to produce the power to fight that wind resistance and weight, certainly balls out going up any amount of an incline similar to the half ton gas trucks I would suspect. That is the beauty of the diesel pickups, having that torque down low where it chugs along nicely without struggling and always shifting down at the slightest excuse and having to rev to the moon. In saying that, going back in time to the earlier diesel pickups of the duramax era, their max trailer weight from what I recall was not much different from a new half ton with the max tow package which is surprising indeed. 

[Chuck FB]

39 minutes ago, Jettech1 said:

Chuck I run the S&B cold air intake and was expecting some visual dirtiness to the sensor.  Nothing, looked brand new.  But I did spray it down of which I said earlier did make a tiny difference in mpg.  How I don't know.  Perhaps there was a bit of microbial build up... I really don't know.  If I took a picture of it and posted here, it would look brand new!  The MAP sensor as well.  What I need to do is take off the intake tube going to my throttle body and see what's going on there.  Everything else is clean as a whistle so I'm kind of expecting it to look new as well.  I honestly did expect some kind of build up in the intake tube and on the sensors due to my filter being an oil coated filter...ZERO!  Even running my fingers in the intake tube.  ZERO of anything.  At the end of the day I'm impressed with the S&B intake.  After 40k plus miles, it's still keeping everything nice and clean on the inside and I have to admit sounds pretty darn good too.  It should at least do that for the money they get for them.

 

Now I can certainly see your thought process behind checking out the intake and the sensors due to the cold air intake filter type. I ran a K&N for years on an older gas pickup and to this day I can't claim it was or was not at fault for what happened to the engine as there were various other factors that most likely were the real culprit but I've heard enough talk from actual filter experts that the oiled gauze principle typically doesn't have the same absolute micron filtering ability. I serviced the filter a few times and that is where I can sure see the filters performance having different outcomes depending on how its serviced. That is where I can see things going array however I never did have any noted dirt stuck to the inside of the filter housing as it entered the TBI but I did have a thin film of oil and that would be on me due to being very leery about under oiling the filter as those filters totally depend on that oil to filter as otherwise its not much better than cheese cloth filtering the air. Mind you a stock air filter isn't much good either if some servicing twit installs a filter wrong by not getting it properly seated in, or strips half the filter housing screw holes or forgets to put a filter in it all together or was messing upstream and never did up the intake clamps ..  

 

Not sure if it was a video I saw some time ago of South Main Auto that possibly it was a MAF sensor that was pulled to inspect and it had a little fluff ball on it such as from a dandelion or something and how that would have gotten there would be most likely when the filter was pulled out and dirt and fluff fell off the filter into the housing, then not cleaned out and bobs your uncle, larger pieces of material that has a risk of clogging up the sensors is sitting in the intake and I can sure see that happening at a quicky lube place where everything is done in five seconds and little care is taken.  

 

So I am curious if you have had to service yours yet, I had to as I live on a gravel road and there is always some dirt in the air due to what gets dragged onto our highways and agriculture activity. Great that you never found any oil film as that as its been said will affect the sensors so they say. My truck has no intake sound cool factor though, I will admit that LOL.   

[Jettech1]

On 2/19/2026 at 6:45 PM, Chuck FB said:

So I am curious if you have had to service yours yet, I had to as I live on a gravel road and there is always some dirt in the air due to what gets dragged onto our highways and agriculture activity. Great that you never found any oil film as that as its been said will affect the sensors so they say. My truck has no intake sound cool factor though, I will admit that LOL.   

I serviced it once last fall, my truck had about 38k miles on it and I installed it shortly after I bought my truck, so we will say it had about 36k miles on the filter.  I used K&N filter cleaner on it.  Ran a hose inside of it to wash out the bugs and other debris from the external folded pleats, let it sit in the sun to dry out, then oiled it with K&N filter oil.  I let it sit overnight to help drain off any excess, wiped down the rubber attachment section and put it back on.  It's a giant filter as compared to a flat panel K&N filter that replaces the stock one.  I've used those before and never had a problem with them either.  I think they are a great alternative to spending almost 400 bucks like I did for the whole CAI setup.  But than again the CAI filter I have is huge!!  LOL...and I like a little intake growl, sounds pretty cool to me...

[Chuck FB]

11 minutes ago, Jettech1 said:

I serviced it once last fall, my truck had about 38k miles on it and I installed it shortly after I bought my truck, so we will say it had about 36k miles on the filter.  I used K&N filter cleaner on it.  Ran a hose inside of it to wash out the bugs and other debris from the external folded pleats, let it sit in the sun to dry out, then oiled it with K&N filter oil.  I let it sit overnight to help drain off any excess, wiped down the rubber attachment section and put it back on.  It's a giant filter as compared to a flat panel K&N filter that replaces the stock one.  I've used those before and never had a problem with them either.  I think they are a great alternative to spending almost 400 bucks like I did for the whole CAI setup.  But than again the CAI filter I have is huge!!  LOL...and I like a little intake growl, sounds pretty cool to me...

 

Interesting, perhaps its the size of the filter that is helping reduce the pull effect to draw in the oil and also that you left it sit after oiling to allow some product to drain off the excess. I am not sure how long I waited after I oiled it to install it, I am sure I waited some but perhaps not long enough. I used low pressure water on the inside surface as it fell out of a tap in a large utility double sink and had soaked it prior with the cleaner, then let it air dry for 24 hours. With the style of filter I was using it was simple to swap in a normal air filter if I so desired if I needed the vehicle right away but I tried to do it when I knew I probably had the time. 

 

Years ago we had a 1969 GMC 3/4 ton with the 396 four barrel and those were the days when things were simple and they had relatively high compression and not messed up the engines as they did into the 1970's smog era. When it was in tune ( points ignition and crappy quality spark plug wires were a theme back then ! ) and if one did flip the air cleaner lid and even if one didn't, oh the sound that truck made in the cab was pure music when the four barrels were opened up ! 

[asilverblazer]

It's probably been close to 20 years ago but I recall a study comparing air filters that included numerous types/brands of air filters, notably an AC/Delco and a reusable filter could have been a K&N but can't swear to it.

 

Long story short, the AC/Delco flowed as well as the re-usable and filtered WAY better. I've been using them ever since.

[Chuck FB]

1 hour ago, asilverblazer said:

It's probably been close to 20 years ago but I recall a study comparing air filters that included numerous types/brands of air filters, notably an AC/Delco and a reusable filter could have been a K&N but can't swear to it.

 

Long story short, the AC/Delco flowed as well as the re-usable and filtered WAY better. I've been using them ever since.

 

I had an engine failure which most likely was not the cause because of the K&N, but I had done some digging for information at the time and I decided just to go back to the regular dry filter on the brand new factory long block I had installed as I wasn't getting the idea the oiled filter could filter as fine. Also the engine had been using some oil and while nothing real bad, it did make me wonder if that had anything to play in that over the thousands of miles, if it ever so slowly increased the bore wear over what it would have otherwise had, had I kept using the stock filters. I was never gaining anything power wise by using the K&N with the way I drove it easy so I threw it in the garbage as I knew I would never use it again. 

 

Not that long ago Lake Speed had a conversation with one of the staff at Donaldson and they brought up the topic of the re usable filter and sure one could claim Donaldson may have a bias but the testing they had done did not give that principle of a filter system a thumbs up for typical use, even racing use was debatable depending on length of time and conditions. 

 

I'd just say buyer be aware and cautious, I've seen young guys around here lift their hood up on their diesel pickup and granted it was some well thrashed pickup before they ever bought it for a song but to see an open filter element sitting there not in a housing and the whole engine bay is a thick coating of dirt and the filter is just loaded up with dirt and the filter is soaking wet to boot, I hold my mouth shut LOL. 

[asilverblazer]

2 hours ago, Chuck FB said:

...but to see an open filter element sitting there not in a housing and the whole engine bay is a thick coating of dirt and the filter is just loaded up with dirt and the filter is soaking wet to boot, I hold my mouth shut LOL. 

Gale Banks has plenty of air filter thoughts too, regarding the "cold air intake" / filter on a stick things.

 

At least he shows data/testing for his stuff.