Q&A from MaxFlow® Filters

Q. Why don't you pre-oil your filter elements.

A. The answer is pretty simple. After you install a MaxFlow® filter, within 30 tanks of fuel (less in extreme conditions) you are going to need to clean and re-oil the element.  Knowing this, we figure you might as well have the oil on hand and oil it yourself right from the beginning as the filters CANNOT be run without being oiled.

We looked into pre-oiling 25 years ago and found it wasn't cost effective for the customer and this still holds true today.  It costs more to provide a pre-oiled foam element than it costs for a quart of foam filter oil!  So our solution was to provide TWO filter elements with every kit. That way you always have a fresh one to install and we can keep the price of kits manageable.  All of our filter elements are custom made in house with no glued seams and specialized custom order foam.  We believe the best filter starts with the best element.

Everyone has a favorite oil, we don't want to stick (no pun intended) you with an oil you don't like.  We suggest Bel-Ray because we know it works, it is readily available and affordable. But others need solvent free cleaning, so No-Toil is a great choice.  PJ1 works fantastic, and UNI also has a very good foam filter oil.  Choose what works best for you.

Q. Why do I need to trim some of the shrouds?

A. MaxFlow® invented the foam filter system almost 40 years ago.  We were working in the woods and building filter kits before other filter sellers were even born.  We can prove this because we have the Patents on the concept as well as the products.  Every filter supplier that incorporates a foam filter element similar to ours walks in the footsteps that we pioneered. It is safe to say that we know more about filtering air into chainsaws that anyone in the world (except perhaps Stihl® themselves).  We continually test other filters and there is currently no chainsaw air filter that will outperform a MaxFlow filter. Period.

The first Maxflow® (Holeshot) Filter Systems were hand made and sold without covers.  A nut plate was used to secure it to the saw.  In time loggers began to rig up their own covers, usually a cut up bleach bottle end with a hole in it, to keep the rain off the element.  We decided to provide an alternative, and produced the original square 064 cover that we still sell today. This was before CNC machining and it didn't need to be pretty, it just needed to work and they do.

Our goal is to install the biggest filter that will fit on every saw, so that the interval between cutting is as long as possible.  Our upcoming MS400/362 and MS462 kits are an example of this, with up to a 10x filter cleaning interval over stock. The only limitation to size is to not interfere with the performance or sight lines of a saw.  Saws today are much more compact, the shrouds are very tightly engineered to the saw body.  The filter elements fit inside these covers and accordingly are also smaller.  To allow a larger capacity filter, all of our kits come with custom covers that are engineered for maximum airflow and utility.  They are CNC engineered to fit well and look good. On the MS500i a small trim is necessary for anti-vibe clearance and on the MS400/362, a significant shroud mod is necessary to allow for the rear mount cover.

Stihl makes a very good filter element for the 90% of users that buy their saw.  If you are a professional who has found that tapping out the stock filter every couple of tanks is hurting your bottom line, than a modification to the shroud and installation of a oiled MaxFlow is a viable solution.  However, if you are someone that want to keep your saw 100% stock or "pretty", then it is likely that the factory filter, cleaned regularly, is a better solution.

Q. Do you recommend loud exhausts with MaxFlow filter kits?

A. In a word, No. MaxFlow® filter kits provide 100% of the airflow necessary for Stihl chainsaws to produce maximum power.  We have not found that a loud exhaust has any measurable power increase that is worth the long term hearing damage that modified exhausts produce. Maximum intake airflow is power, install your MaxFlow first and feel throttle response and torque like never before.  Chances are that if you then install a loud exhaust you won't notice any appreciable change, in fact, in some cases power will drop.  On chainsaws, as with most 2 strokes, NOISE IS NOT POWER!

MaxFlow Filters works with the USFS to assure that our filter kits are legal to install, and are not aware of ANY loud exhaust that has USFS approval.

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