Which filter adapter is better. I have both in my possession. About to swap engines and curious which one you think is better and why.

IMH neither one is better than the other as far as performance....

BUT - Guessing from your name - if installing on a Skywagon.... I would use the Air Wolf simply because you can mount the filter on the firewall and thus making filter changes a lot easier and less messy.

My 2c and also several years working as an A&P IA, I like doing oil changes with the AW filters on the wagons over the F&M.

Brian

Thanks Brian. I have a 55 w dual exhaust so it makes it hard to put wolf in any better place to change than f&m. My buddy had an fm and always had trouble w oil leaks at the base. Then some people say the down side to the wolf is you have hoses..

Have fm filter adapters on o-300 and c85. C85 was good. easy to change oil and extra cooling. o-300 cont not so great. The helicoil where filter screwed in would not stay in the adapter. Never leaked, but a pain to push helicoil in each time. Liked the idea of an oil filter, so kept it on. Thankfully now someone else has to deal with it.
ML

I put the F&M adapter on my '59 Wagon. There's no denying that it is a pain in the butt to reach the filter, but it works well and I do like not having extra hoses in the oil system. If you have the room on your firewall for the remote system, you probably can't go wrong either way.

We where going to install the F&M in our 55 180. The STC calls for I think 3/8 clearence between the fire wall and filter. We only had 1/4 and my IA would not sign off. The gentalmen that sells them was very nice to deal with, and had me send it back to him no qestions. By the way what engine are you up grading to?
46tcrft

I'm putting in an R that I've had for a while. Only had 40hrs on it when I wrecked my other one. I have a mid time L on the one I got. It has the fm now and no clearance issues.. You can turn it to fit then tighten down. Only prob is sometimes it loosens and the base and leaks and is a pain to get tightened. That's my only concern.

It's not completely relevant, but I put the F&M on my O-300. The old kit instructions didn't give a torque value, and my mechanic says most people under torqued them and they leaked. The latest kit replaces one of the copper crush ring gaskets with a composite gasket, and also specifies a torque value of 65 ft. lbs. The few people I've talked to that complained about the F&M CO-300 adapter leaking said that they didn't torque it that figure.

The first problem was that the instructions said that if it was an old engine to run a tap into the hole where the screen came out before threading in the new adapter, otherwise the carbon in the threads would cause problems. We looked at each other, said "we got no tap", and scrubbed the threads in the hole with a little wire brush before threading in the adapter. It got about half way in, then seized up so tight we thought it would break trying to get it back out. Bought a tap (big bucks), threaded it in by hand, then threaded in the adapter with no problems whatsoever. If anyone wants to install the F&M CO-300 model, they're welcome to borrow my tap.

The next problem was trying to torque the adapter. It has a one inch square end on it, just like the plug that holds the screen. However, the torque wrench had a 1/2 in drive, and no sockets around that would fit the square adapter end. I ended up cutting a one inch square hole in a 3 inch circle of 1/4 inch plate steel, then welded that to an old bearing cup to make my own socket. I welded a 3/4 in. nut onto the back of the bearing cup, then put a 3/4 in. socket on the torque wrench, and that problem was solved. Socket is also available for borrowing.

It's been operating trouble free since that time.

Back in 2001, I put an El Reno (F&M) filter adapter on the C145 engine in my old C170 when I had it OH'd. El Reno loaned me a tap to clean up the threads. It always had a small leak at the base, in spite of cranking her down on the crush ring. Refit it many times, same deal. Finally talked to the manufacturer (F&M), they sold me a $10 gasket which (pretty much) fixed the problem.
I chose the F&M adapter over a remote filter because I wanted to avoid oil lines which always have the potential to break, leak, etc. If the adapter location on the engine was a problem, I'd go with the airwolf-- not that there seems to be much extra room in the firewall area of any C180's I've ever looked at.