What are the thoughts on the delco filters?
When I bought the car it came with 52 delco filters... I own 3 vehicles and all of the are ecotecs. So they will come in handy.
From what I've seen of independent testing, the OE AC Delco filters on a whole are pretty good. In fact, the OE filters are typically the best quality filters until you get into the fancy synthetic filter mediums. The biggest difference ends up being that the synthetic ones will trap more particulate matter with less restriction to flow later into the service interval. I would have no problems trusting any stock OE filter for the recommended usage/interval. And if you're going to use a better oil than was recommended (AMSOIL over Mobil 1), and you're only using up ~42.5% of the recommended interval according to the DIC for the filter, I think that more than makes up for the tune, and "aggressive" driving.
I basically swap the oil filter when the oil filter indicator hits about ~55%, and then again at ~15%, and the oil once, when it hits the 15%, and then reset. Having the top mount oil filter is ideal for this filter swap without changing the oil compared to a bottom mount filter. I have also installed a Fumoto oil drain plug. It's my first personal car I've put a Fumoto onto and now my oil change is truly dripless, and loads less clean up without having the use a drain pan. It goes straight from valve to a tube into a jug. And makes it very easy to take a sample for oil analysis.
I purchased 12 filters a few years ago, and it ended up costing me about half the price of buying one at a time from the dealer. I picked up my car with about 28km on it (so almost nothing), changed it right away, then at 1K km, then 2K km later, and then 5K km since then. Because I had to buy one filter right away and that wasn't included in the original 12, I now on my 10th filter the car has ever seen, about to hit 40K km, when I will put on the 11th filter. The 13th and final filter I have will go on at 50K later this year.
