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Maintenance

Spin-On Oil Filters: Champion or Tempest?

While there are currently two choices of readily available, spin-on aircraft oil filters­—Champion Aerospace and the Tempest Original, made by Aero Accessories, what goes on your engine during an oil change will likely depend on what your maintenance shop has on its parts shelf. It may also depend on which brand of filter is currently on the engine. For this article, we put the two filters head to head. We bought one each Champion and Tempest 48108-series filter—which fit Continental engines—and sifted through their technical specs. Thanks to some help from the Total Aircraft Maintenance shop in Hartford, Conn., we cut each filter open and scrutinized their design. Here’s what we found.

Larry Anglisano
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While there are currently two choices of readily available, spin-on aircraft oil filters­—Champion Aerospace and the Tempest Original, made by Aero Accessories, what goes on your engine during an oil change will likely depend on what your maintenance shop has on its parts shelf. It may also depend on which brand of filter is currently on the engine.

For this article, we put the two filters head to head. We bought one each Champion and Tempest 48108-series filter—which fit Continental engines—and sifted through their technical specs. Thanks to some help from the Total Aircraft Maintenance shop in Hartford, Conn., we cut each filter open and scrutinized their design. Here’s what we found.

Larry Anglisano

Editor in Chief Larry Anglisano has been a staple at Aviation Consumer since 1995. An active land, sea and glider pilot, Larry has over 30 years’ experience as an avionics repairman and flight test pilot. He’s the editorial director overseeing sister publications Aviation Safety magazine, IFR magazine and is a regular contributor to KITPLANES magazine with his Avionics Bootcamp column.