On Friday the UPS man brought my new Nicktane CAT filter kit to the door. When I took a good look at the kit, I was very impressed. Nick is obviously a guy who appreciates quality and when he puts together a kit such as this, he cuts no corners. The heavy steel mounting bracket is a work of art. It incorporates an integrated filter shield that will protect the thin walled filter can should a chunk of road debris have your filter in it's sights. The bracket is a beautifully designed, rugged mount that fits so well, it looks like it was OEM. The next surprise was that all of the mounting hardware that Nick includes is Stainless Steel!:cool2: Stainless Steel hardware is the best and it ain't cheap. I think these are the only stainless nuts and bolts in my truck. The installation went fairly smoothly. It helps to have long dexterous fingers to reach far into the bed rail to get the washer and lock nut onto the inner mounting bolts. Also, I found that a small mirror and flashlight helped tremendously. There isn't the room to get your head up to where you can see the top of the fuel tank or the quick connect in the fuel line behind the fuel cooler, but if you hold a mirror up and shine a flashlight into it, you can see the top of these areas fairly well. It really helps to see what you are feeling bumbling around feeling for. It also revealed to me that there were a couple of fuel line mounting clips I had to work the OEM fuel line out of before I could remove it. I should probably say at this point that my truck is an 05 LLY Silverado. When undoing the OEM fuel line I was a little unsure of how the whole quick disconnect thing worked so I got one of the new quick disconnects that came with the kit and played around with it and the quick disconnect tool. This made the functionality of these thing obvious and I knew what I had to do to disconnect both ends of the OEM line. A couple of notes on the quick disconnect tool: You will be using the 1/2" tool. And get the Lisle kit that Nick recommends. I bought what I thought was a similar kit from my local NAPA store. I was able to get the OEM fuel line disconnected from the tank with it but I wasn't able to disconnect the other end of the OEM line from the hard line with it. The collar that inserts and unlocks the connection wasn't long enough on the NAPA kit. I ended up having to drive to Sears in middle of the job to pick up the particular kit Nick recommends. When I had the installation complete, I filled up the CAT filter with diesel, screwed it on and fired the truck up. I let it idle expecting it to die out after a while but it never did. It didn't even hiccup. I hopped in and drove 10 miles an still not a hiccup. I didn't have to bleed a thing.

This 2 micron filter was the highest priority upgrade for me. I am really happy I went with the Nicktane. I highly recommend them. Oh and when I called Nick for some clarifications on the installation, he was very helpful! Nick is a great guy to do business with. The next project is the Mag Hytec diff cover and transmission pan. I for the most part am OEM man. I tend to stay far away from aftermarket items. These three things though, I believe are important enough and they are well enough made to make me break with my OEM only rule. Thanks Nick and I hope these tips help someone else. Best -rod