I have seen the damage caused by the junk fram filters 1st hand. I think the tough guard or whatever name they use now were the worst. My business was sued by a vehicle owner that supplied his own filter. Fram wouldn't take any of the blame for that one either even though they admitted the media was too restrictive. That was about 6 years ago and I have talked to several people since then that have had problems with fram oil filters. It seems like the majority of the problems were on a sbc application. John Force was endorsing the product at the time and some of the people that I talked to said if it was good enough for him it's good enough for me. That's about the only thing about force I don't like but I know celebs endorse products for the paycheck and we should keep that in mind.
Sorry you had to learn an expensive lesson but to me this is another good reason to spend the bucks and buy a good racing filter like a system 1. If you decide to go after fram I think I still have documentation about the garbage they produce that I can forward to you.