Hi Jsosinski,
Firstly apologies for the issues you seem to be having. I encourage you to reach out to my colleague Paul in the Boulder office, on email ps@ceramicspeed.com. He will be best placed to answer your tech questions regarding the chain. You should not be experiencing any form of slip or skipping with your UFO chain. My first thought was chain ring wear.
The KMC Chains are not directional. If it is so that your instruction manual indicated so, this is incorrect and needs to be changed. Please advise Paul of this in your communication. This is likely an error that has not been removed from our communication when offering Shimano chains.
In direct reference to our move to KMC chains. Our aim is always offering consistency in performance. SummitAK is on point with his conclusion regarding reduction in friction performance. KMC chains have proven to be the most stable chain when if comes to fastest performing over the longest period of time.
Ben