FILTERS-FILTERS-FILTERS

[dick elliott]

Go to http://minimopar.knizefamily.net/oilfilterstudy.html#champ for much filter info.

[Rex Schimmer]

I looked through the site on filters and after reading thru it I come to the same conclusion that I have always had about automotive filters, they are JUNK! The "tests" that they ran on the site have very little to do with the actual filtering ability of the filter. The site does show what I have always thought about automotive filters,they are very marginally effective and if I was building a $30,000 race engine I certainly would not use any type of automotive filter. Most of the filters that were "inspected" were made from paper, this is a filter media technology that has been obsolete for at least 30 years, but it makes building filters cheap and that's what people expect.

Having been in the high pressure hydraulics business for a number of years the importance of clean oil is paramount to systems that are running at 5000 psi and operating 24 hours a day. This type of system will typically have a filtration system that filters in the 3 to 5 micron area and operate at a 99.9% single pass efficiency. (Most automotive filters, work in the 25-40 micron area and are less than 25% single pass efficient. and they typically have a pretty high clean element pressure drop, even with the fairly low flow rate that you find in a typical engine, usually less than 10 gallons per minute.)In this industry bonded glass fiber filtering media is the technology used. A typical industrial spin on filter made with bonded glass media that would be approximately the same size as an automotive filter will pass 30-40 gallons/minute at less than 5 psi pressure drop and it will withstand a differential pressure of 150 psi.

Sure a "good" filter is expensive but filters are kind of like helmets, "If you have a $30 head then buy a $30 helmet." same goes for filters.

Rex

[RICK]

REX,, Like many,,I suffer from F.I.  =FILTER IGNORANCE!
   What kind/type filter do you recommend?

    Thanks,RICK

[Rex Schimmer]

Rick,
If you are looking for something that you could mount remotely and have the latest technology I would recommend any "spin on" filter made by the following companies: Parker-Hannifin, Pall, Donaldson or Hycon. All of these manufactures make a "spin on" filter which is a "head" that you can mount any place and plumb to your oil system and then the filter element is a spin on unit that looks alot like the standard automotive part, except! the "can" is usually good for 300 psi and the element will have a collapse pressure of over 100 psi and it will be made from bonded fiber-glass, also the bypass valve in the head is usually around 30 psi not the 5 psi in the auto filters. I would use an element rated at 5-10 microns and you need a minimum "beta ratio" (Big time filter talk for the way they measure filter efficiency) of 75 min. In the Pall spin on filter,which is their series 7400, the smallest filter with a 3 micron rating has a clean element pressure drop of less than 4 psi at 10 gallons per minute.

These are not cheap, the elememts are probably in the $25-40 area but they are actually filters not just a wide spot in the oil line like the automotive "filters" are.  

When Nissan was doing lots of big time sports car racing and they had a big facility in Southern Orange Co. they used the Pall 7400 and 7500 filters on their dyno. The filter was so efficient that it would clean the engine while they dyno tested it.

Rex

[dick elliott]

REX! What about the Oberg filters? I've seen many NASCAR cars with them.

[Rex Schimmer]

Dick,
The Oberg filter is made from MIL spec stainless screen, to make it affective you need to make the screen very fine and then the pressure drop gets very high. Industrial and MIL SPEC filter makers stopped using screen for filters about 20 years ago when they figured out how to make filters from glass fibers. If you look a a square inch of the screen from an Oberg filter you will see that the wire diameter is probably ..001 to .003 inches in diameter, then if you weave it so that the "hole" between the wires is say 10 micron, thats .0004 inches, you find that 90% of the square inch is wire and 10% is the actual "holes" that do the filteration.

Wire screen filter makers like to say you can clean them in the parts cleaner tank and then reuse them. NOT!!!! When screen filters were being made for the military the directions to clean them was to do it with a sonic cleaner and that the filter degraded approx. 10% with every cleaning. So by the time you cleaned it, the right way, about 5 or 6 times the filter was almost plugged! Yes it is easy to see all the big parts that the filter has caught when you look at a used Oberg screen but the big chunks are not what is going to wear your motor out it is the 5-20 micron parts that do it. The big parts may kill the engine but if the motor was put together very clean then if you see big chuncks it is probably from the motor blowing up!
I am not a screen filter fan.

Just a note regarding filters on transmissions: A "good" filter on a recirculation system on a gear box or diff will lengthen the life of the unit by a considerable amount. All of the F1 teams use them.

Rex

[jimmy six]

Over the last 40 years I have worked in the electic power industry. I have witnessed thousands of gallons of oil changed just because of time in service. It was mostly on what I called small pieces of equipment like Boiler feed pumps etc: The main turbine oil was never changed but was continuely filtered or "polished" through sophisticated filters. About 15 years ago we started filtering the smaller equipment with home-made, at first, filters with small pumps and filters like Rex is talking about. We had no bypasses on them as we round robined the storage tanks on a regular basis. This schedule was set on oil testing and not time. The oil would actually test cleaner than the new oil. Turbine oil does not have the same problems as internal combustiion engines but the cleanliness is still the same. Screen type filters, like a System One, just keep out the big chunks and for a nitro motor that may be enough. Lots of changing there. My gas motor will have much better filtering...Good Luck (Hi Mark)

[Rex Schimmer]

OK, as long as I am on my high horse on filters I probably need to say one or two more things. Filter placement in dry sump systems. If you look at all of the dry sump pump builders suggested plumbing schematics you will probably see that they want the filter between the high pressure pump and the engine, well if you want to sell lots of dry sump pump parts that is the perfect place because any chunks that are scavaged out of the engine are then sent to the dry sum tank and there they settle to the bottom and what is at the bottom? the inlet for the high pressure pump! so all the junk goes through the high pressure pump before it gets filtered!! Would not it make much more sense to put the filter, make it a big one and make it say around 5 micron, on the scavenger return lines? Then with a real efficient filter you would prevent most of the engine chunks from even getting into the sump tank. Then if you want to protect the engine from the high pressure pump going south you can put a small filter between it and the engine. If you look at the oiling system on some NASCAR cars they are plumbed this way.

Just a thought.

Jimmy, I sold a fair amount of pretty large filter and water removal systems to the power gen industry. Mostly PG&E but the power gen people have literally books on the good affects of good oil quality. I have a very good publication from the SKF bearing people on the affects of clean oil on roller element bearing life, seems that clean oil can increase life by a factor of 10+.! And you are so right about "new" oil quality, if you look at it under a microscope you will find all kinds of junk, lots of weld slag! On good high pressure hydraulic systems new oil is filtered through a 2-3 micron filter before it is put into the reservoir!!

Rex

[hotrod]

Very interesting, I recall books mentioning racing teams "reconditioning" engine oil over night. I presume this is done with these high efficiency filters. Smokey Yunick was supposed to have done this at he Indianapolis 500 engine development project.

A couple questions after taking a quick glance at the tech pages for some of these high efficiency filters.

Do any of the forum participants have any real world data on what typical max oil flow rate would be for automotive applications at redline.

The pumps are typically positive displacement pumps, So I presume you could work out the flow by figuring out the swept displacement per rev on the pumps.

If anyone has some reference figures for common engines that would help a bit on choosing an appropriate fuel element size.

On the PALL 7400 series filters mentioned above on the dyno, do you know by chance the sizing used?

Larry

[jimmy six]

You can info on the pall 7400 on the net. I have found Donaldson also there. Donaldson air filters are standard on th 6.0 Ford Diesel. Watch out here, some are Hecho in Mexico others are good old USA..Especially screw ons, they fit a 13/16"-16 thread..Chevy-Mexico----Case, IH-USA.

Rex, as for where to put the filter, I also use an inline screen type prior to the external pump. Think about your normal pick-up screen in a factory car it not much but helps. Our company uses a large Turbo-Toc filter for the turbine. I use an old "Frantz" toilet paper filter on my parts washer.. Works great for cleaning it up. Thank again for your info. J.D.

[wolcottjl]

Has anyone had any experience with Canton-Mecca spin on filters.  Some of the import guys are running them.  Filter down to 8 microns.  Replaceable filter element.  They also have remote mount filters.

[RICK]

You guys got me thinking,,,,,,,or remembering. I went thru my filter cabinet and found some ac delco filters I bought a couple years ago. PF-35L. Got out my old performance parts catalog and "The PF-35L heavy-duty spin-on oil filter can replaceany PF-25 or PF-35 filter,,,,,100% synthethic,,,,12 micron,,,,,element is backed by a metal screen.This extremely efficent filter can reduce engine wear by 75% compared to convential filters without restricting the flow of oil."

   Then I called my local GM dealer,they are around 10 bucks.
 Sounds like twice as much $$ but a lot better helmet,,,I mean protection.
   and easy to find.

      good luck,   RICK

[Rick Byrnes]

I have used the Canton-Meca remote tall filter for a long time and had good luck.  Little perceived pressure drop. I use -12 plumbing to and from the filter. We however seldom wear out engines.  I have found particles trapped in filter, but we can't see much unless we have an engine failure and then the pump sees them first.......

[aira93]

Filters have always had about automotive filters and they have a very little to do with the actual filtering ability of the filter.




________________
Humidifier filters

[bvillercr]

Filters have always had about automotive filters and they have a very little to do with the actual filtering ability of the filter.





________________
Humidifier filters

What?