We've had a recent experience with the new Ecore design oil filter that we thought was worth sharing and that may be of interest to others. We purchased a fresh stock of oil filters this spring for our cars and trucks at a local AZ. We change our own oil, and we like to keep all of our GM cars and trucks all GM, just like the little sticker on the air cleaner housing on the old cars used to remind us to do, so we typically use only AC Delco products. We've been doing it for 29 years now and have been fortunate enough to not have had one problem in all those years. We've been using a PF1218 on all our big block Chevy motors with good results for probably the last 6-7 years. This spring we noticed the filters were slightly shorter in length, but the part number remained the same. It was the same part number we've known and trusted for years. So we did a oil change on the car this spring with the new filter. We had driven it for a good portion of the day, some of it at WOT for a few seconds, when suddenly the idle dropped to about 500 rpm, and then the motor shut down. We tried to restart it, but now it had a rapping sound coming from the #7 cylinder. We pulled the valve covers off, but everything was fine there. We trailered the car home and took the oil pan off. Things were looking OK until we got to the #7 & #8 rod bearing caps. Both caps were blackened. We pulled the motor from the car and disassembled it. The rod bearings were roasted. The main bearings were junk too. Bearing material was all over in the bottom of the oil pan. It looked like a classic oil starvation event. We then inspected the filter. It looked a little strange. The filter media was coming out of the oil exit hole. We turned it upside down to drain it, and found that the new Ecore had collapsed inside, allowing the filter media to come loose and plug the oulet. The motor had good oil pressure, 50-60lbs, all day long until it quit running. Total tally on the parts were 2 wrecked rods, a crankshaft with a crack in the center of the #7 rod journal, a complete set of main and rod bearings and a gasket set. The motor was barely 3 years old with less than average mileage. The motor had a PF1218 on it when we purchased it and it's all we've ever used on it. Valvoline 20W-50 was the only oil it's ever seen. We took the filter to a GM garage to see if they have had any similar experience. The first comment made by the parts manager was that the filter could be a counterfeit. He mentioned that there were some problems out there with fake parts. We got on the AC Delco website to check things out. There was a phone number to call. We were able to talk to a very nice lady who helped us to verify that it was in fact a genuine OE part. She told us it was manufactured by Champ Labs. We then went to the Champ Labs website and found their Technical Hotline. We again found a very helpful person who sent us a product retreival kit. We've gotten the oil filter sent back to Champ Labs, but have not heard back from them yet. They mentioned it takes up to 15 days. We're really curious about what happened because we're a little concerned about using another Ecore filter until we understand what happened to this one. This was our first experience with an Ecore design. Fortunately, we've had folks willing to help us get this far. We've read the information on the new Ecore design, and from an engineering perspective, we'd agree that the new design should produce a more efficient filter. All the logic behind the changes seemed to make sense. The brochure for the Ecore says the collapse strength is higher because the nylon Ecore is stonger, has a greater flow capacity from more open area and less filter media contamination than a steel core.
We'll update our post once we hear back from Champ Labs about the reason for the failure. We're hoping it was a rare manufacturing flaw. In the means time, we've got a big block Chevy to rebuild.
We'll update our post once we hear back from Champ Labs about the reason for the failure. We're hoping it was a rare manufacturing flaw. In the means time, we've got a big block Chevy to rebuild.
