Originally Posted By: boosted
Stick with stock filter... or what u said will occur, there's a reason why the engineering people want u to use a certain filter.
Very correct, as the engine manufacturer will almost always recommend the best possible oil filter. The only way you might improve on the oil filtration performance is to install a top quality oil bypass filtration system.
I did some research into different oil filters, including the high performance longlife versions for my Volvo diesel and came to the conclusion there was nothing available that would beat the Volvo oil or air filters.
Don't pay too much attention to all the filter advertising, as they always quote final (Very dirty) filtration performance figures and not the much more important initial (New) filter performance figures. Most people change oil filters far too early, when they are not working half as well as the advertising suggests, remember that with many filters more debris will pass through them in the first 10% of their life than the remaining 90%, although most folks are changing oil filters when only half full because of concerns over a blocked filter.
If you use a bigger filter than recommended, you will be stuck in the first 10% of poor performance figures much longer than with a smaller filter. Trying to figure out if you gain from fewer filter changes in terms of total debris that passes throught it involves advanced mathematics and it is further complicated by when exactly you change the oil filter.
If you can change oil filters without changing the oil, then the trick is to time the changes so that you change oil after the first 10% problem is over. That way you will dump the worst of the debris with the oil change. Trying to figure out the perfect oil and filter change procedures is one complex business, but I doubt if you will beat the manufacturers oil filters or their recommended change intervals, although you can sometimes beat the oil service interval figures with careful partical count analysis, but that is too expensive to make sense for smaller engines.
The real cool engine long life experts I know in Germany never fit a new oil or air filter. They buy moderately dirty air filters from the dealer and either convert to a drop in oil filter system (Nearly as complex as a bypass filter unit, but takes up less space and only requires one filter), so they can inspect and drain the oil filter so it is not changed too early. If that conversion is not possible (No suitable drop in available for most trucks), they figure out a way to remove the standard oil filter and change the seal to allow an inspection to be done, which is a risky game in oil leak terms.
Others resort to very regular UOA's to figure out when their oil filter blocks (Another risky game), for example my recommended OFC interval is 20K km, the manufacturers specs indicate it should not block even with an old engine before 30K km and most green orientated engine experts say that for an older diesel of my type in fair condition, the pressure bypass valve opens at about 40K km if the car is not subject to dirty air when the air filter in too new, or too much time at idle.
