If it is in the filter, then it is not in the oil for UOA. So, does great filtration hide much of the wear that would have otherwise been observed by UOA?
Do bypass filters reduce UOA usefullness?
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Have oft wondered that myself.
However, given that the likes of Doug Hillary state that UOA is for determining oil, rather than engine condition, I've reconciled my problematic view.
My view is now that UOA is for oil, not engine condition, and that bypass filters help preserve the oil, as evidenced by the UOAs.
And by having good oil, you are preserving engine life.
However, given that the likes of Doug Hillary state that UOA is for determining oil, rather than engine condition, I've reconciled my problematic view.
My view is now that UOA is for oil, not engine condition, and that bypass filters help preserve the oil, as evidenced by the UOAs.
And by having good oil, you are preserving engine life.
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No. Bypass filtration will not alter oil analysis usefulness. Anyone who states otherwise cannot substantiate their claims.
Read this 60 page DOE report and get back to me: http://avt.inel.gov/pdf/oilbypass/oilbypassfinalreport.pdf
Pay attention to the "wear rate" information on pages 37 and 38 regarding bus 73450.
Bypass Filtration does NOT diminish UOA usefulness; and UOA is a good determination of the interior condition of the ENGINE.
I have also lived this with my own UOA being used to discover antifreeze leaks. There is not a Goodwrench mechanic in the world who can look at my golden dipstick and say, "Gee, you've got 233 ppm potassium, you've got an antifreeze leak."
Read this 60 page DOE report and get back to me: http://avt.inel.gov/pdf/oilbypass/oilbypassfinalreport.pdf
Pay attention to the "wear rate" information on pages 37 and 38 regarding bus 73450.
Bypass Filtration does NOT diminish UOA usefulness; and UOA is a good determination of the interior condition of the ENGINE.
I have also lived this with my own UOA being used to discover antifreeze leaks. There is not a Goodwrench mechanic in the world who can look at my golden dipstick and say, "Gee, you've got 233 ppm potassium, you've got an antifreeze leak."
The wear metals that show up on UOA are more similar to colloidal minerals in solution that people use as health supplements. They are in suspension and smaller in size than even bypass filter elements. So the bypass really doesn't affect UOA results. Bu they do a great job is cleaning out larger particulates that actually can cause increased engine wear like soot with diesels, larger dirt particles, other larger particulates, etc.
A UOA will show the suspended elements in the oil that come from wear and the quality of the remaining add pack in the oil.
A UOA will show the suspended elements in the oil that come from wear and the quality of the remaining add pack in the oil.
I read through the pdf in Ihatetochangeoil's link. It was a very thorough documentation and a very poor analysis. The cost comparison was between a blind 3K OCI and bypass filtration that included UOA. If one makes the assumption that a modern oil can almost always do 6K oil changes, then the slope of control line would be cut in half. The break-even point in the Tahoe study would become 120K miles. I grant that if your only choices were the two chosen in this study, then the conclusion of the study is probably sound. However, it would be rather silly to ignore the fact that the 3K oil change should be extinct and a more practical OCI should be considered in the cost comparisons.
I do not doubt that bypass filters will not affect UOA in regard to oil parameters, but any metals captured by the added filtration would not be present in the UOA. Trends could still be followed, but the sensitivity would have to be reduced.
I do not doubt that bypass filters will not affect UOA in regard to oil parameters, but any metals captured by the added filtration would not be present in the UOA. Trends could still be followed, but the sensitivity would have to be reduced.
dnewton3
Staff member
I didn't see anything in that link that would indicate that the discussion of how the filter efficiency may or may not affect wear rates. Did I miss it? Please let me know the page(s) if so.
I didn't see anything directly related to the question either. The closest I could find was description of how they converted ppm to teaspoons...
My understanding is that analysis by companies like Blackstone measure metal particles smaller than 1micron up to 15microns (this info is from Blackstone). So if your filter removes particles in this range (which it will) yes it will affect the UOA results. However this isn't the point of UOAs. You should get trends to show oil serviceability.
Bypass filters do NOT reduce UOA usefulness. Bypass filters do not filter out wear metals, only larger WEAR CAUSING particles.
Originally Posted By: zpinch
Bypass filters do NOT reduce UOA usefulness. Bypass filters do not filter out wear metals, only larger WEAR CAUSING particles.
This is not true. See my post above with reference to info from Blackstone on their analysis method. They measure metal up to 15 microns.
Bypass filters do NOT reduce UOA usefulness. Bypass filters do not filter out wear metals, only larger WEAR CAUSING particles.
This is not true. See my post above with reference to info from Blackstone on their analysis method. They measure metal up to 15 microns.
I agree that filtration of metal particles in a bypass filter is a good thing. No needs to defend bypass filtration.
I am suggesting that some particles that would have been in the UOA won't be there if a good bypass system is in use. In addition, some particles that a standard filter doesn't catch will be further ground (and cause more wear) and will be observable in UOA. If the bypass filter catches these particles, they won't be observable in a UOA. They also won't be in circulation to cause more wear.
I think that it is possible for a "good thing" to have some drawbacks. And yet, the "good thing" may still be justified..depending on your goals.
I am suggesting that some particles that would have been in the UOA won't be there if a good bypass system is in use. In addition, some particles that a standard filter doesn't catch will be further ground (and cause more wear) and will be observable in UOA. If the bypass filter catches these particles, they won't be observable in a UOA. They also won't be in circulation to cause more wear.
I think that it is possible for a "good thing" to have some drawbacks. And yet, the "good thing" may still be justified..depending on your goals.
I see what you are saying, and I guess there 'could' be larger wear particles that could be big enough that a bypass filter setup would catch, but not a full flow filter. However, this would be a very very small amount. These particles could cause more wear if large enough, which is a good thing a bypass filter would remove them.
I am currently at 12,000km on my bypass unit, and I will be doing a UOA either at 20,000 or 25,000km, first one performed at 5000km, but the report looked like the oil had hardly been used, so I will give the oil some usage before I take the next sample.
I am currently at 12,000km on my bypass unit, and I will be doing a UOA either at 20,000 or 25,000km, first one performed at 5000km, but the report looked like the oil had hardly been used, so I will give the oil some usage before I take the next sample.
And diesel applications are where a bypass really shows how good they are. Soot loading, especially since the advent of EGR on diesels, has reached insane levels. A good bypass filter or centrifuge unit just makes good sense with these engines. I realize that CJ-4 oils are designed with this in mind, but capturing as much soot particulates out of the oil with a bypass just makes things that much better. There is not a diesel I own now that doesn't have a bypass filter on it. I have not jumped on the bypass on a gasoline engine bandwagon though.
dnewton3
Staff member
BP filters most certainly can and will alter the results of a UOA.
UOAs done by spectral analysis generally view particles from sub-um up to about 5um"ish". They cannot distinguish anything larger.
BP filters (of various brands) all claim to be very effective down to very small particulate levels; some claim to be effective at "sub-micron" levels. Note that "effective" has no claim of "efficiency" rating ...
I generally accept, after a long conversation with our departed Gary Allan, that most common BP filters (Amsoil, Gulf Coast, Frantz, Filtration Solutions, etc) are very efficient starting around 2-3 um. Below that they probably do catch stuff, but not with great efficiency. Around 2-3um, they all get to be very efficient, probably nearing absolute, from there on up.
Hece, a BP filter is certainly capable, and will, remove particles that would otherwise be in a UOA. The question is this:
How greatly does this affect the UOA?
I've not seen any real decent data.
There are some folks here that could do some good experiments, but they shy'd away when I asked them to do so. My thought was to have them run "RedX" trials whereby the variable is turned on and off repeatedly to track response. Essentially I wanted them to put a valve ahead of the BP filter element, so that they could shut down flow to the filter every other OCI and UOA cycle. Run one with the filter live; take a UOA. Turn the filter off for the next OCI; take a UOA. Repeat several times back and forth to see what effect can be manipulated by ONLY the filter, keeping all other inputs as consistent as possible. It is my suspicion that the "test" would show some effect, but probably within "normal" variance of the individual system performance. It may be very hard to tell the effect of the BP within all the typical noise in a UOA. Anyone interested in doing such a test, please contact me.
BP filters are excellent tools, but their primary usefulness is NOT wear reduction; it's OCI extension. Here's why:
As for soot reduction, I do agree they help. Soot does start out sub-micron in size. But it only really "grows" once the add-pack becomes greatly compromised. Until that point, the anti-agglomerates generally hold the soot to a size where they are small enough to keep particulate from damaging things. With the increasing use of EGR does came the better control of contaminates in CJ-4 lubes. New generations of lubes are being developed with even greater ability in mind. My point is that BP filters do help here, but we don't want to be fooled into thinking they are the only means of controlling soot. FIRST AND FOREMOST is the add-pack; it keep soot small enough to not make a major issue. Only after that package begins to degrade significantly and the soot starts to grow in size, would you see the BP filter make a statistically significant difference. And so, the OCI is the controlling factor here. As long as you OCI at a frequency that helps the add-pack keep the soot small, then the BP filter has very little to work with. As I said before, they really are not efficient until 2-3 um. If you keep the oil in a condition that it does not become overwhelmed, the add pack keeps the soot smaller than that threshold. This is why we see tons of data from "normal" OCIs that have no advantage using syns and bypass. Read my "normalcy" article and pay close attention to the Dmax portion, and you'll understand.
I do agree BP filters can be a great asset, but ONLY if you extend the OCI out long enough to a point where there would be significant disparity between the results of using it or not. The OCI has to be run past a point where the oil would OTHERWISE be compromised without the BP present, for any data to show a difference.
For folks like TiredTrucker, it can make a lot of good fiscal sense with the long OCIs.
For folks that put on a BP and still change oil every 10k miles or less, it's a complete and total waste of money; you will see no wear reduction difference at all for the large investment you make.
.
UOAs done by spectral analysis generally view particles from sub-um up to about 5um"ish". They cannot distinguish anything larger.
BP filters (of various brands) all claim to be very effective down to very small particulate levels; some claim to be effective at "sub-micron" levels. Note that "effective" has no claim of "efficiency" rating ...
I generally accept, after a long conversation with our departed Gary Allan, that most common BP filters (Amsoil, Gulf Coast, Frantz, Filtration Solutions, etc) are very efficient starting around 2-3 um. Below that they probably do catch stuff, but not with great efficiency. Around 2-3um, they all get to be very efficient, probably nearing absolute, from there on up.
Hece, a BP filter is certainly capable, and will, remove particles that would otherwise be in a UOA. The question is this:
How greatly does this affect the UOA?
I've not seen any real decent data.
There are some folks here that could do some good experiments, but they shy'd away when I asked them to do so. My thought was to have them run "RedX" trials whereby the variable is turned on and off repeatedly to track response. Essentially I wanted them to put a valve ahead of the BP filter element, so that they could shut down flow to the filter every other OCI and UOA cycle. Run one with the filter live; take a UOA. Turn the filter off for the next OCI; take a UOA. Repeat several times back and forth to see what effect can be manipulated by ONLY the filter, keeping all other inputs as consistent as possible. It is my suspicion that the "test" would show some effect, but probably within "normal" variance of the individual system performance. It may be very hard to tell the effect of the BP within all the typical noise in a UOA. Anyone interested in doing such a test, please contact me.
BP filters are excellent tools, but their primary usefulness is NOT wear reduction; it's OCI extension. Here's why:
As for soot reduction, I do agree they help. Soot does start out sub-micron in size. But it only really "grows" once the add-pack becomes greatly compromised. Until that point, the anti-agglomerates generally hold the soot to a size where they are small enough to keep particulate from damaging things. With the increasing use of EGR does came the better control of contaminates in CJ-4 lubes. New generations of lubes are being developed with even greater ability in mind. My point is that BP filters do help here, but we don't want to be fooled into thinking they are the only means of controlling soot. FIRST AND FOREMOST is the add-pack; it keep soot small enough to not make a major issue. Only after that package begins to degrade significantly and the soot starts to grow in size, would you see the BP filter make a statistically significant difference. And so, the OCI is the controlling factor here. As long as you OCI at a frequency that helps the add-pack keep the soot small, then the BP filter has very little to work with. As I said before, they really are not efficient until 2-3 um. If you keep the oil in a condition that it does not become overwhelmed, the add pack keeps the soot smaller than that threshold. This is why we see tons of data from "normal" OCIs that have no advantage using syns and bypass. Read my "normalcy" article and pay close attention to the Dmax portion, and you'll understand.
I do agree BP filters can be a great asset, but ONLY if you extend the OCI out long enough to a point where there would be significant disparity between the results of using it or not. The OCI has to be run past a point where the oil would OTHERWISE be compromised without the BP present, for any data to show a difference.
For folks like TiredTrucker, it can make a lot of good fiscal sense with the long OCIs.
For folks that put on a BP and still change oil every 10k miles or less, it's a complete and total waste of money; you will see no wear reduction difference at all for the large investment you make.
.
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"BP filters are excellent tools, but their primary usefulness is NOT wear reduction; it's OCI extension. Here's why:"
Wrong. It doesn't sound to me like you have any skin in the game; young man. I cannot and will not try to speak for anyone besides myself, but it doesn't look to me as if "most" of the posters on BITOG are fleet managers or maintenance supervisors for mining or industrial operations; we are just a bunch of Joe Blows trying to take care of our own vehicles.
I could care less about the difference between "statistical micro analysis vs macro analysis." I'm just trying to keep my beater running to avoid new car payments so I can free up more dollars to spend on my kid's education.
I'm NOT looking at my UOA reports to see what's "statistically normal." I can find "condemning limits for wear metals" all over the internet. I'm looking for what is statistically ABNORMAL; and I've lived it. When I get a SINGLE UOA that shows 434 ppm potassium, I've got an antifreeze leak; and there isn't a Mr. Goodwrench mechanic in the NATION that can pull out my golden dipstick and say "Gee, Dave, 434 ppm potassium, you've got a leaking intake manifold gasket. This stuff DOES show on UOA WITH a bypass filter installed.
Likewise, when a SINGLE UOA report shows 999 ppm silicon, (Blackstone and other labs caution over 20 ppm silicon), which I'm sure you know. Here, I've got an air intake issue, and you're NOT going to find this by LOOKING at your air filter. In my case, I had a brand new K&N filter, and due to UOA, I cured this by switching to nanofiber air filters. I have done this on all three cars I own and I have UOA on all three.
It just so happens that the nanofiber air filters are made by Amsoil. I'm not an Amsoil dealer, and I would buy these products if they were marketed by Avon or Tupperware. Quality speaks for itself.
Furthermore, there are plenty of SAE papers demonstrating that clean oil (per ISO 4406) has the mechanical potential to double or more the useful life of your equipment. THIS is the reason that fleet managers and maintenance supervisors who are responsible for millions of dollars of equipment use bypass filtration. Equipment downtime is lost production; the extended OCI are just the icing on the cake.
In response to your suggestion of installing a valve and "turning on and off" the bypass system for every other oil change; man up and do it yourself, quit trying to sound authoritative and get others to do your dirty work.
Finally, you should be intelligent enough to realize that "absolute" filtration ISN'T ABSOLUTE. http://machinerylubrication.com/Read/564/filter-beta-ratios For Example, I'm currently running an Amsoil BP-90 bypass filter which is advertised by Amsoil as being "98.7% efficient down to 2 microns." Looking on the aforementioned chart, we can see that a beta ratio of 75 is 98.6667% efficient, allowing 100,000 particles upstream and 1,333 downstream. This is still in an "18" range on the ISO 4406 chart, which may or may not be cleaner than new oil: http://es.precisionfiltration.com/productos/iso-4406-cleanliness-code.asp Generally speaking, "98.7% efficient" is used by filter manufacturers as an "absolute" rating, when it isn't absolute.
Lots of bypass filter manufacturers will also state that their filters will trap particles down to "x" microns, X being whatever arbitrary number they choose. This is completely meaningless information. Believing consumers will falsely ASSUME that this means ALL particles down to "X." The common sense truth is that chicken wire will trap 3 micron particles, it just isn't very EFFICIENT at it. Without a filter manufacturer giving a micron rating AND a beta ratio, they are only marketing their products to those ignorant enough to buy their snake oil.
My current oil is a 14/14/11, which is FIVE ISO grades cleaner than new oil, and this oil has almost 20,000 miles on it. In the very near future, I will be installing a Puradyn PT-8 filter which I already have, I'm just fabricating brackets. This filter has 5 US patents, one of which is for timed-release additives, and Puradyn claims it is 100% efficient. I MAY not ever change my oil after installing this filter. How many miles do I need to put on the car for you to admit I've extended the useful engine life? Or do I need to do it to 30 cars minimum to demonstrate a "trend?"
Cheers.
Wrong. It doesn't sound to me like you have any skin in the game; young man. I cannot and will not try to speak for anyone besides myself, but it doesn't look to me as if "most" of the posters on BITOG are fleet managers or maintenance supervisors for mining or industrial operations; we are just a bunch of Joe Blows trying to take care of our own vehicles.
I could care less about the difference between "statistical micro analysis vs macro analysis." I'm just trying to keep my beater running to avoid new car payments so I can free up more dollars to spend on my kid's education.
I'm NOT looking at my UOA reports to see what's "statistically normal." I can find "condemning limits for wear metals" all over the internet. I'm looking for what is statistically ABNORMAL; and I've lived it. When I get a SINGLE UOA that shows 434 ppm potassium, I've got an antifreeze leak; and there isn't a Mr. Goodwrench mechanic in the NATION that can pull out my golden dipstick and say "Gee, Dave, 434 ppm potassium, you've got a leaking intake manifold gasket. This stuff DOES show on UOA WITH a bypass filter installed.
Likewise, when a SINGLE UOA report shows 999 ppm silicon, (Blackstone and other labs caution over 20 ppm silicon), which I'm sure you know. Here, I've got an air intake issue, and you're NOT going to find this by LOOKING at your air filter. In my case, I had a brand new K&N filter, and due to UOA, I cured this by switching to nanofiber air filters. I have done this on all three cars I own and I have UOA on all three.
It just so happens that the nanofiber air filters are made by Amsoil. I'm not an Amsoil dealer, and I would buy these products if they were marketed by Avon or Tupperware. Quality speaks for itself.
Furthermore, there are plenty of SAE papers demonstrating that clean oil (per ISO 4406) has the mechanical potential to double or more the useful life of your equipment. THIS is the reason that fleet managers and maintenance supervisors who are responsible for millions of dollars of equipment use bypass filtration. Equipment downtime is lost production; the extended OCI are just the icing on the cake.
In response to your suggestion of installing a valve and "turning on and off" the bypass system for every other oil change; man up and do it yourself, quit trying to sound authoritative and get others to do your dirty work.
Finally, you should be intelligent enough to realize that "absolute" filtration ISN'T ABSOLUTE. http://machinerylubrication.com/Read/564/filter-beta-ratios For Example, I'm currently running an Amsoil BP-90 bypass filter which is advertised by Amsoil as being "98.7% efficient down to 2 microns." Looking on the aforementioned chart, we can see that a beta ratio of 75 is 98.6667% efficient, allowing 100,000 particles upstream and 1,333 downstream. This is still in an "18" range on the ISO 4406 chart, which may or may not be cleaner than new oil: http://es.precisionfiltration.com/productos/iso-4406-cleanliness-code.asp Generally speaking, "98.7% efficient" is used by filter manufacturers as an "absolute" rating, when it isn't absolute.
Lots of bypass filter manufacturers will also state that their filters will trap particles down to "x" microns, X being whatever arbitrary number they choose. This is completely meaningless information. Believing consumers will falsely ASSUME that this means ALL particles down to "X." The common sense truth is that chicken wire will trap 3 micron particles, it just isn't very EFFICIENT at it. Without a filter manufacturer giving a micron rating AND a beta ratio, they are only marketing their products to those ignorant enough to buy their snake oil.
My current oil is a 14/14/11, which is FIVE ISO grades cleaner than new oil, and this oil has almost 20,000 miles on it. In the very near future, I will be installing a Puradyn PT-8 filter which I already have, I'm just fabricating brackets. This filter has 5 US patents, one of which is for timed-release additives, and Puradyn claims it is 100% efficient. I MAY not ever change my oil after installing this filter. How many miles do I need to put on the car for you to admit I've extended the useful engine life? Or do I need to do it to 30 cars minimum to demonstrate a "trend?"
Cheers.
(DNewton) Where do you get your information on bypass filtration not extending component life? It has been shown over the years that micron level lubrication filtering greatly extends component life.
dnewton3
Staff member
I'll give you a little background of my perception. And I do have skin in the game.
First, I am going to constrain my comments to sensible, pratical application of filtration in terms of engines here; we're not talking about putting another man on the moon or filtering pathogens from blood. Be reasonable in your assessments, please.
I ran a PM program for Ford in their building/facility maintenance group for several years, maintaining equipment from boilers to giant cetrifugal air compressors to huge rooftop HVAC units to 8-story high storage/retrieval sytsems running on rail car wheels, to the fork-truck garage, and just about anything in between. I am quite confident I have a good grip on industrialized PM programs.
BP filter are excellent tools ONLY WHEN USED WITH ALL THE BENEFITS AND LIMITATIONS UNDERSTOOD AND IN MIND. BP filters cannot fix all conditions of abnormaility, nor should they.
BP filters do an excellent job of removing small particulate that the FF filter will never touch, but they ONLY do so at a very small sample rate. Typically, the ratio is about 10:1; ten parts oil pass in the main lube circuit for every one that goes to the BP filter circuit. Therefore, any particle has a very large percentage of chance to pass into the main lube circuit where the BP element has zero chance at capture. Hence, particulate that has the ability to do damage still have a very large propensity to do so for several cycles, on average.
Now - I must confess that typically I tailor my answers to the masses of garage-jockeys here. There are a lot of folks that put a BP on their diesel one-ton and commute 30 minutes and think they are ostensibly altering the lifespan of their rig. Absolutely not. They will NEVER see any appreciable difference in wear over the lifespan.
What you have to keep in mind is that there is always some minimum threshold of contamination level that no longer has reasonble effect on longevity. While it is certainly possible to filter any fluid to a near perfect, pristine state of oil-utopia, engines generally do not need something that finely filtered. This level will always be different for any given level of desired/spec'd system. No engine needs clinically clean oil to survive; what it needs is reasonbly clean oil such that major clearance damage is not a routine result. Even the occasional plough or gouge of particle streak does not greatly alter the lifespan; only repeated bombardment of heavy particulate will cause such issues that would result in premature demise.
Clean oil is what alters the general lifespan of any fluid-lubed equipment. Clean oil can certainly be attained by ridding the sump of contamination using one of two methods:
1) filter it out
2) flush it out
To that end, there exists proof that wear rates are not appreciably effected by using a BP system, contrasted to a well maintained alternative.
Originally Posted By: ihatetochangeoil
... there are plenty of SAE papers demonstrating that clean oil (per ISO 4406) has the mechanical potential to double or more the useful life of your equipment.
Please indicate these studies; quote the citation number so I can review them.
I have lots of data that shows no appreciable difference when super-filtration is used, opposed to a system kept "clean" with frequent flushes.
Read the normalcy article and check the references at the bottom; there are links to a couple of UOAs here. Admittedly those are anecdotal, but the supporting evidence is stout; it echos those individual results. I have more than 10,000 UOAs from Blackstone, as well as countless numbers of UOAs and PCs and equipment teardown results from my years at Ford. I am not some blow-hard wannabe wingin' it from the sidelines.
The idea with BP filtration is that at some point it most certainly do a "better" job than the alternative; the key of successful operation is using it in a manner that is effective and efficient in terms of wear control and fiscal expense. Any product can be over or under utilized.
P.S. - if any of you mention the infamous GM filter study, you are grossly misinformed if that is your basis for understanding.
First, I am going to constrain my comments to sensible, pratical application of filtration in terms of engines here; we're not talking about putting another man on the moon or filtering pathogens from blood. Be reasonable in your assessments, please.
I ran a PM program for Ford in their building/facility maintenance group for several years, maintaining equipment from boilers to giant cetrifugal air compressors to huge rooftop HVAC units to 8-story high storage/retrieval sytsems running on rail car wheels, to the fork-truck garage, and just about anything in between. I am quite confident I have a good grip on industrialized PM programs.
BP filter are excellent tools ONLY WHEN USED WITH ALL THE BENEFITS AND LIMITATIONS UNDERSTOOD AND IN MIND. BP filters cannot fix all conditions of abnormaility, nor should they.
BP filters do an excellent job of removing small particulate that the FF filter will never touch, but they ONLY do so at a very small sample rate. Typically, the ratio is about 10:1; ten parts oil pass in the main lube circuit for every one that goes to the BP filter circuit. Therefore, any particle has a very large percentage of chance to pass into the main lube circuit where the BP element has zero chance at capture. Hence, particulate that has the ability to do damage still have a very large propensity to do so for several cycles, on average.
Now - I must confess that typically I tailor my answers to the masses of garage-jockeys here. There are a lot of folks that put a BP on their diesel one-ton and commute 30 minutes and think they are ostensibly altering the lifespan of their rig. Absolutely not. They will NEVER see any appreciable difference in wear over the lifespan.
What you have to keep in mind is that there is always some minimum threshold of contamination level that no longer has reasonble effect on longevity. While it is certainly possible to filter any fluid to a near perfect, pristine state of oil-utopia, engines generally do not need something that finely filtered. This level will always be different for any given level of desired/spec'd system. No engine needs clinically clean oil to survive; what it needs is reasonbly clean oil such that major clearance damage is not a routine result. Even the occasional plough or gouge of particle streak does not greatly alter the lifespan; only repeated bombardment of heavy particulate will cause such issues that would result in premature demise.
Clean oil is what alters the general lifespan of any fluid-lubed equipment. Clean oil can certainly be attained by ridding the sump of contamination using one of two methods:
1) filter it out
2) flush it out
To that end, there exists proof that wear rates are not appreciably effected by using a BP system, contrasted to a well maintained alternative.
Originally Posted By: ihatetochangeoil
... there are plenty of SAE papers demonstrating that clean oil (per ISO 4406) has the mechanical potential to double or more the useful life of your equipment.
Please indicate these studies; quote the citation number so I can review them.
I have lots of data that shows no appreciable difference when super-filtration is used, opposed to a system kept "clean" with frequent flushes.
Read the normalcy article and check the references at the bottom; there are links to a couple of UOAs here. Admittedly those are anecdotal, but the supporting evidence is stout; it echos those individual results. I have more than 10,000 UOAs from Blackstone, as well as countless numbers of UOAs and PCs and equipment teardown results from my years at Ford. I am not some blow-hard wannabe wingin' it from the sidelines.
The idea with BP filtration is that at some point it most certainly do a "better" job than the alternative; the key of successful operation is using it in a manner that is effective and efficient in terms of wear control and fiscal expense. Any product can be over or under utilized.
P.S. - if any of you mention the infamous GM filter study, you are grossly misinformed if that is your basis for understanding.
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