torn purolater wrecked my motor?

[Festiva_Man]

So, i have had a couple 7th gen civic motors with spun main bearings or big ends sitting behind my shed outside for a few years now. I was buying civics, replacing parts and trying to flip them for a while but didn't make any money. The spun bottom end bearings in these motors seem to be quite common. Anyway, I decided to take one apart to better understand how these motors worked and to see what went wrong.
So, i tore it all apart, found some strange designs by Honda but,sticking to one topic, i believe i found out the cause of the wrecked motor.
Some background: this particular car the motor came out of had 77,000km (48k miles) and was driven by a woman in college. She didn't take great care of it bodywise. I gathered oil changes were done at a decent time mileage wise (from the stickers) but that the the time intervals were a bit long between. Engine oil level was fine when i got it and no one would be stupid enough to add oil after it seized and exploded like this. when i drained the oil it looked old, not like new oil had been added so i do not believe this was oil starvation from lack of oil in the sump.
keep in mind that some people on this site believe that oil can last forever and some people are still having good oil analysis after 40k miles.
So the results of the teardown basically in the order i saw stuff:
- holes punched through both sides of the motor by a broken connecting rod on the cylinder farthest from the flywheel.
-Rocker tubes and arms quite worn- way more than an engine i tore apart with 300k a while back. Camshaft wasn't too terrible on the lobes but the 'bearings' of the camshaft were scored up.
-oil pan full of metal flakes. Small Pieces of connecting rod everywhere, biggest piece was punched through the baffle.
-oil gallerys full of metal flakes. And i mean like a good thick layer of it, and hole punched through gallery by connecting rod.
-the piston from the connecting rod that broke had hit the valves and bent them, messed up the piston pretty good.
-main bearings scored heavily and the one farthest away from the flywheel was crushed and cracked.
-big end bearings scored up worse than mains. The one from the broken connecting rod was in the pan obviously but the one beside it was spun and crushed. Mushroomed out quite a ways actually. The connecting rod beside that was black. The others weren't spun but it looked like the backs of the bearing inserts had been scored up a bit, which is weird.
-oil grooves on all bearings had metal flakes in them and where the 2 halves of the bearings meet had built up metal filings on most of the bearings.
- cut open oil filter. Its a powerflo made by purolater. It had a thick layer of metal filings on the clean side, bypass valve stuck open by filings, inside of can and pleats full of metal. Filter media torn.

Those are the facts, my conclusions are this:
I think the media was torn from new rather than right before the engine cratered, just by the looks of how it was torn. I think that oil was going through the tear and not being filter right from the time this oil and filter was put in.
That started wear as particles were not being filtered out.
Oil was thin 5w20 to begin with and probably got fuel and water diluted over time with short trips in town to college.
Cold starts all winter -20c normal temps down to -35c is common. with the car probably parked outside and who knows if she plugged it in. That would obviously cause the bypass valve to open.
This bypass valve takes a lot of pressure to fully open. We have a very sensitive scale at work and i stuck a screwdriver against the valve and pushed to see what it took to crack it. 13 pounds to start opening it. I didn't want to damage the scale by pushing too hard but on the bench top pushing as hard as i can with both hands only gets this valve open about 1/8inch. The bypass opening is 0.5square inches so it takes 26psi differential pressure just to crack it! it takes a ton of pressure to fully open, probably more like 80-100psi differential pressure i would guess (40-50 pounds of force on the 'spring'). At 1/8in fully open thats 0.314 sq in that it lets oil in through. I don't think thats much, but i could be wrong. as a comparison i cut an amsoil filter apart yesterday. its bypass valve starts to open at 6.6psi and is fully open at 17.6psi, a total of 0.58sq inch of opening. so the amsoil has an almost properly spec'd bypass valve (8psi is opening spec for the Honda filter) and almost twice the area for the oil to flow through
Anyway, so, media tear lets metal or other abrasive particles through, bypass valve being in the back of the can takes any metal not stuck down well to the media or any metal loose in the can after shutdown and puts it back into your bearings. That causes more wear.
First bearing gets spun, girl keeps driving it.
Bearings get worse and worse, more and more metal, bypass is open all the time because filters plugged other than the tear and then the second bearing spins.
Then the one spun bearing catches, seizes, welds, or falls right out and that causes the connecting rod to break.
Engine shuts down and car gets towed and i buy it and replace motor.
So in my opinion using a purolater filter with a tear caused an engine with only 77,000 km (48, 000miles) to self destruct to the point where its not rebuild able nor is any component reasonably usable. Block has holes punched in it
Pistons are done
Oil pump would be scored up
Pan has a hole in the baffle
Head has bent valves and worn camshaft 'bearings' which aren't replaceable inserts.
Rockers and rocker tubes are toast
Valve cover is good though!

i almost don't want to upload photos because they really don't do it justice. especially the photos of the oil filter. my best camera is an old iphone and it didn't do a great job. the inside of that oil filter was like a can of glitter-photos don't show that well. i tried hard to get a good photo of inside the oil galleries but it just wouldn't. same with the bearings, photos just don't do it justice. im also not uploading many as i do not have much data on my internet plan. sorry. please open up the photos fullscreen to look at if you plan to comment. you miss a lot otherwise.

Thoughts anyone? Or a different destruction scenario? should i contact purolater and ask them to pay for the motor?

inside oil gallery

bearing

holes

whats left of the rod

media torn on both ends of the pleat

 

[montero1]

Have Purolator pay for your motor? Good luck with that.

 

[xxch4osxx]

Interesting.

 

[dishdude]

Not a chance that tear caused the engine to come apart like that.

 

[eljefino]

You probably won't get anything from Purolator b/c you're not the "victim", the engine exploded before you got it and you got it at a good price as-is.

 

[Inspecktor]

That much wear and damage suggests either oil starvation or contamination, then it was run until final failure. Maybe a jealous ex boyfriend added something, or she did- I once saw a high school girl with dad's Lincoln with the hood up at a c-store. She wanted to know if she added oil right. Turns out she added a quart of PYB to the power steering reservoir until it was running all over the ground.

 

[Festiva_Man]

Originally Posted By: dishdude
Not a chance that tear caused the engine to come apart like that.


saying that doesnt help anyone. mind explaining why?

Originally Posted By: eljefino
You probably won't get anything from Purolator b/c you're not the "victim", the engine exploded before you got it and you got it at a good price as-is.

probably. oh, and what did i pay for it again?... long story but i didnt know the motor was toast and i did not get a good deal.

Originally Posted By: montero1
Have Purolator pay for your motor? Good luck with that.

worth asking no? at least to let them know of another tear.

 

[Vern_in_IL]

How about BITOG have a Q&A over with Purolator [censored] filters?

I don't buy them, we should be boycotting this junk!!!!

It's B.S. how the company IGNORES the problem, if lawyers were not so [censored] expensive...

Everyone who bought (proof or no proof) a filter from these morons deserves a rebate check of $20..

Reading MANN/HUMMEL site, they are all about "whipping out filters per second" and "continuous growth". No mention of quality, I guess that isn't a priority!

OUR FILTERS DON'T EXPIRE, THEY SIMPLY RETIRE...... exactly.

 

[BAJA_05]

Your just speculating like im going to -- college girl probably let her drunk boyfriend whip the snot & red line that motor till it blew apart after many of attempts to do so. Filter in no way caused that catastrophic damage -- pure speculation on both our parts. Its a dang shame cause Honda motors are known to be quite durable & almost bulletproof as long as you change the oil/filter within a reasonable interval.

 

[901Memphis]

Ouch, maybe next time you will use a real filter.

 

[Greasymechtech]

I've run engines without ANY full flow oil filter. None ever failed. Its a useless appendage.
Even with a media tear, there is plenty of flow through the media.

Its an engineering defect exasperated by the consumer(OCI's, oil quality, driving style).

PQIA is doing what they can to address oil quality.
And, most consumers are hopeless so we can't fix oil change intervals, oil level issues, driving styles, drunk boyfriends, or whatever.

 

[Festiva_Man]

Originally Posted By: Inspecktor
That much wear and damage suggests either oil starvation or contamination, then it was run until final failure. Maybe a jealous ex boyfriend added something, or she did- I once saw a high school girl with dad's Lincoln with the hood up at a c-store. She wanted to know if she added oil right. Turns out she added a quart of PYB to the power steering reservoir until it was running all over the ground.

yikes... i once stopped a woman from fueling her gas car up with diesel. some people...
but, contamination is the filters job to remove. when one wear particle gets through it makes another, they each make more, and so on and so on. stop that first one and you prevent the rest from happening and you dont get a plugged up filter. i think some of the bearings did get a bit starved from having so much metal in there. the flakes were pretty big.

Originally Posted By: thorromig
Your just speculating like im going to -- college girl probably let her drunk boyfriend whip the snot & red line that motor till it blew apart after many of attempts to do so. Filter in no way caused that catastrophic damage -- pure speculation on both our parts. Its a dang shame cause Honda motors are known to be quite durable & almost bulletproof as long as you change the oil/filter within a reasonable interval.

yup, i know we both are. and that would cause a connecting rod to break yes. however in this particular engine the bearings got full of metal, spun, then caught and broke the connecting rod. if the filter had filtered out the first metal particles like i mentioned above then it wouldnt have happened for that reason. the engine would still easily have blown apart, just not from the wear particles. thats why even with your senario i think this was caused by the filter. if a good filter had been on it may have only lasted a few minutes longer, but maybe it wouldnt have broke. they do have rev limiters...
and i wouldnt say that this particular generation of civic motors are bulletproof. far far from it in fact. you can say that about other generations of civics, but not the 7th..

 

[Festiva_Man]

Originally Posted By: Greasymechtech
I've run engines without ANY full flow oil filter. None ever failed. Its a useless appendage.
Even with a media tear, there is plenty of flow through the media.

Its an engineering defect exasperated by the consumer(OCI's, oil quality, driving style).

PQIA is doing what they can to address oil quality.
And, most consumers are hopeless so we can't fix oil change intervals, oil level issues, driving styles, drunk boyfriends, or whatever.


car engines or do you mean like a forklift? they see very different conditions.
if its useless why do all pressure lubed engines have filters? you believe that metal particles going through the bearings dont increase wear? look at my photos.

 

[aquariuscsm]

Don't know if I missed in in your original post,how many miles was on this oil change?

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: montero1
Have Purolator pay for your motor? Good luck with that.

I suspect they would if there were actual evidence that the Purolator did the damage. In this case, there is merely speculation, done mostly as an intellectual exercise.

 

[raytseng]

You're trying to pin this all on a tear in the filter?

If so, you've got a bootstrap problem.
There's no way the first few particles would snowball effect that is this bad. The first few particles in your thought experiment are still going to get caught up in the media instead of being torn.
In your photo of the filter, there's plenty of particles caught despite the tear, so it's still working and causing no harm.

There's people who run with sludge oil and sand and grit in their oil it doesn't cause an issue, car gets sick but doesn't die.

From what you described, A defect in the bypass valve is a better suspect to lay all the blame, where you have complete oil starvation.

Other more likely possibilities
-wrong oil used or not changed.
-oil pump stopped working for some reason.

Also, are these cars manual transmission? If so, person could have shifted wrong and that's a better suspect as well.

 

[Greasymechtech]

Photos of a self destructed engine does not mean the filter caused the failure. If there was so much wear in the engine, then the filter isn't going to fix it or prevent catastrophic destruction. I believe in unrestricted flow vs. overly restricted filtration. No full flow needed. Bypass is good enough. Oil pump has a screen. And, stainless mesh high-micron full flows work well enough.

If the filter is so great, why does the Z06 Corvette require a initial break-in oil/filter change? It has a filter? Doesn't it work?

Full flow filtration farce

You are trying to blame a failure on a itty bitty tear that might allow some unfiltered oil thru the engine, like the bypass doesn't do that already.

Defective engine or defective owner(most likely)

Whats Honda's defense for the numerous spun bearings? Maybe an engineer that transferred from their Odyssey/Pilot transmission group to the engine group?

 

[Mr Nice]

Originally Posted By: dishdude
Not a chance that tear caused the engine to come apart like that.


Yep, no way a filter tear caused that damage.

 

[Rendezvous]

Originally Posted By: Festiva_Man
Originally Posted By: Inspecktor
That much wear and damage suggests either oil starvation or contamination, then it was run until final failure. Maybe a jealous ex boyfriend added something, or she did- I once saw a high school girl with dad's Lincoln with the hood up at a c-store. She wanted to know if she added oil right. Turns out she added a quart of PYB to the power steering reservoir until it was running all over the ground.

yikes... i once stopped a woman from fueling her gas car up with diesel. some people...
but, contamination is the filters job to remove. when one wear particle gets through it makes another, they each make more, and so on and so on. stop that first one and you prevent the rest from happening and you dont get a plugged up filter. i think some of the bearings did get a bit starved from having so much metal in there. the flakes were pretty big.

Originally Posted By: thorromig
Your just speculating like im going to -- college girl probably let her drunk boyfriend whip the snot & red line that motor till it blew apart after many of attempts to do so. Filter in no way caused that catastrophic damage -- pure speculation on both our parts. Its a dang shame cause Honda motors are known to be quite durable & almost bulletproof as long as you change the oil/filter within a reasonable interval.

yup, i know we both are. and that would cause a connecting rod to break yes. however in this particular engine the bearings got full of metal, spun, then caught and broke the connecting rod. if the filter had filtered out the first metal particles like i mentioned above then it wouldnt have happened for that reason. the engine would still easily have blown apart, just not from the wear particles. thats why even with your senario i think this was caused by the filter. if a good filter had been on it may have only lasted a few minutes longer, but maybe it wouldnt have broke. they do have rev limiters...
and i wouldnt say that this particular generation of civic motors are bulletproof. far far from it in fact. you can say that about other generations of civics, but not the 7th..




I used to work in a machine shop when I was in college and we fixed plenty of motors with bearing issues. Most of these motors were brought to us without being taken apart yet. Some of these motors were brought in before complete failure and some were not but never once did I see an oil filter remove all of the bearing material from the oil. All of these motors had bearing material fused to multiple parts of the engine. The longer the engine was ran the more metal there was. The oil filter didn't cause that engine failure. The engine got hurt and she kept driving it until failure.

 

[slacktide_bitog]

date code?