Removing Wear Particles Makes Sense By-pass Filter

[msparks]

Q & A: Removing Wear Particles Makes Sense

"A customer of ours is using an external engine oil filtration device designed to take out contaminants down to 1- to 3-micron range while not affecting the additive package. The customer now believes he can extend the recommended oil change interval from 250 hours to 1,000 hours. My question is this: if you take out all the normal wear particles, how can you determine or trend the wear in the engine?"

By sampling after the pump and before the filter, we can still see an increased rate of wear generation with oil analysis.

By reducing the background level of wear particles (noise), it is comparatively easier to detect the abnormal generation of wear particles assuming, of course, that the sample is drawn after the pump but before the filter.

You will also need to set alarms carefully, using statistics to derive level limits and rate-of-change limits. The benefit of engine life extension associated with polishing the oil is considerable and will easily warrant some investment to ensure that oil analysis can still the generation of abnormal wear.

I would advise your client to make sure that any decision to extend the oil drain interval is backed up by oil analysis (oil properties, contamination and wear debris monitoring). It is unwise to arbitrarily extend oil drains unless the decision is supported by data. Excessive particle contamination level is just one reason why we may change the oil.

Drew Troyer, Noria Corporationhttp://

 

[ruking77]

It seems to me that hand and glove with bypass oil filters is the use of pre oilers.

The nexus would be the common assertion that: " the majority of engine wear (50-80%) occurs at start up." due to lack of initial lubrication. In addition, the use of conventional or synthetic oils does not change this condition.

So if you "pre oil" the areas subject to cold start wear, this structurally removes the "non lubricated" cold start condition. The engine would not generate near the byproducts given off by "normal" cold start conditions.

To put some hypothetical numbers to this, how about these boundaries?

Say a normal 10,000 mile oil and filter change is done with synthetic oil. If the use of bypass oil filter can extend the oil and filter change the usual 2x, that would be 20,000 miles.

Now with preoilers, this can cut wear and contamination 50-80%. So applying those numbers, we are talking 30,000-36,000 miles between oil changes. Oil analysis of course can/will confirm or deny.

[ December 08, 2004, 01:27 PM: Message edited by: ruking77 ]

 

[Razl]

quote:

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By sampling after the pump and before the filter, we can still see an increased rate of wear generation with oil analysis.

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I find this topic very interesting because I recently installed a bypass on my wife's vehicle. The oil currently has 6,000 miles on it, and I plan to send in a UOA at 10,000 to establish a baseline. My concern, from day one, is that the UOA will not truely show me whether or not I'm really reduced wear in the engine since the installation of the bypass (because the bypass it trapping those 1-3 micron particles).

I'm guessing your example is for a commerical engine, but the proccess should be the same for my engine. So...are you suggesting that a UOA will be able detect the difference in oil taken before the filter and after the filter? How is that possible, given the bypass has been polishing the oil down to 1-3 microns all along?

I find it hard to believe that wear is created at a rate fast enough to detect pre- and post- bypass. Please help, what am I missing?

 

[Gary Allan]

I kinda find this a little hard to digest as well. I would think that your particle level wear metals will be your indicator ...and they are submicronic and should pass right through just about any filter. Now your wear causing larger particles will be filtered (there is a chicken/egg relationship here, so

).

I would think that, under the confines of the above assertion, that pre or post filtered samples are kinda inconsequential to a point. They shouldn't be significantly higher in wear metals (you're in a continum and are just taking a snapshot of one point in a continuous cycle). This would not alter whether one oil performed better than another. Agian in the above example ..the assertion is on the wisdom of service extention of the oil ..not a question of the oil itself. Therefore I'd say that the wear must be tracked ...but the the extended service is merely a function of how well the oil retains its lubircation qualities (flash point, viscosity, TBN, TAN, insolubles, etc.)

(redundancy for clarification)

Suppose I have a compressor that speces ISO 150 fluid branded by the manufacturer. I use it for 250 hours. I sample the wear metals and they are within limits and the lubricant is totally in spec limits as well. I install a bypass filtration system and extend the service duty. I find that the wear metals are on par or below the normal serivce duty ..and the lubricant is still in spec.

Why change it? To replace the lubricant with more in spec fluid???

This would not be the case if I was seeking the "best" lubricant for the application. That is, where one oil may perform better than another.


Any holes to shoot through that???

[ December 08, 2004, 03:29 PM: Message edited by: Gary Allan ]

 

[ruking77]

What I get from this is the bypass oil filter system does any number of things, but 1. it adds more fluid in the sump system for passenger vehicle engines (app 1 qt) 2. it ("bypass oil") filters up to 10% of the oil, per given time, volume and operational frames. 3. it returns the "bypassed filtered oil" or one to three micron cleaned oil to the overall system or sump or top of the inside of a valve cover.

So while I am sure it is much more complicated than my simplification of it, The bypass oil system is basically cleaning up to 10% of the oil and adding it back to the 90% of the rest of the oil performing the critical lubrication function.

I hope this is not vague.

One thing I think is overlooked or not mentioned or even assumed is the role of adding app 1 more quart to a sump system. Not many folks have ever longitudinally tested for the affects/effects of say a sump with 6.5 quarts vs a sump with 7.5 quarts.

So in operative terms: how does 1 quart more or app 13-15% MORE oil affect/effect a 6.5 quart system vs 7.5 quart system? Given say 10,000/20,000 mile oil analysis? But for sure, there is a range of affects/effects.

[ December 08, 2004, 03:57 PM: Message edited by: ruking77 ]

 

[Gary Allan]

quote:

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So in operative terms: how does 1 quart more or app 13-15% MORE oil affect/effect a 6.5 quart system vs 7.5 quart system? Given say 10,000/20,000 mile oil analysis? But for sure, there is a range of affects/effects.

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In my experience ...not much. But let me qualify that. An inferior or ill suited oil may or may not withstand extened OCIs with any filtration whether a larger sump is present or not. Now let's say you have a turbo that you flog regularly ..and your oil temps probably breach the "oil insult" threshold ..then sure ..the increase in sump will distribute that insult over more oil and reduce its impact ..but won't stop it. That is, you're dilluting the insult.

I did a 9-10k UOA on my wife's jeep with M1 xw-30 weight ..and it was marginal to poor ..even with a 9 quart total sump (dual two quart ffs). I went to a bypass (Amsoil BE-110) and had a stellar UOA for over 12.5k with a more suitable oil (Delvac 1). It's capacity was 10.5 quarts.

So capacity alone, outside of certain qualified limitations, won't assure a low wear situation.

 

[msparks]

quote:

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Originally posted by msparks:
Q & A: Removing Wear Particles Makes Sense

By sampling after the pump and before the filter, we can still see an increased rate of wear generation with oil analysis.
[/IMG]

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I don't think this is totally necessary. BTW an oil sample should be representative of the entire system not just one location, unless you are sampling that location for a reason (too see of the pump is defective).

This is the main reason I like to sample from the dipstick tube with a vampire. I think this will get a better overall sample.

BTW, The amsoil system allows you to sample right from the dual remote/dual guard if you install a sampling petcock on one of the ends. It seems to work pretty well too. Though you should be sure to let the oil drain for a few seconds to clean debris or build up from the valve.

 

[ruking77]

For sure, some very good points. But other tests of a known sump (the long test of Mobil One 5w30 vs Amsoil 5w30, see web site) indicate that the addition of both make up oil and oil to keep the sump at 6.5 qt or at the "high end" of the dipstick indicate a "refreshing" of TBN, with far less quantities.

http://neptune.spacebears.com/index.html

While I trust what you say, since you do not mention the numbers which, would allow one to compare, you indicate a min of 24% improvement with the 1.5 quarts AND bypass filter! I would say that you are agreeing with what I am saying. The question remains however what is the effect of that 9.0 sump vs 10.5 sump or 1.5 qt of oil. So one way would be to A/B test 10.5 but with a placebo filter inside bypass element.

Incidently, I do use the Delvac One 5w40 in a TDI application and it is one of the better oils. The oil analysis indications are that 10,000 miles (oem recommended) are very conservative and really can go to 15,000 if not 20,000 per oil change interval This is without the bypass filter system ala "Oil Guard".

[ December 08, 2004, 06:41 PM: Message edited by: ruking77 ]

 

[Gary Allan]

Well, I'll let you look at these
10k on Delvac 9 quart first UOA with intermediate filter changes and topup

and my last one

My last UOA with Delvac 1 and the same setup (BE-110) required 10.5 quart and had no filter changes over 12.5k

ALUMINUM 3
CHROMIUM 1
IRON 18
COPPER 4
LEAD 8
TIN 1
MOLYBDENUM 5
NICKEL 1
MANGANESE 1
SILVER 0
TITANIUM 0
POTASSIUM 0
BORON 14
SILICON 9
SODIUM 1
CALCIUM 2892
MAGNESIUM 523
PHOSPHORUS 1049
ZINC 1261
BARIUM 0

SUS@210: 76.3
Flash: 375
Fuel: 1%
Antifreeze: 0
Water: 0
Insolubles: .3

I don't have a standard sump UOA to show you ..so

As you can see ...a large sump (first UOA) did not a good UOA make ..even with an expensive synthetic. But if oil selection is approprate, a larger sump surely can extend service intervals. A bypass, exspecially one requiring so infrequent service as a BE110 (tp and pt is much too often for me) would help facilitate this ..or so I believe.

I'm currently doing a 10-12k run on Rotella synth with the standard filtration (all my extra capaicy was in filters). It would have been proper to do one more run on Delvac 1 with out the fancy hardware ...but the stuff is just too hard to get and so expen$ive compared to Rotella. I only have to make 7500 in comparative mileage to yield the same costs. Delvac could proably have gone 1 year. Maybe Rotella can as well.


The whole debate about the propriety or necessity of bypass filtration in a modern engine will probably never be answered. I tend to feel that, whether necessary or not, the systems offered are of benefit. The amount is the only thing in question.

I gotta get me one of those vampire pumps.

 

[oldman]

I gotta get me one of those vampire pumps.

Blackstone sells a very nice pump as well. $25.