Larger Filters? Good or bad?

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Originally Posted By: Nate1979
Originally Posted By: geeman789
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Yes I am aware of that but the oil filter with the high spec is the common filter used on 100s of engines. I can't believe that they all have high flow oil pumps.

Quite a few Mazda, Kias and Hyundais use this filter. Could it be the filter is so restrictive that it needs the higher setting?


Perhaps someone could define "high flow..." oil pumps ? Given the near identical nature of the lubrication system in virtually every new engine, does one engine oil pump really move dramatically more oil...? Or are we talking about a similar range, something like 6 - 8 gpm or similar. Does anyone have any actual numbers...

I own a Subaru, which is rumoured to have a high flow oil pump, and specs a 23 psi by-pass oil filter. But nothing I've seen confirms this with any data.


Here is a thread to keep you busy for a few days:
https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1410171#Post1410171


I got through a couple pages. Was there ever a consensus?

The SHO motors took thr Motorcrsft FL-400A FWIW.
 
If a larger filter was specified for the engine, but perhaps in a different service requirement (the various 350 Chevy configurations come to mind), it will not cause any problems--unless a larger filter puts it in harm's way such as extending too far below the engine for example. However, based upon the fact that oil filter sizes have trended downward while engine life has increased through the years, it can be questionable whether or not anything is actually gained.

These days there are so many differences in bypasses, threads, ADBV, and the like, it is harder to find a larger filter that is correct for the engine and you also have to consider the warranty (if that is in effect). The PL14610 and PL14612 are two for fairly late models that are good examples of "same but larger". I am not sure there is a cross reference that names filter size exchanges, but the specifications in a cross reference will allow you to compare the important parts. Good luck!
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
....I have a Hyundai 2L turbo now and it will put out near 90 lbs at redline on hot 0w40 oil with 30 lbs at idle. This is the car that I switched filters on. Can't say as there has been any issue. Have yet to cut the Wix open though to compare the filter media to the OEM Hyundai filter.

I would cut the Wix filter and your Hyundai filter open to see if the filter media is the same in both filters. On the Honda S2000, the Wix filter media is about 20% to 25% shorter in height compared to the Honda S2000 oil filter. The cans were the same size but what was inside was not. If you want pic's I'll post them.

ROD
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
I use to have a Taurus SHO with the Yamaha v6 motor. They were suppose to have a high volume low pressure system. Don't really know the pressures they ran but the engines did suffer from rod bearing wear and then the oil pressure light would come on at hot idle at under 100k mile.

I have a Hyundai 2L turbo now and it will put out near 90 lbs at redline on hot 0w40 oil with 30 lbs at idle. This is the car that I switched filters on. Can't say as there has been any issue. Have yet to cut the Wix open though to compare the filter media to the OEM Hyundai filter.


SHOZ, your comment is a good one to lead into some info that will help people understand a typical oiling system.

It's possible to have high oil pressure and low volume, and it's also possible to have low oil pressure and high volume.

The oil pressure you see is a function of the combination of the oil pump's output volume and the total flow resistance of the oiling system. Most engine designers try to find a happy median between those two cases.

Assuming the flow resistance of the oiling system remains constant, then the following theoretically holds true for an oiling system with a positive displacement oil pump. I've seen and measured these parameters on my Vette which as digital oil pressure and oil temperature gauges.

1) With a constant temperature & viscosity oil, as the flow volume increases, so does the oil pressure. And as the flow volume decreased so does the pressure. This is why the oil pressure gauge goes up with increased RPM and down with deceased RPM.

2) With a constant RPM, as the oil temperature & viscosity goes up, so does the oil pressure. And as the oil viscosity goes down, so does the oil pressure.

3) High oil viscosity along with high RPM will typically cause the oil pump's pressure relief valve to open, and the oil pump output pressure will ideally be held constant (ie, typically around 80~90 PSI for most cars/trucks). Typically, it is hard to make an oil pump hit pressure relief with fully hot oil (200+ deg F).

4) The pressure drop across an oil filter (ie, DP = Delta-P) is only a function of the oil temperature & viscosity and oil volume going through the filter ... not a function of the engine's oil pressure seen on the dash gauge. The flow resistance of an oil filter is typically only 1/15th that of the engine's oiling circuit.

5) Due to item 4), it's possible to have a large DP across a filter and not have much oil pressure on the dash gauge. Filter DP could be high on an engine with lots of GPM out of the pump, but not much resistance in the engine's oiling circuit.

6) When the oil pump goes into pressure relief mode, that is the only time you would ever see a change in the engine's oil pressure due to one oil filter being more flow restrictive than another.
 
Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
I use to have a Taurus SHO with the Yamaha v6 motor. They were suppose to have a high volume low pressure system. Don't really know the pressures they ran but the engines did suffer from rod bearing wear and then the oil pressure light would come on at hot idle at under 100k mile.

I have a Hyundai 2L turbo now and it will put out near 90 lbs at redline on hot 0w40 oil with 30 lbs at idle. This is the car that I switched filters on. Can't say as there has been any issue. Have yet to cut the Wix open though to compare the filter media to the OEM Hyundai filter.


SHOZ, your comment is a good one to lead into some info that will help people understand a typical oiling system.

It's possible to have high oil pressure and low volume, and it's also possible to have low oil pressure and high volume.

The oil pressure you see is a function of the combination of the oil pump's output volume and the total flow resistance of the oiling system. Most engine designers try to find a happy median between those two cases.

Assuming the flow resistance of the oiling system remains constant, then the following theoretically holds true for an oiling system with a positive displacement oil pump. I've seen and measured these parameters on my Vette which as digital oil pressure and oil temperature gauges.

1) With a constant temperature & viscosity oil, as the flow volume increases, so does the oil pressure. And as the flow volume decreased so does the pressure. This is why the oil pressure gauge goes up with increased RPM and down with deceased RPM.

2) With a constant RPM, as the oil temperature & viscosity goes up, so does the oil pressure. And as the oil viscosity goes down, so does the oil pressure.

3) High oil viscosity along with high RPM will typically cause the oil pump's pressure relief valve to open, and the oil pump output pressure will ideally be held constant (ie, typically around 80~90 PSI for most cars/trucks). Typically, it is hard to make an oil pump hit pressure relief with fully hot oil (200+ deg F).

4) The pressure drop across an oil filter (ie, DP = Delta-P) is only a function of the oil temperature & viscosity and oil volume going through the filter ... not a function of the engine's oil pressure seen on the dash gauge. The flow resistance of an oil filter is typically only 1/15th that of the engine's oiling circuit.

5) Due to item 4), it's possible to have a large DP across a filter and not have much oil pressure on the dash gauge. Filter DP could be high on an engine with lots of GPM out of the pump, but not much resistance in the engine's oiling circuit.

6) When the oil pump goes into pressure relief mode, that is the only time you would ever see a change in the engine's oil pressure due to one oil filter being more flow restrictive than another.



With reference to item #6 Since going to the Wix filter I use I do see higher pressure at maximum rpm. The engine does have very cold pressure ant lower rpms and does tops out around 90 lbs. When hot and 7200 rpms it also hits the 90 lbs. Typical cold oil idle pressure is over 50 lbs and when hot it idles around 25-30 lbs.

I'm really not too worried about it going into bypass myself with the Wix and the lower bypass setting..

Unfortunately I have no specs on the oil pump.
 
Originally Posted By: danthaman1980


I certainly understand your logic here, and in fact I was not figuring the pressure relief valve into my thinking. So in fact, when the pressure between the pump and filter media is below the pressure relief valve setting, the pump can be treated as 'positive displacement', minus any slip - so the volume of oil delivered through the filter per engine revolution will be fairly constant. But when relief valve pressure is exceeded, the pump will deliver the relief valve pressure to the filter - but in that case, the volume of oil flowing through the filter is difficult to calculate because some excess volume is being bled off through the pressure relief valve.

If that is the case, isn't that a positive argument for a larger/less restrictive filter? In that case, during the relief event, the inlet pressure would be fairly constant and a filter with less delta P across the media would flow more oil across the media during the relief event???

When everything is 'normal', the pump should deliver a fairly constant volume (per revolution) through the filter - minus pumping losses due to slip - but as has been stated, the filter is designed to be less restrictive than the oiling system. (I'm still not sure how to rationalize this, since there are multiple paths within the oiling system, and different parts of the oiling system will exhibit differences in relative restrictiveness. Said a different way, if you could increase the volume of oil going through the filter at a given RPM, the increase in delivery of oil to each component is not necessarily proportional - some will see more of an increase in flow since the restriction through that part of the system is lower.)

Anyway, one last thought - in your 'orange can' example, the bypass valve would be flowing some amount of oil, so the engine would not be completely starved of oil pressure... I guess whether or not the engine would starve for adequate pressure would be a function of how much oil can flow through the bypass. Does that sound right?


I think that pretty well sums it up. I have actually had a filter do the "orange can" trick on one of my engines (yes, it was in fact an orange can filter....) back in the 80s. The symptom was dramatically lower indicated oil pressure than normal for a given RPM, and it would never reach its normal max pressure. Yes, the filter bypass valve was opening (at least a little bit, I think it may have been binding because of all the crushing of the media), but the pump was just opening the upstream pressure relief valve. The downstream flow coming out of the filter was drastically reduced, and so the back-pressure generated by the bearing clearances was much lower than normal.
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix

6) When the oil pump goes into pressure relief mode, that is the only time you would ever see a change in the engine's oil pressure due to one oil filter being more flow restrictive than another.


With reference to item #6 Since going to the Wix filter I use I do see higher pressure at maximum rpm. The engine does have very cold pressure ant lower rpms and does tops out around 90 lbs. When hot and 7200 rpms it also hits the 90 lbs. Typical cold oil idle pressure is over 50 lbs and when hot it idles around 25-30 lbs.

I'm really not too worried about it going into bypass myself with the Wix and the lower bypass setting..

Unfortunately I have no specs on the oil pump.


If you are still able to achieve around 90 PSI at high RPM with hot oil, then your oil pump is putting out some pretty good oil flow.

Since you see a little less oil pressure at very high RPM with hot oil with the WIX, then that means the WIX is a little more flow restrictive than the previous filter was. If it's just a few PSI difference, then IMO it's nothing to really worry about.
 
DoubleWasp said:
4. The fact that a larger filter is frequently beneficial is beyond debate. Many times you'll find the exact same engine gets one filter in its car application, a larger filter in its truck application, and an even larger filter in its commercial/heavy duty application.

The filters "speced" for the small block Chevy are a prime example. Cars got a PF25 & pickups used a PF35.
Click to expand...
 
The 2014 Silverado 2500HD w/ a 6L uses the small PF48 while the 2014 Silverado w/ the 5.3L uses the long PF63.

Any ideas why the egineers would specify 2 different filters for basically the same motor in very similar placements? I've got a 2011 2500HD & there definitely isn't any clearance issues.
 
G37's OEM size is M1-108 which is the undersized version of M1-110. The GTR uses M1-110. Why would Nissan specify larger version for the GTR?
 
I haven't read all of the posts in this thread...and I'm not going to.
But I do have one scenario that I've always thought about that COULD happen and for that one, single reason, I normally don't run a larger filter than what the oil manufacturer's catalog recommends.
Okay, here's the scenario: Joe Blow buys a car (factory warranty has expired, BTW) and goes to change his oil. He looks at the Framolatorwix catalog and doesn't like what the factory recommends because he thinks the filter is too small. So Joe buys a larger filter with the same specs as the smaller filter (everything is the same between the two filters EXCEPT the larger filter is just larger...and has a different part number)
Joe buys the larger filter, installs it on his car and runs with it. A week (a month, a year, whatever...) later, the filter destroys the engine because of a MANUFACTURER'S defect. (Hey, it could happen) Joe now takes the defective filter and tries to get a new engine paid for from the oil filter manufacturer, in this case, Framolatorwix. Framolatorwix will not pay for his new engine because Joe Blow did not use the filter that was specified in the filter catalog. Joe Blow sues Framolatorwix in court.
Now I'm not a lawyer, but who do you think would win this court case?
For that reason, I normally will not run a filter on an engine that is not specified by the manufacturer. Exceptions would be a lawn mower or some old daily driver of a car that has paid for itself many times over.
 
^^^ I imaging the scenario you describe above could go down as you described, as I'm sure filter maker XYZ would argue the customer used a filter that was not specified by them.

But on the other hand, if you had engineering proof that using that filter should not be a problem (because all the specs are the same except for the physical size), then the only conclusion would be that the filter did indeed have a manufacturing flaw that ultimately caused an engine failure, and that flaw would have occurred even it if was installed on the engine(s) it was specified for. It would be an interesting law suit/court case.
 
Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix


But on the other hand, if you had engineering proof that using that filter should not be a problem.....


Uh, huh.
A single person armed with this so-called proof against a mega-conglomerate company's lawyer arsenal.
Yea, that happens all the time!
 
Originally Posted By: Kruse
Uh, huh.
A single person armed with this so-called proof against a mega-conglomerate company's lawyer arsenal.
Yea, that happens all the time!


Yes, I hear what you're saying. However, it really doesn't take a genius in engineering to realize just using a physically larger oil filter is going to cause a failure when all the other specs are exactly the same. In fact, using a larger oil filter should decrease the stress on the media because the delta-p across the element will be less with more surface area. Putting a much smaller filter on an engine specifying a larger filter would pose more risk.
 
^^^^But the geniuses in engineering don't serve on the jury pool do they? And should a company have to pay money for an oil filter application that they clearly recommend against?
Anyway, about 20 years ago, my wife served on the jury in a trial where a man was charged with the attempted shooting of a police officer. To make a long story short, the guy pulled a gun on a police officer and then the police officer shot him. The wounds were (obviously) not fatal and the guy was in jail from the time he was arrested until the time of the trial. He took the stand in his own defense and the prosecuting attorney completely shredded any and all lies that the defendant told on the witness stand.
When it came time to jury to decide his fate, the vote was 10-2 in favor of a "not guilty" vote. My wife and the jury foreperson were the only two people who voted "guilty".
When the 10 people were asked why they voted "not guilty", they said that the defendant was innocent because he said that he was innocent under oath and that a person couldn't lie on the witness stand when he was sworn to tell the truth.
The 10 people finally changed their votes to "guilty", but it took a total of three days of them looking at the evidence again before they all agreed that the defendant was guilty.
Do you see my confidence in our judicial system and how the jury could be swayed by a big-time lawyer?
 
Originally Posted By: Kruse
^^^^But the geniuses in engineering don't serve on the jury pool do they? And should a company have to pay money for an oil filter application that they clearly recommend against?


Like I said before, if the filter was going to fail regardless of the engine it was installed on because of a defect, then yes the company should pay for the damage.

But yes, I agree said company would surely try to weasel out of payment on the stipulation that the "wrong" oil filter was used.

Personally I'm not too worried about using an over-sized filter, and will take my chances. Even if the right oil filter did fail and cause damage, it still might be a hard case to win and would need solid evidence the filter was at fault. In any case, if a motor blows up, never ever cut open the oil filter yourself. Have it done and documented by someone where the evidence will stand up in court.
 
Originally Posted By: Kruse
I haven't read all of the posts in this thread...and I'm not going to.
But I do have one scenario that I've always thought about that COULD happen and for that one, single reason, I normally don't run a larger filter than what the oil manufacturer's catalog recommends.
Okay, here's the scenario: Joe Blow buys a car (factory warranty has expired, BTW) and goes to change his oil. He looks at the Framolatorwix catalog and doesn't like what the factory recommends because he thinks the filter is too small. So Joe buys a larger filter with the same specs as the smaller filter (everything is the same between the two filters EXCEPT the larger filter is just larger...and has a different part number)
Joe buys the larger filter, installs it on his car and runs with it. A week (a month, a year, whatever...) later, the filter destroys the engine because of a MANUFACTURER'S defect. (Hey, it could happen) Joe now takes the defective filter and tries to get a new engine paid for from the oil filter manufacturer, in this case, Framolatorwix. Framolatorwix will not pay for his new engine because Joe Blow did not use the filter that was specified in the filter catalog. Joe Blow sues Framolatorwix in court.
Now I'm not a lawyer, but who do you think would win this court case?
For that reason, I normally will not run a filter on an engine that is not specified by the manufacturer. Exceptions would be a lawn mower or some old daily driver of a car that has paid for itself many times over.

It's not going to happen to you, 99.999%. If your engine destroyed itself one day, you would have a hard time proving it was an oil filters fault, to yourself, let alone fight it in court.
On my lawn mower that uses 0.7 qts of oil with the filter, I use the same size as original, which happens to be the same size as my cars OE size. The issue of oil capacity and how much the filters hold is more critical when it holds 0.7 qts total.
 
Originally Posted By: redbone3
If the bigger filter has the same specifications and fits without interference there is no downside.


That's not what I've heard.

I've spoken to Fram and Purolator about this very topic, and they both agreed; if you ever have a problem with your motor that relates to the oil filter, they will take absolutely no responsibility ($$$) because you did not use the correct filter for your vehicle.

Ed
 
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