Who was it who mentioned Fram oil filters and dropping oil pressure?

Here is that link.. Interesting, but not definitive.

I have been there before, but at $12 per paper, I didnt go any further.

Especially when you do a little research on the "winner" of that test, Motor Latte.

?t=99

You can find a number of items which will give spectacular test numbers on this kind of lubricity unit. Whether they do anything at all inside an engine, and whether they promote longer and more trouble free engine life is quite another thing.

I always harp on wanting to see hard data. For something to be of value and interest, it needs to be tested under relevant protocols, over a variety of conditions, and with enough population in the test set to assure that the data is significant.

I have to update my kill file on Mike Hunter frequently. He trolls with unbaited hooks.

The feds didnt say that the product didnt work. They said that Slick 50 was making claims they they could not substantiate. Not false claims, but unsubstantiated claims. There IS a difference.

I have seen no hard data that shows conclusively that Slick 50 does anything worthwhile.

That is not the way I heard it. All the testing that I have read does show that slick 50 reduces engine friction. That means you can get better gas mileage (something like 3% better IIRC). The problem is that all the long term testing done on slick 50 also showed that it reduces engine life. That is a paradox that is not completely understood (there are plenty of theories). Some of the testing showed that using slick 50 can shorten the life of an engine by as much as half. The advertising for slick 50 either implied or directly stated that the reduced friction would result in less wear and therefore longer engine life, but that conclusion was a pure leap of faith that wasn't ever supported by any evidence.

-jim

I dont doubt that it might show some friction reduction. It WILL burnish into metal surfaces, of that I am positive. But I have seen no data at this point that would convince me that it is either a good or a bad product.

Quaker state still markets it. Their current claim appears to be:

"reconditions engine parts and gives your engine staying power, keeping your engine performing at it best"

This thread started by raising the question "is an oil pressure problem due to Fram oil filter?". Later on it was revealed the ownwr of the engine was also getting regular slick 50 wallet flushes. But of course that has nothing to do with the oil pressure issue.

-jim

nothing to go on but fairy tales and superstition.

I know of one real world example where we use silicone rubber instead of anything else.

We use respiratory protection occasionally at work, and when you have somebody with a problem getting a good seal with regular rubber respirators, you put the silicone one on and get a good seal. The stuff is much softer and pliable and fits irregularities much better. Don't know if any of this applies in an oil filter but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.

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Yup good example of the very foolish logic that is behind the internet folklore.

I have watched this thread for a while and opinions are being based on hearsay, wife's tails and rumor. In the end your questions can only be answered with investigation and the associated tests. I personally do this from time to time. Once is not enough, as the filter market continually evolves. So let me offer the results of my testing.

There is a huge difference from one filter to another. Those differences are particulate size that the filter traps, the amount of internal resistance of the filtration process in pressure drop across the filter and lastly, particulate trapping capacity. In all these cases, size matters. The larger the better. Please notice that I did not mention a valve, because very few have them at all. If they do, it is a band aid in engine design, as is the use of these small filters. Filter size is primarily driven by available space. Today, in almost all cases, the filter is of the full flow variety, as opposed to the older bypass variety. The oil pump will have an overpressure valve that will lift when the spring pressure behind the bleed ball in exceeded. All full flow filter installations also have a similar valve parallel to the filter. That valve will allow oil to flow around the filter when the differential pressure across the filter exceeds the design value ensuring adequate oil flow when the filter is full of particulate or the viscosity of the oil is too high. Please note there is no warning light that your engine is no longer being protected by the filter. Please be aware of the fact that automotive oil has additives that keep any particulate in suspension in order to allow the filter to remove them. Please consider in that light how important pressure drop as a consideration it in filter choice. Now the wife's tail, drainback is unavoidable. Every customer of the oil galleries will drain the galleries in the absence of resupply. 90% of all engine wear occurs during startup due to the lag from pump start to delivery at the customer interface. Just because you observe oil pressure doesn't mean there is full lubrication. This is especially evident in cold weather when the viscosity of the oil raises observed oil pressure, but with sometimes drastically reduced flow. The next time you see an industrial engine (100% duty cycle) look at the oil filter. You will very often see as many as 4 huge units. There is a reason. A pressure gauge or a light only tells two things, the pump is running and there is resistance to flow. Everything else must be assumed. Large expensive engines use electric pre-lube pumps to address this issue. The larger the engine, the longer this lag is.

So as an average user, how do we use this new found knowledge.

1) Use the largest filter you can fit rated for, at the most, 20 micron. 2) Use the lowest possible viscosity oil allowed by the manufacturer regardless of startup engine noise. Remember it's all about flow, not pressure. 3) Never disable the thermostat, oil temperature 200 degree F or 90 C is critical in vaporizing internal engine condensation. Water will combine with residual sulfur creating Sulfuric Acid, which corrodes the oil creating sludge. 4) Change the oil frequently. More so in the winter. High tech synthetics do NOT reduce this requirement. This is especially true with small filters, cold temperatures and short trips. Remember oil filters filter. They do not recondition the oil. The additive package is consumed over time and acid buildup is unavoidable. 5) Always allow the engine to run at least 2 minutes before applying load. Steve

"Scott" wrote in message news:hh0m1k$1v8s$ snipped-for-privacy@adenine.netfront.net...

news:06KdnQunFLYeyLvWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@bright.net...

I am sure "wive's tails" have settled many a discussion, but in this case, I think "old wive's tales" would be more appropriate ;>)

hearsay, wife's tails and rumor. In the end your questions

do this from time to time. Once is not enough, as

particulate size that the filter traps, the amount of

filter and lastly, particulate trapping capacity. In all

mention a valve, because very few have them at all.

filters. Filter size is primarily driven by available

opposed to the older bypass variety. The oil pump

the bleed ball in exceeded. All full flow filter

will allow oil to flow around the filter when the

adequate oil flow when the filter is full of particulate

that your engine is no longer being protected by

keep any particulate in suspension in order to

No this is not accurate. Modern oils have additives that keep particles that are *too small* for the oil filter to remove in suspension. Those tiny particles are mostly soot (carbon compounds from combustion). IF those oil additives become depleted that is when bad things start to happen to engines due to lubrication failure. When the additives are used up the fine particles that usually do no harm to the engine start to get sticky. They stick to each other and they stick to engine parts. When they stick to themselves they become larger particles that plug up the oil filter. And oil analysis won't help much when this happens. Oil analysis does not typically reveal depleted additives. And since the dirt is precipitating out of the oil and is no longer in the oil to be analyzed, the oil analysis does not reveal how dirty your engine has become. This is really the only scenario that any motor vehicle owner might run into a problem that will cause a modern engine to fail due to lubrication inadequacy. Everything else that people consider important to know about oil and filters is pretty much irrelevant, because for most modern engines it matters very little whether the engine will last for 200-700K miles beyond the point where the rest of the car is junk.

If you are running a racing engine you might want to be concerned with pressure drop. If you are driving a typical motor vehicle then use the engine manufactures specifications for oil and filter and that will take care of everything related to pressure drop. Of course if the filter gets plugged then pressure drop does become a real issue. But if you are following the recommended maintenance the oil filter should come no where close to being plugged. Just because the guy who started this thread had a plugged filter doesn't mean the rest of the world does.

pump start to delivery at the customer interface. Just

Drain back of the oil contained in the filter is definitely avoidable. And in many engines allowing air to flow back into the filter can also eventually get air into the oil pump. However on a well maintained engine it is extremely unlikely this will ever be a problem. If you use a filter that meets OEM specs and keep the engine in good working order the engine will outlast the rest of the car. About the only thing that causes any valve in the lubricating system to fail is dirt. These valves are not complicated parts that are difficult to produce. Manufacturing defects are extremely remote causes of failure. If there is a failure with the drain back valve or pressure regulator or by-pass valve you can be quite sure the problem originates with the engine and not the filter. If there is a problem with the drain back valve anyone who immediately leaps to the conclusion that the oil filter is at fault is nuts. Dirt can cause valves in the lubricating system to stick open or stick closed or fail to seat properly. Valves that prevent back flow will hold oil from flowing back to the pan for months in an engine if the oil isn't over-loaded with dirt. And if the engine is maintained so that it isn't overloaded with dirt you won't need to worry about how much wear occurs at start up - the engine will be lasting much longer than the rest of the car anyway.

The reason is economics. there is no good economic reason to make a car engine last as long as it would if it were used as a stationary power plant. I knew a guy who ran a sawmill using a GMC truck 409 engine as a power plant. He used the same engine for 25 years until he retired around 1990. That engine probably had the equivalent of 1.5 million miles on it. And yes he had added a monstrous oil pan and a monstrous by-pass filter as well as the stock full flow filter. It held about 4 gallons of oil. But what would be the point in doing something like that on a passenger car? Do you know what lengths you would need to go to make the rest of your car last 1.5 million miles?

To address what issue? There is no issue with regard to lubrication to be addressed with the typical modern automobile.

What new found knowledge?

That is horrible advice. If your car has a warranty and you decide to use a filter that does not meet the manufacturers specs it will void your warranty.

If the car is out of warranty you are still better off using a filter that meets OEM specs. The possible unintended consequences of trying to out-guess the design engineers are numerous. There are a few well known examples where you can substitute a larger more heavier duty version of a filter. But still that strategy is just another example of internet folklore type foolishness. It is foolish to attempt to store dirt inside your engine. Bigger and more expensive filters and more expensive oil and oil analysis are usually just extravagant procedures for storing more dirt for a longer period inside the engine crankcase. Using the cheapest filter and oil and leaving the dirt at your local recycling center at the recommended intervals instead of attempting long term storage strategies inside the crankcase is a far more foolproof way of addressing the problem of engine dirt. If what you want is some extra peace of mind then use the manufacturers "severe duty" recommendations.

-jim

wife's tails and rumor. In the end your questions

do this from time to time. Once is not enough, as

particulate size that the filter traps, the amount of

filter and lastly, particulate trapping capacity. In all

mention a valve, because very few have them at all.

filters. Filter size is primarily driven by available

opposed to the older bypass variety. The oil pump

the bleed ball in exceeded. All full flow filter

Show me a currently available (in north america) engine that has the filter bypass (parallel to the filter) implemented IN the engine instead of in the filter. If you can find one, it is the exception rather than the rule.

adequate oil flow when the filter is full of particulate

that your engine is no longer being protected by

keep any particulate in suspension in order to

pressure drop as a consideration it in filter choice.

galleries will drain the galleries in the absence of

start to delivery at the customer interface. Just

is especially evident in cold weather when the

drastically reduced flow. The next time you see an

see as many as 4 huge units. There is a reason. A

is resistance to flow. Everything else must be

issue. The larger the engine, the longer this lag is.

Electric pre-lube is still reserved for very expensive mission critical applications, on the whole. The ideal would be for EVERY engine to have either an accumualtor or electric pre-lube system.

And I'll still dissagree about using the lowest viscosity oil possible. You want an oil with a low enough "pour point" and viscosity to allow the oil to flow adequately at the lowest commonly occuring pressure, but there is still such a thing as "too thin"

of startup engine noise. Remember it's all about

critical in vaporizing internal engine condensation.

the oil creating sludge.

NOT reduce this requirement. This is especially true

filter. They do not recondition the oil. The additive

Before applying FULL load, for sure - but 15 seconds after startup it is completely safe to put the vehicle in gear and pull away in a "normal" manner.

hearsay, wife's tails and rumor. In the end your questions

personally do this from time to time. Once is not enough, as

particulate size that the filter traps, the amount of

filter and lastly, particulate trapping capacity. In all

not mention a valve, because very few have them at all.

filters. Filter size is primarily driven by available

opposed to the older bypass variety. The oil pump

behind the bleed ball in exceeded. All full flow filter

will allow oil to flow around the filter when the

adequate oil flow when the filter is full of particulate

light that your engine is no longer being protected by

that keep any particulate in suspension in order to

pump start to delivery at the customer interface. Just

ACTUALLY

And heat, and certain chemicals (such as acid buildup or incompatible fuel or oil additives)

Except several manufacturers, ford included, have, on certain engines, stipulated that filters with silicone rubber drainback valves are REQUIRED. Nitrile and other formulations of "rubber" can and do fail to provide an adequate seal in some applications.

So why did Ford see fit to use a six quart oil capacity on the 2.5 liter Duratec engine? When a lot of larger engines get by on 4 liters???

More accurately, what is the issue with startup lubrication on an engine with 100% duty cycle? They NEVER shut down - oil is changed "on the run" and there is no such thing as a dry start.

However, EVERY TIME an auto engine is started, the POSSIBILITY of a dry start exists.

There ARE oversized filters, however, that DO meet the manufacturer's specs, and the extra (up to a liter of) oil helps reduce operating temperatures as well.

WHich the vast majority of operation actually DOES fall into.

My recommendation over the last 40 some years has been somewhere between. Don't waste money on "the best oil mony can buy" and don't penny pinch by leaving said oil in the engine too long. Use GOOD oil and change it just a little oftener than you would say is NECESSARY. And use a decent filter. On some engine designs, the quality of the filter is more important than on others, and if two filters have been spec'd/supplied for a given engine (and they sell for the same price, which is very common) install the larger of them that fits.

If there seams to be evidence pointing to a certain filter possibly being of inferior quality, it only makes sense to avoid the use of that filter if possible, particularly when the quality filter is readily available at substantially the same price.

I never buy the cheapest or the most expensive of ANYTHING if there are 3 or more choices.

snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca wrote: .

Right I should have said in a properly working engine about the only thing that causes any valve in the lubricating system to fail is dirt.

there are many ways to make an engine not work properly the will cause the oil to be contaminated or degraded.

AFAIK ford has never offered any evidence that supports this claim. In the USA Ford cannot deny a warranty claim based on a superstitious belief that a particular material fails to meet performance specs. If you or Ford motors have any evidence that supports that claim I would like to see it.

Probably because they were concerned that customers might not keep the oil sufficiently clean if it held a smaller amount.

So where is your evidence that this is an issue that shortens the life of an engine? You just keep tossing in more babbling superstitious beliefs that are not supported by any evidence. Cold starts are an issue in the frozen North. But there is no evidence they shorten engine life. What eventually shortens the life of most cars in the north is road salt. Many people refer to the SAE studies where they concluded that most of the wear occurs on engine start-up. Is there any place where the SAE said the evidence of wear they identified will make any difference to the life span of the average auto engine? The study did not conclude that the ADBV valve or brand of filter or brand of oil plays any role at all in causing wear or shortening the life of an engine. Those conclusions did not come from the SAE, but have been arrived at only wild leaps of faith made by the superstitious.

maybe so. It depends on who, what and where the car is driven.

That is fine. I personally don't much like cooked carrots. It is one thing to state personal preferences and it's another to claim (without any evidence at all to support it) that following your preference is going to make any difference.

-jim

Or at least that is what the superstitious believed. If an engine that has been hammering a rod for 100000 miles because the timing was set too advanced and it finally lets loose one cold morning that doesn't mean there was a problem with lack of lubrication. Only the superstitious would think of it that way.

Does no one do any "start and stop driving" any more?

Urban

Are you talking about the 1930's? Yes a few engines did wear out extremely fast back years ago but what has changed is not the way "granny" drives. She still starts the car once or twice a week and drives a mile ot two at the most. What has changed significantly is the amount of raw fuel she dumps into her cylinders during those short trips. Engines warm up much faster today in part because the engine is actually efficiently burning almost all the fuel even at start up with very cold temps. And if your interested in SAE tests take a look at the tests that show how much relatively small changes in ignition timing and air fuel ratio will contribute to engine wear.

Your living in the past. Your completely wrong about the same destructive forces being still at work. Today engines are run with precise ignition timing and precise fuel delivery and that has reduced the destructive forces to the point where ring and bearing wear is no longer much of an issue in the life span of passenger car engines. Even people who change their oil very infrequently don't end up with the mosquito fogger that a lot of cars turned into years ago. Back 40-50 years ago many engines had more ring, cylinder and bearing wear after

10,000 miles than almost any modern engine has after 100,000. And the people who think oil and metallurgy explains that are badly mistaken. You can take a modern engine and change the engine management system so that spark and fuel delivery matches the same level of inaccuracy that cars had back then (back then it was particularly inaccurate on a cold starting engine) and guess what the engines will wear out just like they did back then. Modern metallurgy and modern oil won't save an engine from the destructive forces that result from imprecise fuel and spark management.

My eyes are brown and you are putting your faith in tests that were done 50 years ago. Nobody in the SAE is even anymore interested in those early engine wear tests that were done on carbureted engines. Those studies have become irrelevant today. Most of the the modern testing revolves around how to minimize the amount of lubricant needed over the life of an engine. Even with many cold starts included in the test protocol it has been shown that engines can go 10-15k without showing any significant increase in wear or shortening of engine life. That is not to say there aren't people who neglect their engine and are capable of engine failure related to lubrication failures. It is still possible to get to the point where an engine's oil filter gets so completely stuffed full that no oil can get through - not even through the by-pass. And then typically the center tube will collapse and all that tightly packed in crud and probably some filter parts too get suddenly pushed into the engine oil galley. And of course, anyone who has done this to their engine will tell you the cause of the catastrophic failure was incorrect filter selection.

And this story was presented in order to prove what?