TLVR

Everybody is interested in top quality oil filters for their TL for obvious reasons. Now and then we hear from experts who report back on their evaluations after cutting open various brands. We hear about various qualities of pleated filter material etc. But why is there no cut and dry micron rating? On AC house filters and water purification filters their industry uses micron ratings which really helps guide the consumer better. Would a 5 micron oil filter provide better protection than a 20 micron one?? What size particles would damage an engine? Love to hear from our experienced crew like Road Rage and others on this matter. Help clarify this for us neophytes!! Also there has been talk that the factoryPLM AO1 and PCX 004 are to be preferred over the Fram produced AO2?! Can you shed some light on this.Thanks again. We will be indebted. Regards
TLVR

Road Rage

An interesting question.
Micron rating would not tell the whole story, and generally, all mfrs refrain from giving info to an ignorant audience. I mean ignorant in the true sense of the word, not the slang. For instance, would you buy a filter rated for 5 mics over one rated for 6? I would not, without a lot more info. Flow rate, the performance of the bypass over the entire RPM of the engine, the ability of the filter to catch dirt in the first pass vs. subsequent passes, the surface area of the filter medium, the resistance to fracture of the filter medium, the burst strength of the filter case - all these figure into a filter's performance.

Oil is generally not marketed on its performance attributes either. Can you see an ad from the Super Bowl that says "Brand XYZ scored 231 on the TFOUT test!" since only a handful of people here know what that means? Or that another oil has "the highest flash point"? To most people ignorant of oil performance attributes, that might sound bad, and even scary.

The analogy to a water filter is valid, but there are many otherfactors that affect one's choice in a water filter. One obvious one is the filter's ability to filter chlorine, or just particulates? It could filter down to 1 micron, but not allow enough flow to have a decent shower experience. And it could let through all sorts of chlorines. So which is better?

So, the oil filter mfrs. would need to do a lot of education to even begin to get an ROI on their advertising that deals with the performance metrics. What good is a "filters to 5 microns" claim if the audience says "what's a micron?" and goes elsewhere? It might even scare people away.

5 microns is too small to hurt an engine anyway. That is territory for the Amsoil bypass oil filter, which adds IMO unnecessary complexity, expense, and provides unsubstantiated benefit. Tiny dirt particles do not do serious engine wear, although they might proive beneficial for OTR vehciles that measure service life in the MILLIONS of miles. That applies to few or any of us.

The Honda filter, any of the Purolators, Motorcrafts, etc. are more than good enough for any practical use of the vehicle. Exotic after market filters, including the Japanese-sourced ones, have not demonstrated any practical advantage that I can see. So I am content with the Honda filter for the TL, and the excellent, exclusive S2000 filter (PCX prefix).

Actually it amuses me when people pay $20 for a Mugen oil filter, and then use a K&N air filter. One may or may not filter oil better from the particles the relatively poor filtering air filter provides. Seems kind of dysfunctional, no?

synoil

TLVR,
Alot of wear to engines occurs on startup. Particulate matter larger than 5 microns is also said to be harmful. However keep in mind that a 5 micron or less filter will not allow
full flow due to the restriction of the filter. High quality full flow filters can filter down to
15 or so microns but that depends on a amount of flow and other factors. An engine that is really revving up requires more oil flow and the full flow filters don't filter as well at high flow rates than they do at low flow rates (engine idle lets say)

The really anal oil/filtration consumers will put on a bypass oil filter system in addition to the full flow. These usually filter about 5% of the oil pumps output and can filter out stuff less than 5 microns. In our TL there is little space for somthing like this in the engine compartment.

Synthetic oil helps prevent start up wear cause it has more of a propensity to stick to metal and will be there to protect engine surfaces during startup before the oil from the pan can get to the periphery of the engine. This is probably true for semi-synthetics as well.

Other ways for the truely oil impared consumer would be engine block heaters so the oil is warm and flow better on startup, pre lubers that send oil to the engine before startup as well as the above mentioned stuff.

As I am somwhat oil impaired, I use Amsoil 100% synthetics, a high quality filter and that's about it for my TL.

Now for my CAT 3116 turbo/aftercooled engine in my trawler (boat) I am a little more particular. I have a huge bypass system in addition to the OEM full flow filter. Am putting on a engine heater and considering a preluber also. Am I nuts? YES..
This engine probably costs as much as a new TL and I really take care of it. I don't need it to quit on me up in upper lake Huron or Georgian Bay where I cruise. This engine takes
30 qts of oil, gets routine oil analysis et. In the trawlering world the engine room is called
the "holy place" as these boats usually only have one engine and they are cared for daily
by most owners.
Craig

Road Rage

Synoil: Only esters have an electrical affinity for metal. Amsoil's PAO's are no better or worse than any other oil, mineral or syn, in that regard.

Bluenote

FWIW, I've cut open a Honda filter & an aftermarket filter I used for a display, and the Honda filter has significantly more filtering capacity.

synoil

Road Rage,
Hey great info! I didn't know that only ester syns had that characteristic.

Where did you find that tidbit. I'd be interested in doing some personal
upgrading of my knowledge base.
Craig

JDM5lugHatch

This has been discussed on honda-tech a lot in the past. Here is a very informative non-biased study of oil filters. http://www.oilfilterstudy.com/

havokgroup

Great info!!!!!

Road Rage

Synoil:

I got it when I got my engineering degree.

It is the principle behind Castrol's Magnatec, sold in Europe and Asia, and their Start-Up, which is sold here. They use some amount of ester, which has a polar affinity for the negative charge on the camshaft and other metal parts high in the head. Personally, I think this is probably only a marketing benefit, as the additives that protect during startup are not in the base oil, but part of the anti-wear components that guard against ANY boundary lubrication situation, of which start-up is the most common one. I believe most of the wear has less to do with the fact that the oil is "in the sump", than the fact that the different metals (aluminum, chromium, copper, etc) used in the engine all expand at different rates as the enigne warms up, and do not reach homeostasis until the engine is fully warned. That is why running the car hard when it is cold is so bad for the engine.

http://www.motor-world.co.uk/kroozin...p?prod_id=4562

There are some tribologists that believe most of the engine wear from startup is not related to oil or expansion rates, but to the fact that water vapor from normal combustion will condense on the sides of the cold cylinder wall when the engine is started, and the water gets to the oil, causing it to mix with the sulfurs from the fuel to form acids, which will cause wear by chemically eating away at the metal parts.

Still, if I am going to lay up an engine for an extended period of time (months), i add a bottle of Red Line to the engine, to get whatver extra bit of advantage its esters provide during a cold start.

Does that help?