Bypass Filtering

[rScotty]

I've been thinking more and more about Tier 4 motors and particulate emission.....which lead to wondering about the advantages of bypass filtering. Diesel oil quickly turns black and that is probably tiny unfiltered particles of carbon in the oil. Are they abrasive? Do they matter? Amsoil makes a by pass kit, but in spite of my belief in the bypass philosophy I've not ever actually installed on my own equipment. Has anyone?
rScotty

 

[3930dave]

I've been thinking more and more about Tier 4 motors and particulate emission.....which lead to wondering about the advantages of bypass filtering. Diesel oil quickly turns black and that is probably tiny unfiltered particles of carbon in the oil. Are they abrasive? Do they matter? Amsoil makes a by pass kit, but in spite of my belief in the bypass philosophy I've not ever actually installed on my own equipment. Has anyone?
rScotty

Like yourself Scotty, I understand the value of these bypass setups, but have not had the time/$/inclination to install one, yet. Flow restriction not-withstanding (the reason to go to bypass solutions), I view more filtration as a good thing.

These setups came out of the industrial world. Pretty easy to justify the installation cost when you have high value machinery that takes xy gallons of oil to changeout.

In light vehicles, most people do not own them long enough (or drive far enough) for it to make cents.

If you poke around over on BITOG, you'll find personal use stories of bypass systems on everything from line-haul trucks to the occasional small personal vehicle.

Rgds, D.

 

[newbury]

I had a thread here about filtering. With good synthetic oil pushing the $100/ oil change region it makes sense to keep it for more than 5,000 miles if it's still good. Some people on a Ford forum were getting 20K or more between changes.

/edit http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/oil-fuel-lubricants/258208-filtering-oil-externally.html

Most people here seem to just change the oil at mfg recommendations.

 

[Copperhead]

I use a bypass on my semi truck, but I haven't considered doing it to my other stuff. Even my Diesel Jeep Liberty, I do no use one. I can do a lot of oil changes on small equipment for the cost of a bypass unit. For an engine with a lot of oil in the sump, it can be more cost effective to put on bypass and extend oil drains. My Detroit holds 38 quarts in filters and sump. I normally take oil changes out to 25,000 miles, but am considering upping to 30,000 miles. That would keep me in the 4 oil changes a year ballpark. The Diesel in the Jeep, we just reprogrammed the ECM and knocked out the EGR so that the oil stays pretty clean and we take it to 11,000 miles not using bypass.

And that was the purpose of CJ-4 specification for diesel engine oils... to help keep particulates in suspension and not binding together. Many commercial trucks have all this emissions stuff and are not using bypass and not experiencing major problems. And since it is not uncommon for these engines to put on 2600 engine hours a year, they should be able to tell something by now.
Detroit, with their DD15 engine, has a 50,000 mile oil change recommendation NOT using bypass! It all depends on the OEM. There is not a diesel pickup, or gasoline engine made that cannot easily go to 500-7000 miles between oil changes with no worries. Unless one is just wanting to experiment on how long they can take oil drains, it really is not very cost effective to do it on smaller engines. Heavy equipment, Large commercial trucks, etc, sure. Either way, if you are going to extend the drains on anything, you also need to run regular oil samples to watch oil condition. That adds cost also. So in the end, you may end up still spending what you do now and have gained nothing except maybe bragging rights about how long you take your oil out to.

 

[Johnp33]

You might want to look into a spinner filter as a bypass filtration option they are great unit if you can mount them high enough to get the proper mounting to get it to drain properly.
I did class eight engine rebuilding as a living and gas on the side, an oil change is the cheapest overhaul you will not need. The longer your interval, the shorter the life of the engine is.
Just a thought!

 

[mmorisoli]

I would really like to hear more about the abrasive nature of the high level of soot build up in the engine oil on my 2008 GMC Duramax. I run Mobil 1 TDT in the Duramax and my Kubota L3940. When I drain the oil on the Duramax at about 5k you can feel the soot in the oil. It almost feels like lapping compound it is so crystal like.

My Kubota is black but but doesn't have the gritty feel that the Duramax does.

I heard from someplace that GMC adjusted down the 7000 mile oil change interval to 5000 for DPF trucks due to the higher level of junk in the oil caused by the regen cycles.

I am almost at 100k on the truck and was thinking it might be time for a dpf delete kit but I just read where Texas my change their inspection process and start doing smog checks on diesel trucks.

So I am stuck with the dpf and regen but hate how nasty gritty the oil feels compared to all the older Diesel engines I have puttered with...

 

[Copperhead]

an oil change is the cheapest overhaul you will not need. The longer your interval, the shorter the life of the engine is.
Just a thought!

I wouldn't bite at that one so quick. For instance, I took an Cummins N-14 to 1.4 million miles without it having to be opened up for anything. When it got sold, it still got darn good mpg and only used a gallon every 800-10000 miles. It got 30,000 mile oil changes. Did the same with a Cummins ISX. Only just under a million when I sold it last August for the one I have now, but it is still out here running and the owner has had to do nothing to it. If oil is kept CLEAN it will go a long time. Now it really doesn't make a lot of sense to invest in a lot of stuff and extend drains on something that only holds a 4-5 quarts of engine oil and only gets an oil change a couple of times a year, but when it holds 10 gallons and a couple of filters that alone exceed the cost of the quick oil lube special, and you have to change it, say, 10 times a year at $240 a pop, chopping that down to 5 times a year can put a dent in operating costs. Keeping the oil clean is the priority in that situation. And when kept clean, almost every oil one can get off the shelf will do a great job longer than what folks would normally take oil changes to. And the synthetics will do even better. The only way to know what truly is going on, regardless, is to also be doing regular oil sampling/testing and see how the oil you are using is performing. That is something that most folks don't even consider.

 

[Copperhead]

I would really like to hear more about the abrasive nature of the high level of soot build up in the engine oil on my 2008 GMC Duramax. I run Mobil 1 TDT in the Duramax and my Kubota L3940. When I drain the oil on the Duramax at about 5k you can feel the soot in the oil. It almost feels like lapping compound it is so crystal like.

My Kubota is black but but doesn't have the gritty feel that the Duramax does.

I heard from someplace that GMC adjusted down the 7000 mile oil change interval to 5000 for DPF trucks due to the higher level of junk in the oil caused by the regen cycles.

I am almost at 100k on the truck and was thinking it might be time for a dpf delete kit but I just read where Texas my change their inspection process and start doing smog checks on diesel trucks.

So I am stuck with the dpf and regen but hate how nasty gritty the oil feels compared to all the older Diesel engines I have puttered with...

You should take oil sample when you change it and find out what the soot level actually is. Using the "feel" test is pretty subjective at best. Just like the "how it looks or smells" type of thing. Oil sampling is very simple, not costly (ballpark $20), and will let you know just about everything you wanted to know.... did the viscosity change over the life of the oil? What is the percentage of soot? Is the additive package, that is part of the oil, holding up? Do I have any water or antifreeze in the oil? And about 20 other things that include wear metals, dirt contamination, etc. Now that is cheap insurance.

As a side note to this, most OEM's consider soot levels of less than 4% over the oil change interval within bounds. Higher that that, a problem. Less is always good. I run bypass on my semi truck and in 25,000 miles, the soot levels are still less than 1%. The bypass will really clean that stuff out of the oil. And micron size is critical regarding soot. Particles of less than 3-4 microns are not really a problem, but then tend to stick and bond together, forming larger particles. When that happens, it is like sandpaper in that engine. The CJ-4 spec diesel oils were designed to prevent this "clumping" of soot and keep the particles small and in suspension. The typical standard oil filter will only filter down to approximately 15 - 20 microns. Most bypass filters take that down to under 3. So there is an advantage to using bypass filtration. Just whether the cost can be supported for a particular application is the remaining question.