Use of synthetic base stock lubricants is not necessarily improved by the use of synthetic media filters. Standard cellulose (paper) media filters will do as good a job for what any full flow filter can be expected to do. Synthetic media filters can be made from 'microglass', microfine glass fibers held together by bonding resins or from melt blown plastics. An example of melt blown media is Fleetguard's Stratapore. A common misconception that is pushed by sales and marketing for filter companies and some engine manufacturers is that you need filter media to remove the dust and wear metals in engine oil in order to protect the engine best. Nice idea but completely without merit. As a field service engineer for a filter company (part of Cummins, Inc.), you get the best filtration of engine lube oil if you use some form of bypass oil filter. What is a bypass oil filter? It is a filter that bypasses the normal oil filter routing (Full Flow) and takes a small volume of the lubricant and filters it then returns that oil to the sump without going through the engine to lubricate it. A true bypass filter uses a small portion of the oil flow from the engine's oil pump. It is not the main oil flow used for lubrication. That small flow, usually about 2 - 3 gallons per minute is slow enough that the filter can perform the sludge removal more efficiently. Bypass oil filters like the old Luberfiner external housing are very capable of reducing the level of organic sludge compounds that are the by-products of combustion (some of the stuff that makes oil turn black). There are a number of filter products by several manufacturers that provide a remote mount filter head to which you can attach a bypass filter. For example, the old Luberfiner housing with the large cartridge element not only was very good at removal of sludge compounds but added a few gallons of oil capacity to the engine. More oil equates to lower 'load factor' on the oil meaning longer oil change life and cleaner oil. But those filter systems are a pain to service. There are bypass filters that use a stacked disk element within a spin on filter can. They provide the same or better filtration of the sludges by absorbing them than did the older technology.
The long term wear-causing aspect of lubricant is the combustion byproducts, not dust or wear metals. Let's take the dust holding capacity and efficiency rating of a filter. It may be classified as being 98.7% efficient at removing 10 micron particles. Your first thought might be that is what I need. Removing those dust particles and wear metal particles will prolong my engine's life. Capacity and efficiency testing is done by all filter manufacturers. The bad news is that those tests are meaningless regarding a filter's real ability to protect an engine from the wear-causing sludge components of combustion blow by gases. So, forget the synthetic media full flow oil filters, a very over sold technology that has little benefit to engine lube oil. They are great for transmissions and hydraulic systems where those dust particles and wear metals do have a much greater effect because there is so much more of those contaminants in those systems, but not engine oil. If your concern is to trap harmful dust from an engine lubricant....you need to find out if you have an air cleaner that is working. By the time the dust from an air cleaner is collected by the oil filter, it has already caused major damage to the piston rings and cylinder walls. A form of locking the barn door after the tractor is stolen. Let me tread on somebody's sacred cow....air filters that offer high air flow and you can clean them using special processes and oils to improve their efficiency. They are sold as aftermarket products to replace your standard air cleaner. How do they get long life? By allowing dust to pass through that would otherwise plug them and lead to very short life. In the case of those air cleaner types you could use filters that trap a lot of dust in the lube oil but same effect, engine is damaged even though the filters are removing more contaminants. I invite your response or send me email directly, see my profile.
