Thread: Short Oil Filter Application

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Visited with my son late yesterday and mentioned that I was thinking about the remote filter setup so that I could run a full size filter. He's an airplane mechanic, and he said that if it were his he would leave it alone, running the super shorty filter. First, he said that he's only seen one engine making metal in his career (they cut every filter open for inspection), and if it's making metal bypassing the filter is not going to increase the rate of destruction; and second, the remote filter adds hoses and connections as potential failure points, which is true. I'm back on the fence a bit - I think a bigger filter would be desirable, but it's hard to argue with the added risk of four connection points on a remote. Decisions, decisions, decisions.....

Originally Posted by rspears

I'm back on the fence a bit - I think a bigger filter would be desirable, but it's hard to argue with the added risk of four connection points on a remote. Decisions, decisions, decisions.....

Yeah, Roger, having had a hose failure on my remote filter led me to give the shorty filter some serious consideration. I figured if it concerned me too much I could change it more often. Heck, Volvo uses it and those cars often run 2-300K miles!

I'm in agreement with you guys that the short filter having any potential downside is a non issue. Like I mentioned, I ran one on my Jeep pickup for years and years with no problems whatsoever. When I changed the oil it was still as clean as it would have been with any larger filter.

Also, the Mustang 5.0 filter isn't a whole lot longer and they put that one on some wicked 5.0 cars that would surely not stay together if the filter were a problem. Adding a remote filter just puts more parts into the mix and the more parts you have the more potential for leakage and failure.

Oh, and to get that red or blue or whatever anodizing off, use EZ Off oven cleaner. It takes it off and exposes the bare aluminum underneath like it was never there.

Don

I have been down a road similar to the one discussed in this post, trying to eliminate my remote filter setup on a 46 Ford PU with Y. Is the general feeling that the ultra short Lotus filter will work OK? I tried one and it simply looked like a bad idea. The Lotus engine the small filter goes on is only something like 1.9L (looked it up 2 years ago). Reasoning said that the much smaller engine would be pumping a lot less oil than my 292.