Air Filtration efficiency and engine wear Ques?

[ZZman]

How big of a role does a good air filter and it sealing well in the air box play in overall engine wear? Does most wear come from dirt getting into the engine or wear metals that are worn off the moving parts and circulated?

I was always more concerned about dirt ingestion in the fuel system not oil system.

What is the best fliter brand or filter media?

 

[ZZman]

What about the Fram washable filter with Synthetic media?

http://www.fram.com/products/airFilters.php

 

[ZZman]

What about the True Flow foam filter?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r8NajjYkFA

 

[heathenbrewing]

All the studies I have seen show traditional paper filters to filter out smaller particles of dust/dirt/debris than washable or foam filters.

Cant say how big of a factor ingested dirt is to engine longetivity, but I feel the cleaner the air, the better it is for your engine.

 

[tdi-rick]

This has been discussed at length in the past.
Air filtration is of paramount importance to engine longevity.
In the heavy duty off road industry (dozers, excavators, etc) there Are mostly two elements in the housing, as well as centrifugal pre filters.
Yes, the pre filters are used because of the immense dust loadings, but the two element filters are used to get efficiency well above 99%.

I know two different blokes that have trashed new CAT dozer engines in less than two hours after an engine change when some intake ducting wasn't done up properly.

Regarding media, a friend is a filtration research engineer, and at present you can't go past cellulose fibre (paper) for cost/efficiency. Absolute efficiency also leaves oiled cotton gauze and oiled foam well behind. Never seen a K&N or UniFilter in a dozer

There are synthetic medias recently developed that have better flow/efficiencies, but are still exxy. Donaldson, Mann-Hummel and Cummins hold the patents on most nearly all of them. (FWIW, I've been told that the big three's R&D budgets exceed K&N sales $ each year.)

One company that does offer a very high flow, high efficiency synthetic media filter is R2C. Currently made for racing applications, they appear to know their stuff.

 

[Junior]

Originally Posted By: tdi-rick
This has been discussed at length in the past.
Air filtration is of paramount importance to engine longevity.
In the heavy duty off road industry (dozers, excavators, etc) there Are mostly two elements in the housing, as well as centrifugal pre filters.
Yes, the pre filters are used because of the immense dust loadings, but the two element filters are used to get efficiency well above 99%.

I know two different blokes that have trashed new CAT dozer engines in less than two hours after an engine change when some intake ducting wasn't done up properly.

Regarding media, a friend is a filtration research engineer, and at present you can't go past cellulose fibre (paper) for cost/efficiency. Absolute efficiency also leaves oiled cotton gauze and oiled foam well behind. Never seen a K&N or UniFilter in a dozer

There are synthetic medias recently developed that have better flow/efficiencies, but are still exxy. Donaldson, Mann-Hummel and Cummins hold the patents on most nearly all of them. (FWIW, I've been told that the big three's R&D budgets exceed K&N sales $ each year.)

One company that does offer a very high flow, high efficiency synthetic media filter is R2C. Currently made for racing applications, they appear to know their stuff.


You just described the exact system we use. FWIW we have dusted engines in less than 30 minutes with an intake leak sucking in huge amounts of dust.

In those applications, the air filter is the most important element

 

[Steve S]

A quick story agout how important air filters are . I was sent out to service a fairly new rental department forklift . During the service I found the air filter the service manager gave me was incorrect .I called in and I was told in a very snotty way it was the correct filter and put it in. Well the service manager was the smartest person the company I worked for ever hired so I did . Well 100 hours later the engine was burning oil really bad ,the engine was rebuilt and a new incorrect filter was again installed ,you already know about the service manager so 100 hours later "by the way was the rental departments service schedual" the engine was again burning oil really bad. Again the engine was rebuilt " a Perkins engine is pricey to rebuild" I told the shop guy about the wrong filter story so with a smile he put in the correct filter and no more 100 hour rebuilds .The engines by the way go 15,000 hours + easy So the moral of the story is the air filter is the most important filter you can put on an engine along with sealed intake plumbing.. I have seen Donaldson air filters in action the air filter housings would be packed with dust and the intak tract would be spotless clean. I think Amsoil air filters are the same stuff.

 

[Steve S]

kind of off topic the diesel engines in heavy equipment and semi trucks and boats are really high performance engines that would make many of the car engines we see as high performance seem dull. $valve heads .compound turbo charging. Turbos and blowers, electronics multiple oil filters bypass filters /spinner bypass filters . Last year I was aboard a 41 foot coastguard boat and it has 2 electronic Detroit diesel 6v92 tta rated at I think 425 or 440 h.p and that is a 552 cubic inch engine.

 

[Lazy JW]

Air filtration is absolutely the most important filter on your engine. I have personally driven air-cooled Volkswagens for hundreds of thousands of miles with no oil filter but they wouldn't even come close to that without proper air filtration.
YMMV
Joe

 

[ARB1977]

Originally Posted By: ZZman
How big of a role does a good air filter and it sealing well in the air box play in overall engine wear? Does most wear come from dirt getting into the engine or wear metals that are worn off the moving parts and circulated?

I was always more concerned about dirt ingestion in the fuel system not oil system.

What is the best fliter brand or filter media?

Stock filters work great, reuseable filters work great too but they seem to work better the more miles you put on them.

 

[Junior]

Originally Posted By: Steve S
kind of off topic the diesel engines in heavy equipment and semi trucks and boats are really high performance engines that would make many of the car engines we see as high performance seem dull. $valve heads .compound turbo charging. Turbos and blowers, electronics multiple oil filters bypass filters /spinner bypass filters . Last year I was aboard a 41 foot coastguard boat and it has 2 electronic Detroit diesel 6v92 tta rated at I think 425 or 440 h.p and that is a 552 cubic inch engine.


Of topic, but those Marine guys are lucky. Unlimited cooling capacity to reject 450 HP. We only put out 345 Hp from 9.0 liters at 2200 rpm. Airflow through the coolers is over 4400 ft/min. (50mph)

 

[oilyriser]

Some of the big brand car air filters (Fram, Purolator, Napa gold) are packaging garbage under their names. I spent the last few days trying to find a decent filter, and even the Wix I got was compromised, with about 1/3 less media thickness than the Carquest Premium it was replacing. I held open one of the pleats, and shone my flashlight through the media, and could see points of light shining through on all the filters, including the Wix, but the Wix had the fewest holes.

In the next 10 years, you're going to see a lot more cars with blue smoke trailing behind them, because of this.

 

[kaboom10]

I use an Amsoil foam filter. I replaced the K&N that was on there. Both did a lot better than the stock paper filter as far as flow and performance. I had to clean the MAF often with the K&N but not yet with the foam filter as it has surpassed the mileage of the K&N. Yes paper filters filter better but restrict when you want performance from extra airflow.

 

[ChiTDI]

I'm beginnning to question the interval suggested by the manufacturers. I have Toyotas with 30k mile requirements and the UOAs are high on the silicon even with 20k mile changes.
I've gone to 10k mile intervals and found Fram surprisingly to work well.

 

[kaboom10]

I've always went with 8-10k on an air filter change when I used pleated paper. Usually during tune-ups on older vehicles. I never believed in blowing the dirt out and reusing either. Clean it so you could drive to get another. I'm starting to believe a lot of these intervals are just to make you buy another a few years after the thing is paid off. I bought my truck after the lease was over since I really liked it compared to all the others I leased.

 

[tdi-rick]

Originally Posted By: ChiTDI
I'm beginnning to question the interval suggested by the manufacturers. I have Toyotas with 30k mile requirements and the UOAs are high on the silicon even with 20k mile changes.
I've gone to 10k mile intervals and found Fram surprisingly to work well.


hang on, filter efficiency increases the more loaded it becomes. ie. the more dust a filter holds, the more and finer dust it filters.
Donaldson and Cummins/Fleetguard list efficiencies of all their filters clean/new and dirty (point at which pressure drop is considered too great across the element from loading for adequate flow) and IIRC they start out in the 98.5% region and end up better than 99.5-99.9% efficient.

 

[ChiTDI]

rick, I've heard that before, and a well respected guru on the tdi forum pushes for even higher miles before changing. (20k in those cars).
But the Silicon in these Toyotas is frightening. What gives?

 

[Steve S]

RTV sealant?

 

[Saturn_Fan]

I've been using AC Delco air filters after the test of different filters on this site was done and pointed to AC Delco being at the top. It is an older study, but that sealed the deal for me.

 

[XS650]

Originally Posted By: Steve S
Last year I was aboard a 41 foot coastguard boat and it has 2 electronic Detroit diesel 6v92 tta rated at I think 425 or 440 h.p and that is a 552 cubic inch engine.


In the early 1990s I was using DD 6V92 TIA engines rated at 580 hp that actually put out over 600 in land vehicles. DD developed that version of the engine for us on their own money and later went on to use versions of it in marine applications.

Those were great engines for high power from a diesel in a compact package. Some of their 6V92TIA marine version went well over 600 hp.

DD was a class outfit to work with. Great people.