Freedom Worx ... video about pre-filling filters

Do I understand you right that you think the high wear rates prior to coolant temp reaching (at least approaching) operating temp around the cylinders is because the oil flow is reduced prior to that time, rather than it being to do with either corrosive wear as another poster hypothesized, or poor parts fit or 'shape' during warm-up?

I would think that the colder and thicker the oil is at start-up, that will have more of an impact on piston, cylinder and ring wear simply because those parts are not force feed by oil supply, but rather either splash or piston squirter supplied. So in extreme conditions that could cause less than ideal oil supply and lubrication to those parts until the oil warms up some. Engines with piston squirters may show less start-up wear then engines without them. So it may be a combination of many factors like the cylinders being washed down with fuel, corrosive wear, poor parts fitment and some lack of lubrication during the warm-up phase of the engine running.
 
That's not what the wear results in the publications referenced in the video seem to show. Review the displayed graphs from about the 35 minute mark. The GM work from the 2000s shows a 10W40 to be the wear-control equal of a 0W10 at cold start, and superior everywhere else.
 
I made a thread about this video not realizing it’s been posted already.
I agree that it’s a well made video with a good sense of humor to boot. I loved the random changes in the props he used.

His overall finding and conclusions are very common sense IMO. If pre-filling oil filter was crucial to engine wear, the oil placement and orientation would be the same in all engines to accommodate pre-filling. Also, maintenance and service manuals would be very specific about it.

Yet, the oil filters are oriented in all sorts of matter, vertically, horizontally, upside down etc.
That to me is a pretty strong argument against pre-filling. That plus OEM documentation doesn’t mention this practice.
 
That's not what the wear results in the publications referenced in the video seem to show. Review the displayed graphs from about the 35 minute mark. The GM work from the 2000s shows a 10W40 to be the wear-control equal of a 0W10 at cold start, and superior everywhere else.
At 36:30, Figure 13 you are referring to, what was the oil temperature in each of those test run cases? What's the difference in oil formulation with respect to the AF/AW additives between all the different oils used? AF/AW additives are heat activated too, so that along with exactly what kind of AF/AW additives were used and how they activate with heat could be a factor in the mix of many factors going on. I'm betting the oils used were not all the same formulations and just changed the multi-viscosity grades (ie, what's GG, EE E, AA and FF designations mean?). The best way to do a test like this would be to formulate all the viscosities used with the same level of AF/AW additives to take those factors out of the equation. It's hard to just look at a graph like that and not get the whole story unless you can read the whole study.

On a side note, Figure 13 shows that there was less wear across the board with all viscosities when the engine was ran at WOT at 4000 RPM vs WOT at 2000 RPM. Don't know what the load was on the engine at those test points, so it's possible there was less load on the engine at the 4000 RPM point (ie, same HP output, but less torque output at 4000 RPM - ref HP equation). More load at the same RPM will result in more wear. Could also be because at higher RPM there is more oil film thickness created between moving parts, which helps reduce wear. Yes, he's right that "lugging" an engine at high throttle opening puts more load and results in more wear vs the same load at higher PRM.

I can make all kinds of other comments and ask all kinds of questions on the data he's cherry picking from the SAE papers. For instance:

At 35:20 ... Figure 3 only shows the cylinder jacket temperature, but what was the oil temperature at the same time?

At 35:55 he rattles off all kinds of factors (reading from the study info it seems) that can have an effect on the wear during warm-up.

At 36:15, Figure 14 is interesting because if you look at it carefully you can see between time 2.8h and around 3.5h that they varied the coolant temperature up and down some (which would effect the cylinder liner temperature), but the wear curve is basically constant in correlation to the oil temperature, not the coolant temperature. What I'd like to see is keep the cylinder lining (coolant) temperature constant and just slowly cool down and heat up the oil temperature. Then do the vice-versa by keeping the oil temperature constant and vary the coolant temperature.

Anyway, the bottom line is wear does increase when the engine is warming up, and perhaps when an engine is ran at constant cooler temperatures. All these studies come to that same basic conclusion about when more wear occurs, but no study can pin-point it to one specific factor that causes it ... it's a complicated mix of many factors.
 
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I made a thread about this video not realizing it’s been posted already.
I agree that it’s a well made video with a good sense of humor to boot. I loved the random changes in the props he used.

His overall finding and conclusions are very common sense IMO. If pre-filling oil filter was crucial to engine wear, the oil placement and orientation would be the same in all engines to accommodate pre-filling. Also, maintenance and service manuals would be very specific about it.

Yet, the oil filters are oriented in all sorts of matter, vertically, horizontally, upside down etc.
That to me is a pretty strong argument against pre-filling. That plus OEM documentation doesn’t mention this practice.
The oil filter ADBV was invented to help prevent "dry starts" and reduce engne wear over the long run. Pre-filling the oil filter is only a one time per OCI thing, but many start-ups with a drained down oiling system from no ADBV could be magnitudes more number of start-ups. Not pre-fillng the oil filter one time per each OCI is in the noise level, but an ADBV that leaks down every time the engine is shut off could be a worse situation.
 
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If pre-filling oil filter was crucial to engine wear, the oil placement and orientation would be the same in all engines to accommodate pre-filling.

The manufacturer isn't necessarily worried about eeking every last mile out of an engine. They want to build you something reliable enough to get you through the warranty peroid and have a mostly loyal customer, all while being as cheap as possible. All of these complex designs are a compromise.

And, manufacturers can have data based opinions that can contradict with another manufacturer's opinion. It's entirely possible that some engine designs benefit more than others from prefilling.
 
The oil filter ADBV was invented to help prevent "dry starts" and reduce engne wear over the long run. Pre-filling the oil filter is only a one time per OCI thing, but many start-ups with a drained down oiling system from no ADBV could be magnitudes more number of start-ups. Not pre-fillng the oil filter one time per each OCI is in the noise level, but an ADBV that leaks down every time the engine is shut off could be a worse situation.

You’re confusing two things here I think. The ABDV in an oil filter prevents the oil that’s already in the pressure side from draining back. That has nothing to do with pre-filling an oil filter because at that point, all the oil has drained. Pre-filling the oil filter will not fill all the oil passages. These will have to be re-filled at the initial start after the OC.

And the oil filter, being very close to the oil pump gets the oil first anyways before it gets to the rest of the engine. So pre-filling it makes absolutely no difference to the rest of the oil system.

The two have absolutely no correlation.
 
You’re confusing two things here I think. The ABDV in an oil filter prevents the oil that’s already in the pressure side from draining back. That has nothing to do with pre-filling an oil filter because at that point, all the oil has drained. Pre-filling the oil filter will not fill all the oil passages. These will have to be re-filled at the initial start after the OC.
I never tried to tie the two together ... I was just saying why the ADBV was invented and how the number of possible "dry starts" could vary between the two start-up scenarios. No confusion here.

And the oil filter, being very close to the oil pump gets the oil first anyways before it gets to the rest of the engine. So pre-filling it makes absolutely no difference to the rest of the oil system.
You forgot that on most engines all the galleries above the oil filter also drain out when the oil filter is removed. So pre-filling does help some to reduce the time it takes to re-fill the filter and those empty galleries when the engine is first started after an oil and filter change. I can clearly see a difference in time to achieve oil pressure between not pre-filling and pre-filling the oil filter. Therefore, I always pre-fill the filter as much as possible.

The two have absolutely no correlation.
Obviously, it should have been clear I wasn't making any type of correlation between the two.
 
You forgot that on most engines all the galleries above the oil filter also drain out when the oil filter is removed. So pre-filling does help some to reduce the time it takes to re-fill the filter and those empty galleries when the engine is first started after an oil and filter change. I can clearly see a difference in time to achieve oil pressure between not pre-filling and pre-filling the oil filter. Therefore, I always pre-fill the filter as much as possible.

I know it all makes sense in your head, but just think logically how much of that “dry start” time you’re saving. The ABDV doesn’t prevent all leak down. Things like hydraulic tensioners, lifters, actuators can still lose pressure as quickly as overnight. There is no avoiding it. All of that, during the course of an OCI is likely much longer than the saving a pre-filled oil filter may provide.

So you’re saving half a second of pressure buildup every 5k, 6k 10k or whatever your OCI might be, seriously how can you even quantify the benefit other than OCD?
 
I know it all makes sense in your head, but just think logically how much of that “dry start” time you’re saving. The ABDV doesn’t prevent all leak down. Things like hydraulic tensioners, lifters, actuators can still lose pressure as quickly as overnight. There is no avoiding it. All of that, during the course of an OCI is likely much longer than the saving a pre-filled oil filter may provide.
The ADBV certainly does prevent all the galleries above its location from draining down, regardless of how other components like lifters, cam-chain tensions, etc may leak down. And those components may leak down easier or more if the oil filter ADBV allows the galleries to drain down. So yes, an ADBV that is always leaking down the oiling system when the engine is off isn't ideal. Why do you think the ADBV was even invented? Would you feel comfortable knowing the filter ADBV was allowing the oiling system to drain some oil out of it every time the engine was shut off?

So you’re saving half a second of pressure buildup every 5k, 6k 10k or whatever your OCI might be, seriously how can you even quantify the benefit other than OCD?
Go back and read what I said in post 26. Nowhere in this thread have I said not pre-filling the oil filter is going to be that detrimental. I then went on to say that an ADBV that always leaks down the oiling system when the engine is off is probably a worse scenario than not pre-filling the oil filter during an oil change. Seems you're really trying to read falsely between the lines of what I'm saying. Don't know why I have to re-explain this stuff, lol.

I see way more than a half a second difference, more like 3 or 4 seconds difference between pre-filling the filter and not. I've measured the difference on many of my vehicles. Have you every tried measuring the difference on you engines? The bottom line is pre-filling the oil filter is going to reduce the time it takes to fully pressurize the oiling system. That's not a bad thing, and if it makes people feel better about doing it, then who cares? It's their car.
 
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I see way more than a half a second difference, more like 3 or 4 seconds difference between pre-filling the filter and not. I've measured the difference on many of my vehicles. Have you every tried measuring the difference on you engines? The bottom line is pre-filling the oil filter is going to reduce the time it takes to fully pressurize the oiling system. That's not a bad thing, and if it makes people feel better about doing it, then who cares? It's their car.

I think it’s your specific example. While I never measured the time it takes for the oil light to go off after an OC, it’s always been in 1-2 seconds range in the cars I’ve owned from my rough estimation.
I did pre-fill the oil filter years ago with my old Mazda 3, but never noticed any difference and I stopped this practice. A 3-4 seconds difference is noticeable without a measuring instrument.

As far as the practice itself being a negative or positive, I agree and don’t care if people do it or don’t.
What I care about though, is inventing all sorts of plausible scenarios to justify the practice that don’t really exist or have no measurable impact. And then those justifications, a lot of times taken from marketing materials, morph into facts that need to be discussed, challenged and defended.
This forum is full of those unfortunately.
 
So Lake Speed Jr also had a video on pre-filling vs not pre-filling the oil filter with test data. His conclusion was different than the Worx guy.
 
I think it’s your specific example.
What example? What I said is valid. You tired to connect pre-filling the filter with my sidenote discussion of leaky filter ADBV. They are obviously two different things, and I explained how they are different.

While I never measured the time it takes for the oil light to go off after an OC, it’s always been in 1-2 seconds range in the cars I’ve owned.
I did pre-fill the oil filter years ago with my old Mazda 3, but never noticed any difference and I stopped this practice. A 3-4 seconds difference is noticeable without a measuring instrument.
The difference was very noticeable on my vehicles ... and I was making it a point to determine the difference ... not just trying to recall it without actual timing measurements.

As far as the practice itself being a negative or positive, I agree and don’t care if people do it or don’t.
What I care about though, is inventing all sorts of plausible scenarios to justify the practice that don’t really exist or have no measurable impact. And then those justifications, a lot of times taken from marketing materials, morph into facts that need to be discussed, challenged and defended.
This forum is full of those unfortunately.
Nobody should care what anyone does to their own vehicle. As I said before, if it makes someone feel better and it doesn't hurt anything then what's the problem? Their vehicle, their choice. They could put volcanic ash in the engine oil as long as it's not my vehicle, lol.

All people can do is discuss their experience of good knowledge (with supporting scientific and test data) of something and others reading it can believe it or not, or learn from it or not, or try it out or not. That's kind of the main purpose of this board for the most part. Or they can learn stuff first hand, maybe sometimes the hard way ... that's how life works. And yes, repeated false information and claims without solid evidence can grow legs and spread ... just look what kind of world we live in today. Too much social media spreading misinformation all over the place has made society go into "Idiocracy" mode. 😄
 
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I'm betting the oils used were not all the same formulations and just changed the multi-viscosity grades (ie, what's GG, EE E, AA and FF designations mean?). The best way to do a test like this would be to formulate all the viscosities used with the same level of AF/AW additives to take those factors out of the equation. It's hard to just look at a graph like that and not get the whole story unless you can read the whole study.
You bet that based on what? If you have a copy of the study, please share some info. If you want to speculate, try this--
If one wants to compare wear across viscosities, one formulates similarly. If one wants to display that a new or different viscosity can perform comparably, one tries harder on the formulation for the viscosity one wants to highlight. This latter bit is done quite regularly in the papers I see. Chevy was NOT pushing 10W40 oils in the mid-2000s, so the more reasonable inference here is that either they're formulated comparably, or the lighter viscosities are somewhat more advanced formulations in order to try to remain comparable to the 10W40.

I'm looking at the data presented, and not speculating. I'm not looking for ways to possibly explain away the data. I'm only working with the data at hand.
On a side note, Figure 13 shows that there was less wear across the board with all viscosities when the engine was ran at WOT at 4000 RPM vs WOT at 2000 RPM. Don't know what the load was on the engine at those test points, so it's possible there was less load on the engine at the 4000 RPM point (ie, same HP output, but less torque output at 4000 RPM - ref HP equation).
I looked up a synopsis of the GM paper which generated that figure. It says the engines were 1999 GM 3.4-liter V6s at different steady-state operating conditions. Can you think of a version of that engine which generated more torque at 2,000 rpm than 4,000 rpm? I cannot. Did you hear the presenter mention in his summary that rpm is your friend, in terms of wear control?
At 36:15, Figure 14 is interesting because if you look at it carefully you can see between time 2.8h and around 3.5h that they varied the coolant temperature up and down some (which would effect the cylinder liner temperature), but the wear curve is basically constant
Did you notice the temperature scale on the right-hand side of the graph in that figure? The coolant temp always remains well above the 160F previously identified as a point where cylinder wear drops significantly.
 
You bet that based on what? If you have a copy of the study, please share some info.
Based on what I know about oil formulation. Not all oils of different or even the same multi-viscosity are created or formulated equal. Like I said, the AF/AW additives used in all those oils they used in the study could have an effect on the wear rates they measured. I'd bet they were all different AW/AF formulations. Do you think they were all exactly the same formulation except for their viscosity? I highly doubt that's the case.

If you want to speculate, try this--
If one wants to compare wear across viscosities, one formulates similarly.
True ... and that again supports that if those test oils were not all the same exact AF/AW formulations then there are two factors involved which could effect the wear rates seen in those studies ... specifically the AF/AW factor and the viscosity factor. When you have more than one factor that could effect something, it's hard to tell what's really causing the outcome.

If one wants to display that a new or different viscosity can perform comparably, one tries harder on the formulation for the viscosity one wants to highlight. This latter bit is done quite regularly in the papers I see. Chevy was NOT pushing 10W40 oils in the mid-2000s, so the more reasonable inference here is that either they're formulated comparably, or the lighter viscosities are somewhat more advanced formulations in order to try to remain comparable to the 10W40.

I'm looking at the data presented, and not speculating. I'm not looking for ways to possibly explain away the data. I'm only working with the data at hand.
What he showed in the video is not "all the data". That's part of my point. You nor I have all the facts in these studies based on some guy's YouTube video synopsis.

I looked up a synopsis of the GM paper which generated that figure. It says the engines were 1999 GM 3.4-liter V6s at different steady-state operating conditions. Can you think of a version of that engine which generated more torque at 2,000 rpm than 4,000 rpm? I cannot. Did you hear the presenter mention in his summary that rpm is your friend, in terms of wear control?
You missed the point about the different loads ... he even talked about it near the end of the video. If you understood what he meant by "RPM is your friend at the same engine load" then you should have also understood my comment about the loads and RPM. I made a comment about higher loads always result in more wear way back in post 16. Those engines were ran on a dyno where they could control the load on the engine. If you understand the HP equation, you'd know that you could put half the load on it at twice the RPM and make the engine put out the same HP ... HP = (T x RPM)/5252. Torque would be a direct correlation with the load on the engine, and therefore the load on the moving parts inside the engine. Half the torque at the same HP output means way less load on the parts and therefore less wear.

Did you notice the temperature scale on the right-hand side of the graph in that figure? The coolant temp always remains well above the 160F previously identified as a point where cylinder wear drops significantly.
Still doesn't prove that the oil also cooling down didn't have an effect. They should have kept the oil at a constant 60C or above and decreased the coolant temp and cylinder liner temperature only. Again, changing more than one possible factor at a time just confuses the outcome and muddies any real proof of what factor is causing what.
 
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The appropriate inferences about formulation were addressed in my post. The appropriate inference is that the fluids in the GM work were formulated comparably, or that at least some of the lighter fluids were biased up in performance, since that is the direction GM in particular was trying to go at the time.

All the spurious obfuscations to one side, I hope dnewton3 will return to clarify what his thought is in his comment I asked about.
 
The appropriate inferences about formulation were addressed in my post. The appropriate inference is that the fluids in the GM work were formulated comparably, or that at least some of the lighter fluids were biased up in performance, since that is the direction GM in particular was trying to go at the time.
Do you have proof the test oils in the engine warm-up wear studies were all exactly the same AF/AW formulation? You used the word "inference", which is another word for "speculation" or "assumption". AF/AW additives are heat activated, so that very aspect could have an effect due to oil temperature in these studies.
 
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You know why I don’t typically fill a new oil filter before install (I do sometimes)? Well, I typically have 5 quart jugs. Hard not to make a mess pouring from a new jug into an oil filter.

Stupid, yeah? But honestly my main reason.

Not worried about filling or not prior to install. How many oil filters a day do the quick lubes install? Or just the dealerships? Any of them pre-filling? Doubt it……..
 
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