HPL cleaning 2013 Hyundai Elantra - cut filter element

Not looking for you to prove anything, just curious as to how you arrived at your conclusion. Thanks!

Hey, no problem. On one, I can "see" improvement, again, suspecting (impressive) cleaning of a piston ring or two, .. maybe.. the other one, sounding smoother if that makes any sense. Will continue to listen.

In both cases, I used the HPL products and I did notice result. It's GREAT oil and I've tried more than a few.

Looking forward to seeing you at the event, you may very well win the distance award lol.
 
I think Shel was talking about squeezing the filter *media* in a vise. Some BITOG posters do this after cutting the filter open and removing the media. They just stack up the folded media, wrap it in a cloth or something and put the stack in their bench vise.
You can also soak most of the oil out with absorbent material such a paper towels, even before cutting the media, with less risk of shifting particles from the position they were in. This is slow, but removes oil more thoroughly than simply letting the media drip.
 
This reminds me of the same conclusion I came to with my 2012 Hyundai Accent with a similar GDI engine. These are some of the dirtiest engines I've ever come across.

My son drives our 2014 Kia Rio (Same engine.) It's gotten Synthetic mostly (sometimes synthetic blend) every 5K. The oil does seem to be dirty when I drain it. Oil level stayed full every interval until we hit around 105K. Burns a little bit now. Not too bad, but I keep an eye on it. Car is at 129K as of yesterday.

Filters are usually WIX, but used several Champ Labs COS359A when they were on Clearance at RA. Looked fine when cut open.
 
I am 300 miles into my EC test at the recommended 5:1 ratio, I know it is still too early to come to any conclusions.

This is in a J35 series engine, which has a mildly varnished front bank, oil still looks clean and looking down the oil fill hole, still see the varnish.

I known it is a slow process by will keep checking until 2K miles to see.
 
I am 300 miles into my EC test at the recommended 5:1 ratio, I know it is still too early to come to any conclusions.

This is in a J35 series engine, which has a mildly varnished front bank, oil still looks clean and looking down the oil fill hole, still see the varnish.

I known it is a slow process by will keep checking until 2K miles to see.
Big change since 300 mile mark.

Closing in on the 600 Mile mark cleaning is starting to happen, I would say 40-50% of the varnish has been removed, and I am starting to see bare metal, granted this is limited view through the oil cap.

Oil has also turned color and starting to look like shellac.

At this rate may have a super clean engine by the time the OCI rolls around
 
You can go longer just make sure to change the filter at 2k miles
I have purchased 6 quarts and run on different vehicles so far and have not seen any deposits in the oil filters even at 5K. If you have an extremely sludged engine, you might need to change the filter. But I did not experience any particles in my oil filters.

From my experience, it does some limited cleaning and it may remove sludge( none of the engines i used it on had sludge), but so far has had limited efficacy on varnish. If it is limited on varnish will it be limited against ring deposits as well?

To be fair and unbiased after running EC for 5000 miles, I ran BG109 hoping to clean up what HPL EC could not, and BG109 did not clean it either.

IMO, from my limited use of 6 quarts, I believe this product is best as preventative measure.

You will not get a shinny new engine specially at 2000 miles and IMO is not long enough time either, I have run it for up to 5K miles.

I have noticed better performance on a couple of the vehicles that the EC was used on.

I asked the question on what real world testing was done by the manufacturer of this product and so far have not seen a response. I'm truly curious.
 
I have purchased 6 quarts and run on different vehicles so far and have not seen any deposits in the oil filters even at 5K. If you have an extremely sludged engine, you might need to change the filter. But I did not experience any particles in my oil filters.

From my experience, it does some limited cleaning and it may remove sludge( none of the engines i used it on had sludge), but so far has had limited efficacy on varnish. If it is limited on varnish will it be limited against ring deposits as well?

To be fair and unbiased after running EC for 5000 miles, I ran BG109 hoping to clean up what HPL EC could not, and BG109 did not clean it either.

IMO, from my limited use of 6 quarts, I believe this product is best as preventative measure.

You will not get a shinny new engine specially at 2000 miles and IMO is not long enough time either, I have run it for up to 5K miles.

I have noticed better performance on a couple of the vehicles that the EC was used on.

I asked the question on what real world testing was done by the manufacturer of this product and so far have not seen a response. I'm truly curious.
The EC is designed to be fully compatible with typical/traditional oils, so it is not going to be as effective as running the HPL oils, but is clearly more cost effective. @High Performance Lubricants has said as much.

I would not expect the EC to do much in 5,000 miles, the esters slowly remove layers of accumulated hydrocarbon deposits (think of it like peeling layers off an onion), this is an extremely slow process and it is not likely to produce visible results over what one would probably expect. AutoRX used a similar mechanism and I recall a lot of people being PO'd that it didn't seem to be working, perhaps not appreciating the amount of time truly required.
 
The EC is designed to be fully compatible with typical/traditional oils, so it is not going to be as effective as running the HPL oils, but is clearly more cost effective. @High Performance Lubricants has said as much.

I would not expect the EC to do much in 5,000 miles, the esters slowly remove layers of accumulated hydrocarbon deposits (think of it like peeling layers off an onion), this is an extremely slow process and it is not likely to produce visible results over what one would probably expect. AutoRX used a similar mechanism and I recall a lot of people being PO'd that it didn't seem to be working, perhaps not appreciating the amount of time truly required.
I understand esters work slowly, but when the manufacturer itself states to run for 2000 miles and then change the filter once in between. That statement to me implies lots of cleaning is taking place, couple that with the fact it is also recommended to change the filter once in between because the filter could be potentially plugged up.

This is why I asked the question of what testing did the manufacturer do to recommend the 2000 mile interval and the filter change in between.

Now I am hearing 5000 miles might not be enough......
 
I understand esters work slowly, but when the manufacturer itself states to run for 2000 miles and then change the filter once in between. That statement to me implies lots of cleaning is taking place, couple that with the fact it is also recommended to change the filter once in between because the filter could be potentially plugged up.

This is why I asked the question of what testing did the manufacturer do to recommend the 2000 mile interval and the filter change in between.

Now I am hearing 5000 miles might not be enough......
I would be curious to know as well. I see what you are asking
 
@Drew7a

Here is an explanation from @High Performance Lubricants

So based on HPL post the EC cleans slower than oil and that oil was run for 10K OCI.

I am OK with that just need to know so I do not waste the cleaner and maybe run it for 2 or 3 full OCI to get the desired cleaning.

But based on what was stated the recommendation of 2000 Miles for EC should be thrown out the window and instead say may need two or three treatments at full OCI.

But I still have not found what lab/controlled testing was actually done to come up with the recommendations?
 
I understand esters work slowly, but when the manufacturer itself states to run for 2000 miles and then change the filter once in between. That statement to me implies lots of cleaning is taking place, couple that with the fact it is also recommended to change the filter once in between because the filter could be potentially plugged up.

This is why I asked the question of what testing did the manufacturer do to recommend the 2000 mile interval and the filter change in between.

Now I am hearing 5000 miles might not be enough......
Will depend on what it is cleaning of course. You saw Wayne's filter pics from his Durango I assume? That's the reason for the short interval. If you've just got varnish, you likely won't experience that. But they can't assume every application is going to be the same.
 
So based on HPL post the EC cleans slower than oil and that oil was run for 10K OCI.

I am OK with that just need to know so I do not waste the cleaner and maybe run it for 2 or 3 full OCI to get the desired cleaning.

But based on what was stated the recommendation of 2000 Miles for EC should be thrown out the window and instead say may need two or three treatments at full OCI.

But I still have not found what lab/controlled testing was actually done to come up with the recommendations?
Drew,

There are some blanks to fill in here. First off thanks for being a customer. I am at a Street Outlaws event so I am just now seeing this.

The effect of the esters are well known. Especially when you have people with the level of expertise we do on staff. They are not only knowledgeable in the use of these materials, they are knowledgeable in how to make the esters.

As others have said. The variable is not in the cleaner. The variables are, from our standpoint, who know what oil was run, who knows how long the oil was run, who knows under what conditions the oil was run? Are the deposits varnish or are they sludge. It is fair to say that the reality is cleaning will happen at different rates based on these variables to which we cannot control nor would the owner of the vehicle know completely.

We have a lot of experience in this area as our oils have been ester containing from the start. We have 10’s of thousands of vehicles running every day with ester containing formulations.

The last thing I want to do is put a product out there that is too aggressive and run the risk of plugging or bypassing filters. For this reason I chose to throttle back the strength of the cleaner.

A few years ago I added AN’s to our engine oils on top of the ester. This increases the cleaning ability of the oils.

The oil in Wayne’s vehicles pre date these formulas. They have literally lasted years and have only recently (I believe) been able to see the current oil. Wayne can confirm that. I don’t try to remember any details of his vehicles because he is very proficient at it.

So summarizing our original engine oils were ester containing, the cleaner has an increased concentration but I chose to keep it safe, which is important, and our current oils will clean even more since they contain AN’s as well as ester.

The challenge comes on trying to make a one fits all recommendation for a product we thoroughly understand that is going into an infinitely variable environment. So it is easy to understand that being cautious on recommendation would be important for a manufacturer who wishes to do no harm.

We have seen examples such as RDY4WAR who has run 10,000 miles on the cleaner. It is safe to do so on an engine in decent shape. It would not be something I would recommend for a sludged engine for example.

Understanding all of this it is fair to say some engines will clean fairly easily, some will be more tough. The ester will eventually get it done even on more stubborn engines it will simply take more time.

Since the application is infinitely variable there is not a method to “test” to a real world target. Aside from that we use our own oil in our 20 vehicles. Since we use our oil they are clean. This of course is the best path since once you make that change the deposits are something you don’t have to worry about.

We do see the questions about running the cleaner as a maintenance dose. This will work too but not nearly as well as if you ran the oil itself. It is still a compromise.

An example I like to use is this: if you walk in your garage each week and something knocked everything off your shelves onto the floor. If you just put your items back on the shelf each week your garage will be fine till it repeats. The best course of action is to solve the source of what knocked the items off rather than cleaning it up each week.

Hopefully this sheds some light on how we chose to address a well known material in a highly variable environment.

I will PM my cell number to you and if you have any additional questions or want to talk about your vehicle specifics feel free to call.

David
 
Last edited:
Well, I used it on a 2.4L Hyundai with 35k. Mainly because the first 30k were “free” dealer changes at 7500 intervals. I ran it for the 5k interval I’m on now. I got the filter in the drain pan but I cant cut it open because I don’t have a good cutter. Oil didn’t look any darker than normal, sans the red colour of the cleaner. I was aiming at the ring pack cleaning for my use, but I don’t know what my filter material looks like, so whether it did anything I don’t know. Engine runs good and has powe, so doesn’t seem like anything is stuck.
 
Back
Top