Pentius PCXL Extended Filter Efficiencies

[CharlieBauer]

So there are plenty of ways a filter company can achieve a better ISO result for marketing purposes if they're so inclined. It really comes down to how much you trust the company, and if there's any evidence from independent sources to back up their claims.

This should be a sticky at the top of this forum.

Along with this:

It's not odd to me in my experience for any manufacturer in general to not reach the efficiency claims they make. Changes in model name, material suppliers, material countries of origin, changes in production facilities, changes in brand owners, manufacturing machine adjustments, new employees, new management, poor QC/QA control practices,....I could go on and on with respect to this topic. Most manufacturers know this, and now you do to.

And my trust in these companies is very low. Tears and leaks are either not known about (incompetence) or ignored (fraud) by several major manufacturers (Purolator / Mann & Hummel, WIX, Fram / Champ Labs)

 

[ZeeOSix]

Fram states several sizes and one has no bypass valve in the filter to leak, as all having the same rating. So how does that work in plain language, not charts and formulas?

The filters without a bypass valve still use the leaf spring to seal the dome end of the end cap. The bypass valves don't leak, it's the leaf spring to end cap metal-to-metal seal that can leak, as seen in many threads lately.

 

[ZeeOSix]

That being said the graph shows 99% @ 34.54 microns. You wouldn't think 0.33% can matter so much in efficiency but it can.

Shows that the efficiency vs particle size graph falls off pretty fast below 20u. Similar to how some filters fell off pretty fast below 20u in Ascent's ISO test data graphs. Takes a really efficient filter to keep that efficiency drop-off from happening below 20u ... like the OG Ultra showed in the Ascent testing.

 

[ZeeOSix]

That's a tiny bypass valve. Comparing it to the size of the M22 thread, I'd say it's around 6.7 mm in diameter, not much larger than one of the eight 5 mm inlet holes in the baseplate. If the filter clogs, the entire oil volume will need to flow through that little hole.

According to a pressure drop calculator, the dP across the bypass valve would be around 36 psi at 10 GPM, and 92 psi at 16 GPM. The same calculation for a 14.3 mm diameter FRAM Ultra bypass valve is 4.4 psi at 16 GPM. Bad things might happen to the engine if this filter were allowed to clog.

If the entire filter 100% clogged, it would be from non-maintenance by the owner, or some engine failure which means there's more than just a clogged filter to worry about. I don't think any bypass valve is designed to take 100% of the flow, they are there to open enough to keep the dP down across the media and center tube and help keep the oil volume being delivered to the oiling system.

 

[Sandstorm]

It's made by PG

 

[fantastic]

Shows that the efficiency vs particle size graph falls off pretty fast below 20u. Similar to how some filters fell off pretty fast below 20u in Ascent's ISO test data graphs. Takes a really efficient filter to keep that efficiency drop-off from happening below 20u ... like the OG Ultra showed in the Ascent testing.

Agreed

 

[Glenda W.]

Remember that PG & companies like Pentius are only distributors. We don't know who exactly the manufacturers are. Pentius XL are made in Korea. Their basic is made in China like many of the PG filters. It wouldn't be a surprise if the manufacturer of all these similar looking filters is the same and has multiple sites in Asia.

Makes sense. Thanks!

 

[fantastic]

I was thinking website is an official statement that goes through company procedures, while customer service maybe they looked at the lower tier series. Whoever answers the emails, well that’s the expertise one gets.

That's where official testing cuts out the run around & "marketing".

Yeah they should say according to some test standard, I noticed that too.

Agreed

Maybe this was already noticed but they say 20 “micom”rating using multi pass efficiency test. Still not any specific test.
View attachment 242031

Hilarious! It actually looks like micorn not micom. What were you saying about going through procedures? LOL joking around w/ya. Always fun to rib these companies when they misspell stuff . This seems to be their statement of 99% @ 20 "micorn" regarding their UFXL as you show on their flyer.

 

[twX]

If the entire filter 100% clogged, it would be from non-maintenance by the owner, or some engine failure which means there's more than just a clogged filter to worry about. I don't think any bypass valve is designed to take 100% of the flow, they are there to open enough to keep the dP down across the media and center tube and help keep the oil volume being delivered to the oiling system.

Media dP increases exponentially when a filter clogs, so it wouldn't take too long from the time that bypassing starts, to the time that over 90% of the oil flow is forced to go through the bypass. Clogged filters aren't that uncommon, and filters should be designed to prevent outright damage to the rod bearings when they do. My dP calculations might not be too accurate, but the BPVs on these filters seem to be flirting with that limit.

I can't think of a good reason to design a bypass valve that has 15-20 times more dP than the baseplate or outlet, when they could just make the valve a little larger.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Media dP increases exponentially when a filter clogs, so it wouldn't take too long from the time that bypassing starts, to the time that over 90% of the oil flow is forced to go through the bypass. Clogged filters aren't that uncommon, and filters should be designed to prevent outright damage to the rod bearings when they do. My dP calculations might not be too accurate, but the BPVs on these filters seem to be flirting with that limit.

I can't think of a good reason to design a bypass valve that has 15-20 times more dP than the baseplate or outlet, when they could just make the valve a little larger.

What counts is the bypass valve's open flow area as a function of dP. So if a relatively small diameter bypass valve opened up nearly all the way in it's travel, it might be able to flow quite a bit of oil volume ... more than most people could imagine without some decent model/calculations. When a bypass valve is opened pretty far, will the flow area surpass the flat area of the valve itself? I'd have to do some calculations to see - hard to guesstimate something like that.

I think an engine would have to be pretty sludged up, and the filter ran way too long for it to approach close to 100% clogged. IMO, filter bypass valves are sized for "normal" operating and normal maintenance OCI/OFC intervals. This is a good reason not to run oil filters for long multiple OCIs ... and that, along with the longer they are ran and the more they load up, most filters start losing efficiency at a pretty high rate from debris sloughing.

 

[ZeeOSix]

When a bypass valve is opened pretty far, will the flow area surpass the flat area of the valve itself? I'd have to do some calculations to see - hard to guesstimate something like that.

To clarify, a bypass valve would have to open a certain distance to make the flow area the same as the free open flow hole area of the valve diameter. Bypass valves with normal coil springs have a lot of travel and a pretty linear spring constant, so I'd expect them to open enough with increasing dP to obtain max possible flow.

One thing I don't really like about the Purolator flat spiral spring type bypass valve is they seem to have a pretty small travel and a pretty stiff spring constant - it might not even be linear. The valve itself is pretty large in diameter, which helps obtain the max flow area with less valve travel. To really know the flow capability of any bypass valve you'd have to know the effective flow area vs dP across it.

 

[twX]

To clarify, a bypass valve would have to open a certain distance to make the flow area the same as the free open flow hole area of the valve diameter. Bypass valves with normal coil springs have a lot of travel and a pretty linear spring constant, so I'd expect them to open enough with increasing dP to obtain max possible flow.

One thing I don't really like about the Purolator flat spiral spring type bypass valve is they seem to have a pretty small travel and a pretty stiff spring constant - it might not even be linear. The valve itself is pretty large in diameter, which helps obtain the max flow area with less valve travel. To really know the flow capability of any bypass valve you'd have to know the effective flow area vs dP across it.

The dP calculations I did for the Pentius were only considering the hole in the end cap, ignoring the actual valve. I'd assume that it would open far enough at high dp/flow that the hole itself would be the main restriction.

The Fram BPV holes should produce a dP on the order of 2 psi at 10 GPM, so the restriction of the hole itself is inconsequential, and the dP will be determined by the characteristics of the valve.

A Purolator spiral spring BPV with a 16.5 mm diameter opening would need to open by 1.5 mm to match the area of a more typical 10 mm diameter end cap hole. I'd expect the spring to behave like a cantilever spring; fairly linear up to a certain displacement, then highly non-linear. I'm going to cut one of these filters open soon, and I'll see if I can measure how far it'll open before the spring constant increases a lot.

I've taken a look at the Brand Ranks cold flow dP testing to see if anything interesting about BPV designs could be gleaned from it. Unfortunately, the Purolator BOSS they tested had a traditional integrated bypass, not the spiral spring design, and the smallest integrated BPV they tested had a 9-10 mm diameter, a lot larger than the BPV on the Pentius filter.

I did notice that the filters with FRAM-style and base end BPVs averaged 43-44 psi at 11 GPM, whereas filters with integrated BPVs averaged 38.5 psi. This isn't a perfect test of BPV performance, since a lot of the flow will still be through the media, but maybe the integrated BPV style tends to perform better.

 

[ZeeOSix]

A Purolator spiral spring BPV with a 16.5 mm diameter opening would need to open by 1.5 mm to match the area of a more typical 10 mm diameter end cap hole. I'd expect the spring to behave like a cantilever spring; fairly linear up to a certain displacement, then highly non-linear. I'm going to cut one of these filters open soon, and I'll see if I can measure how far it'll open before the spring constant increases a lot.

Should be interesting if you can measure the force vs displacement on a Purolator flat spiral spring bypass valve. The reason they are so large in diameter is probably so it only has to move a relatively small distance to get a good flow area. And of course the flat spring's spring constant and the valve area need to be tuned to each other to open at the desired PSI.

One thing I've always wondered is how well that Purolator flat spiral bypass valve works in real use. Could it be that it fails to bypass enough oil in high dP conditions (ie, cold oil and elevated engine RPM) due to the flat spiral spring constant not being very linear? If it can't flow enough to kept the dP down during high flow/high dP episodes, could it contribute (along wth the wide pleat spacing) to the media tears seen in many Purolator filters using that bypass valve design?

I've taken a look at the Brand Ranks cold flow dP testing to see if anything interesting about BPV designs could be gleaned from it. Unfortunately, the Purolator BOSS they tested had a traditional integrated bypass, not the spiral spring design, and the smallest integrated BPV they tested had a 9-10 mm diameter, a lot larger than the BPV on the Pentius filter.

I did notice that the filters with FRAM-style and base end BPVs averaged 43-44 psi at 11 GPM, whereas filters with integrated BPVs averaged 38.5 psi. This isn't a perfect test of BPV performance, since a lot of the flow will still be through the media, but maybe the integrated BPV style tends to perform better.

Yes, I'd think it would be hard to glean much from that data since the filter's are not totally clogged.

WRT to a previous post, I agree that larger bypass valves are better since they will flow more oil at the same dP. They also don't have to open as far to get the same flow area compared to a smaller bypass valve. It would be interesting to rig up a test that only tested the bypass valve itself with meaured flow and dP, but ISO 3968 pretty much does that in section 9.8. ISO 4548-2 (Element by-pass valve characteristics) is probably the same basic test procedure. See Figure 4 below from ISO 3968. The example bypass valve flow vs dP curve shows it to be linear since the flow area should increase as the dP increases. If the bypass spring constant isn't very linear, that curve may not be very linear. Or if the bypass valve opening is too small when fully open, the curve would probably start off linear, then start going exponential when the flow area becomes the full bypass valve opening area itself.