Re: Centrifuges
The effectiveness of these in our small engines is debatable. There are larger units used on big rig long haul trucks which are anecdotally quite effective. However, those units are much larger, spin much faster, and are driven by air pressure rather than engine oil pressure. Big Rigs have air pressure systems which are useful for this purpose. In generating g-forces two things matter; size (diameter of the spinning cylinder) and speed (rate of rotation). I doubt that enough g's can be generated from our engine oil pressure in a unit that would fit under our hoods in order to remove a significant percentage of 1 micron contaminants.
I would be wary of using a centrifugal full flow filter for fear it may cause a decrease in engine oil pressure and/or oil starvation under some conditions. A centrifuge would seem to make more sense theoretically as a bypass filter; rather than a replacement for the stock full flow filter; for these reasons.
Re: Toilet Paper Filters
These are anecdotally effective as bypass filters in small diesel engines and have been in production since shortly after WWII. Critical to this kind of filter is the practice of re-topping the engine oil at the time of filter replacement. This serves to replenish the critical anti-corrosion and lubrication additives such that one can essentially forego draining and replenishing the engine oil every 3-5,000 miles (assuming you have no significant blow-by contamination of the engine oil with diesel fuel). Many users of the Frantz units and other similar systems will change the toilet paper filter every 3-5,000 miles, top up the oil, and then perform an annual full oil change and complete filter replacement. The Frantz system leaves your stock full flow oil filter in place. Additionally, it increases the total capacity of your engine oil lubrication system, generally a good thing.
Re: Extended oil filter change intervals
There is an extended service engine oil filter available which is of identical dimensions to the stock Mann filter; which will fit the Mk2 TD engine. As I recall it is a VW recommended replacement oil filter for the early 1.9L TDI's running purely synthetic motor oil, and is made by Mann. This filter has a change interval twice as long as the stock original filter. If you are running synthetic motor oil and running many miles per anum... then this may be an appropriate filter to use.
Re: Friction.
I understand that our engine blocks can only be rebult a certain number of times (3 to 4) before you run out of material to hone and piston sizes to upgrade to. So, there will someday be no more useable 1.6L cores around. Therefore, it makes sense to try to extend the useful life we get out of our engines... within reason.
The majority of engine wear occurs at startup and during the warm up process.
IMO, this would be optimally achieved by installing a diesel powered parking heater (Espar or Webasto) (or using a block heater routinely whenever the ambient temperature is below 70 degrees farenheit) and some sort of bypass motor oil filtration system.
If you shop around on ebay, you can probably pick up an NOS Frantz oil filter for under $200 shipped (I have seen them), or you can buy a new one from Frantz.
Parking heaters are a standard dealer installed option in Northern Europe, and can be found on German Ebay routinely. The difficulty is in finding proper installation and service in North America. Espar has a presence in the USA. Webasto has a presence in the boating community, but not much in the automotive category in the USA (other than sunroofs). I believe the cheapest professional install of such a unit I have ever read about was for $850 in Ohio.
Toyota mitigates the damage caused by cold starts in the Prius by installing a giant thermos sump in the cooling system... a brilliant entirely passive design. The contents of that sump remain hot for up to 24 hours.
Re: Soot
There is great debate about whether soot can be effectively removed from engine oil, and whether soot actually causes much damage to the engine when suspended in motor oil.
There are some bypass engine oil makers who claim that their product will remove soot from the engine oil. But, this field is so specialized, marginalized, and low volume, that no one appears to have deep enough pockets to fund the third party research necessary to corroborate these claims.
It is agreed that soot at some point does cause engine oil to acidify. Presumably this is a risk when the conditioners and stabilizers in the engine oil have outlived their useful life.
Re: Oil Starvation
A windage tray in the oil pan would seem to be a prudent investment to prevent oil starvation during hard cornering, and to reduce motor oil foaming. These tend to run about $45 and are made by Victor Reintz (sp). They have the added advantage of having a built in rubber oil pan gasket; so you can say goodbye to the stock cork one.
Amsoil makes a system for providing oil pressure at startup for engines. This is an interesting idea, but I have never actually seen one.
Re: Oil Filter cost
Stock Mann oil filters can be purchased by the case for around $6.00 apiece shipped. You will then be tripping over a whole case of filters, but it beats paying a big markup on a special order item locally.
Re: Caterpillar filters
There are many TDI owners who have adapted their vehicles to use CAT 2 micron filters rather than stock VW filters. I have not seen these used on any Mk2's. CAT filters are large, relatively inexpensive (around $11 apiece), and more effective than the stock TDI filters. I am not sure where I could fit such a large unit under the hood of my Mk2 Jetta TD.
Re: Fuel filtration
The stock 1.6L Mk2 Diesel fuel filter is supposedly around 10 microns. If you are going to filter the engine oil down to 2 microns, then if may make sense to filter the fuel to the same level. Crud in injectors is a bad thing; and damaged injectors can literally cut into pre-chambers and piston tops... like a water saw.
Topic: No more oil filters! Hmmm what do you guys think? (Read 5457 times)
