Lets face it, headers and oil filters don't seem to like each other much. And the more you lean toward a "race" engine, the more these two items assume the position of Russia and OPEC. Til now, I've been able to run a factory adapter with a NAPA 1258 filter on all of my builds but with this latest set of headers, my luck is just about to run out.
The idea of a remote oil filter does not intrigue me. Like 50w on a cold morning, my brain churned this slowly over for months before the header builder made any decision for me. So many things to consider by moving one simple, but well designed part -
- Will there be a pressure loss?
- Am I straining the pump?
- Are the lines big enough?
- Now that I've deleted the factory bypass, do I need another one?
- Can the oil filter handle filtering 100% of the load without a bypass?
- Should I get an oil filter with a bypass built in?
- Will I starve my bearings if Ive made any of the wrong choices above?
- Where the heck will I put it?
Now that I absolutely had to do it, I needed to get thinking on how it was going to get done. After a lot of reading, careful consideration, much deliberation, careful contemplation, rumination, and cogitation, this is where I ended up -
Nitemare Performance
Its a decent kit, with a decent price, with all I needed, along with some proven results. (if I'm to believe the sales hype). Here my problem. They are expecting you to mount this kit on the firewall. There is still no way in hell I'm modifying my freshly painted firewall to mount an oil filter. Not just because its my firewall, I just don't think its the most attractive thing to look at. (and because its my freshly painted firewall)
With all that real estate gone though, where the heck was I going to put this thing? (About now was the 439th time Ive regretted not putting in fender wells. So much easier when that metal is just begging for something to do.)
With necessity being the mother of invention, (and this was a mother) I decided the only logical place this could work would be under the passenger foot well. As a result, I only bought the pieces from Nitemare that I needed, which were the adapter block and the remote filter block.
There is no doubt this is quality stuff. This unit is beefy:
And I love this idea -
The only issue was the remote filter block was far bigger than I thought. Having it in my hand, I can see now it has a 0% possibility of mounting it in the space available. I thought about cutting out the passenger floor and making an alcove for this to sit, but it would present issues trying to actually get to the fittings. I had to find another way. Next!
Moroso makes a remote mount that might fit a little better. It doesn't have the grooved oil ring which is a bummer, but it appeared a bit smaller in the pictures. I ordered one up and when it arrived, mocked it up into place. After some slight modification, I got it to sit up higher than the previous piece by a considerable amount, so I made a bracket to mount it to my frame.
I had to shave off about 1" of material from the top port to get it to fit up tight to the floorboard. It was threaded all the way down, so it didn't hurt it any -
Now seems like a good time to re-post Tip 12.
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Tip#12 - A lot of companies are more than happy to share their technical drawings with you, should you ask. Much easier having all of the measurements in a digital format like pdf, than to transcribe all my crummy scribbling that may or may not be 100% accurate. (Some companies even supply 3D models if you're capable to handle them)
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Yeah, all the time making a bracket, drilling holes, making sure it could handle vibration, the lines had a good path blah blah blah... wasted. As mentioned, I did mock this up prior to doing all of this, but with the car is up on jack stands - has been for months now - it makes it difficult to really know what it will ultimately look like when its on the ground. I thought I could deal with it once it was mounted, but after a week of looking at it, staring at it, loathing it, I had to replace it. And I really like that bracket too....
Mounting it underneath the car with filter attached made it look like a diesel truck. I might as well have gotten a water separator and train horn to complete the transformation. No matter how close to the floorboard I got the bracket, the entire filter could still be seen from the side of the car. (and there was no way I was taking a picture of that ugly thing) Barring those unsightly aesthetics, the filter would also be tad too close to the ground for my liking. Any hard or unexpected landing at the track, (and they would have to be hard like, I got bigger problems than my oil filter hard) might upset this filter and drag oil all over the place. No sense in chancing it.
If I'm being positive, which I'm really trying to be, the Moroso piece was Chevy designed anyway. Mounting it on the passenger side of the car, where our oil filters are of course, meant having the inlet toward the back of the vehicle. That's a lot of extra hose to run to make a nice sweep into it. Its either that or a 90 degree fitting and I refuse to use those on any fluid path. At least the Nitemare piece entered from the proper side!
The only realistic option was to lay the filter on its side. Now I needed a remote filter block that passed all its fluid through the top. Do they even make those??
Enter
Peterson Fluid Systems
This part is definitely coming on vacation with the gnome. It might as well have just solved world peace! Check it out - Its pretty "slick". (cmon now, Ive been good so far!) It got dining room table status!
Now all that is needed is a way to mount it.
Through the magic of the interweb, I present you bracket 2.0.1:
It sure is ugly, but with some paint and a few bolts, this is what it looks like in use - solid as a rock
And you can barely see the test filter from the side of the car -
It barely has 1/8" of an inch before it hits the xmember on the way out, but it drops out and goes up straight so there is no chance of cross threading.
Some good quality DEI wrap to keep it from taking on any of that header heat, and we're in business.
The car has no official mileage on this build just yet, but startups have been many. PSI has been instant and consistent with no sign of any issue whatsoever.
The biggest plus is oil changes are a breeze. Gone are the days of a messy ordeal with smokey fire ups from residual oil on the header. I've done my first oil change after break in just to get all the assembly lube out. It all went to plan. (Oil looked great btw - no glitter. I have yet to open the filter)
Time will tell if all of the right moves have been made here.