[Sirrotica]

Just another tidbit of info I gleaned from the Baldwin filter site. There are lots of on PY people that use the B9 Baldwin filter or any number of other brands of filters that are designed to be used on Pontiac Stratostreak V8s. Since Pontiac and evidently all the other manufacturers have designed a bypass valve into the engine there is no internal bypass in the B9 and like other filters designed for engines with bypass valves.

It is my understanding that the old Lee filters had bypass valves in all of their filters and had 2 sets of media. If the bypass valve opened it sent oil through a less restrictive media so that 100% of the oil got filtered to some degree, we don't know what degree that was though. Eliminating the factory engine bypass would work with this design, however it appears this filter design has been discontinued.

Blocking the bypass valve with no relief valve of the system IMO is asking for trouble. There is the relief in the oil pump, but it only limits the system pressure to 60-80 lbs. If there is a filter restriction your still going to get between 60-80 PSI pushing against everything after the pump.

The bypass valve in a typical Pontiac engine is set to dump at 12-16 lbs. differential, not a huge difference and if your even close to 3,000 RPM and up your still trying to put everything the pump can deliver through the oil filter with maybe 3 sq ft of media. Thick oil, partially blocked media, is going to restrict the flow to the internal engine parts that need as much oil as possible for cooling and lubrication.

Heating up bearing journals by lack of oil does 2 things, the hot parts swell to a larger diameter than normal, which closes up the bearing clearance, and also decreases the oil wedge used to keep the moving parts from making contact.

Filtering the oil through a by pass filter to keep it clean as possible, and causing zero restriction in the oiling system, such as a full flow filter causes would seem to be a huge improvement and add an extra safety margin by offering no restriction after the pump and before the internal oiled parts. I know it surely isn't going to be any disadvantage by plumbing the oil system this way, Since Pontiac engineers have made the parts to actually do this over 55 years ago it's already been done and it worked fine.

Cool, clean, and dry oil is the lifeblood of all engines and does nothing but extend the longevity of any and all internally lubed parts.

Plenty of people here will invest plenty of money in all the top of the line Pontiac engine parts, and then leave them to fend for themselves with the factory issue full flow filter system and not give it a second thought. I've heard that since these cars in the hobby are driven infrequently the factory system is just fine. Think for a moment about high performance engines and how frequently they are freshened. Wearing a street engine out in 20,000 miles or less, to me isn't normal. Granted these engines are stressed more than a bone stock driver is, but if extremely clean oil is most likely going to extend that freshening out at least another 50%. The ring seal is going to stay better longer and on a leak down test it will lose less past the rings getting more mileage between tear downs. Timing components will surely last longer.

Flat tappet engines may live longer with cleaner oil, we hear a ton about flat tappet cams wiping lobes without any real answers of why. Lower zinc levels has been the scapegoat, even though people use the recommended additives the cam lobes are still going away.

Caterpillar, Cummins, and a host of other top engine manufacturers recommend eliminating all particulate over 5 microns and in their studies the 5-10 micron particulate causes the majority of engine wear. It's all there in black and white. Your standard full flow Pontiac filter, no matter what name is on the outside of it isn't going to do much better than 40 microns at a low efficiency. That means 40 microns is the minimum it will remove, and it very likely will pass through the filter media multiple times through larger pores before it is actually removed from the oil stream. 40 Microns is the smallest particulate it will remove, there are larger pores in the media it can still pass through, if and when it's caught.

It's hard for me to believe that someone would want a system as inefficient as what Detroit designed in a precision engine today......