[Formulas]

The whole unfiltered oil concept is a little deceiving to me as soon as you hear that most peoples thoughts go to immediate engine death OMG should never happen not one drop, But if you step back from the Clift and analyze the life of a drop of oil, It goes in clean and gets filtered most if not all the time one pass or another because they are designed to keep oil clean so there should not be a chunk of death waiting at the door in case of a bypass and if there is your engine is probably disintegrating at that moment and nearly no filtration system known to man is going to help

[Jay S]

Originally Posted by Formulas

The whole unfiltered oil concept is a little deceiving to me as soon as you hear that most peoples thoughts go to immediate engine death OMG should never happen not one drop, But if you step back from the Clift and analyze the life of a drop of oil, It goes in clean and gets filtered most if not all the time one pass or another because they are designed to keep oil clean so there should not be a chunk of death waiting at the door in case of a bypass and if there is your engine is probably disintegrating at that moment and nearly no filtration system known to man is going to help

I agree, oil going thru the bypass basically never kills parts in the rotating assembly. It may leave a scar in a bearing, or a leave a score some place, but that is about it. Most flat tappet cams the lifter bleed rates are loose enough they can eat some debre and sludge and still function.

I do the filtering upgrades on Pontiac’s when the engine has a roller set up to prevent unfiltered oil that a shard of metal or piece of debre getting in the galley feed. It is extra prevention to keep the lifter’s feed free and clear on roller set ups to prevent collapse lifters and extend needle bearing life. That stuff does not apply to as much to splash fed mechanical lifters or a stock engine.

A secondary reason is after destroying engine bearings, with Pontiac’s stock bypass we did not save any of the roller cam parts when that happened, they galleys are all full of metal filings and everything is a mess. $$$$ of roller parts into the scrap barrel. After we started doing filtering upgrades with either the bypass blocked or higher bypass pressures, the roller valve terrain parts usually can get reused after an engine failure.

[Sirrotica]

To add to Formulas thoughts, the oil that passes through a OEM full flow filter is not filtered to a high standard. Most filter to 30-40 microns, there are lots of smaller abrasives that still pass through the media unhindered. Low concentrations of these contaminants are fairly benign in overall engine health.

The point where the numbers of the 30-40 micron sized particulate start to add up in concentration is what causes the accelerated wear on internal engine surfaces over time. Frequent oil changes will lessen that problem so the concentration is minimized. Blocking the bypass valve doesn't change the facts that a OEM full flow filter is still only capable of filtering out particulate over 30-40 microns. Frequent oil changes are mandatory to keep the concentrations of fine particulate low with an OEM style filter.

Realistically the short burst of oil that meters by the bypass valve in an extreme situation isn't chock full of sand or gravel and going to take out the bottom end in a few seconds, OEM sees it as a non issue. On the other hand starvation of oil for a few seconds, or an internal media rupture due to a pressure spike that dumps all the previously trapped contaminants out of the filter media, will injure the bottom end almost instantly.

The other alternative is adding extra by pass filter that will remove anything over 5 microns and stop the concentration if someone were to run over on an oil change. The by pass filter also allows you to safely extend oil changes as it adds an extra safety cushion by filtering to a much higher standard over a longer period.

Again, small engines depend upon frequent oil changes to keep the concentrations low the same as automotive engines used 1000 mile oil changes before the addition of any oil filter systems to automotive engines. The addition of oil filters in automotive applications moved the 1000 mile intervals to 3000 miles by at least removing some of the contaminants.

In the end no oil filter, or blocking a oil bypass valve is going to stop catastrophic engine failure by itself. The main job of a filter system is to keep contaminant counts in the lower ranges to head off long term wear until the oil can be changed for fresh oil, or there is a by pass filter system installed that removes nearly all the small contaminants, all the time.

So you can improve the system to filter to a higher standard, or change oil frequently because it's getting contaminated constantly by small particulate that no OEM system can remove. No rocket science involved, just choices on what system you run.