Thoughts : Oil Purfication Systems

[KPHMPH]

So I been doing a fair amount of research of oil purification systems for heavy duty Diesel engines ( Cat engine ) and I pulled the pin last time I was in Edmonton getting some maintenance done. Now I trust what I have read but I wanted to see what you guys thought about them.

I got my system from www.ops-1.com

Cost of the unit was $800, $300 for the install kit and $600 to install it for a total of $1700.

Now I usually do my oil changes ever 300 hours and they cost me $500.

This OPS kit requires me to change the OPS filter and Engine oil filter plus take a sample and send it off ( $65, $45, $20 = $130 ) every 250 hours.

Now this system does NOT require an oil change anymore ( depending on samples ) and some customers have been running their oil for 350,000 KMS now with zero issues.

To me this sounds like snake oil but I’m hoping it works out for me! Save some decent money over the years.

http://cdn3.bigcommerce.com/s-h9rlg/product_images/uploaded_images/ecopur1.jpg?t=1411669997

[HiTempguy1]

Oil breaks down. No amount of "purification" or "cleaning" fixes that.

My uncle runs a trucking company. He has always ran 15w40 conventional diesel oil in his fleet, changes it at recommended intervals, calls it a day.

He is one cheap son of a bitch, so he spent a lot of time figuring out what was the most economical method while maintaining reliability.

[ExtraSlow]

Bypass oil filters are good technology and can significantly extend oil change intervals, but it's not total magic. The oil gets thinner over time due to mechanical shearing that breaks the carbon chains and no filter will rebuild them.

[KPHMPH]

Well I’m still excited.

I’ll be doing my 250 hour samples to see how things shape up. It will take me 4.5-5 samples for me to break even on his system without changing my oil so I’m fairly excited.

[revelations]

I dont quite understand how this remove the combustion bypass products. You would need a molecule-sized filter.

Their claims to "eliminate" oil changes is bunk - I can see it extending the lifespans of oil slightly, but when things like the TBN begin to drop, and volatile compounds rise, (both to a certain threshold) you know the oil is done.

[Maxt]

Take a virgin oil sample as baseline and a 250 hour sample and send it to AGAT to see what they say..

[ExtraSlow]

I dont quite understand how this remove the combustion bypass products. You would need a molecule-sized filter. Well, molecules come in diffferent sizes . . .

I'm not an expert on automotive oil filtration, but I have done some work with industrial oil filtration, and have a passing knowledge of how these automotive systems work. Because they are filtering a smallish fraction of the total flow of the oil with each pass, they can use a very small filter "mesh" that traps tiny tiny particles. Over time the amount of those tiny particles in the oil is dropped significantly, thus effectively removing them from the bulk of the oil.

Without any numbers, this is the concept. If the regular full flow filter can remove particles of X size, the bypass filter will treat maybe 20% of the oil volume, and remove particles of 1/10th X size.

Totally works, and that concept is used in many industrial systems.

[KPHMPH]

The whole reason why normal oil filter can’t filter everything is because it takes to much to filter it and get oil pressure all around he engine. On average a stock filter will filter down to 8-10 microns while these filters will continuously filter down to 1-2 microna.

This system will filter around 40 liters every 8 hours this truck is running.

[AndyL]

Always liked the systems... I'd never trust one except on a 13 letter shit spreader - where you know you're topping up weekly anyway :)

I could see it offsetting some of the damage of long idling times - but an espar makes more sense in that case.

Better filtration never hurts but even on big trucks - oil is cheap preventative maintenance...

[KPHMPH]

I totally understand where you all are coming from but oil sample don’t lie. They will tell you ahead of time when something is happening on the engine and what to expect.

I usually do an oil change at 300 hours, which is a hard over $500.

Now I will be doing a sample and 2 filter changes at $130.

With the $1700 and $130 for each 250 hour my break even should be 4.5-5 oil samples then it will be savings from there!

I will try to bump this thread and keep you guys updated as to how the oil looks at each step going forward.

If this is something that plays out on this truck it will be going on all my trucks.

After doing an extensive budget reworking the other day everything counts towards the bottom dollar.