what is the point of putting on a larger oil filter?

 

Just like racing strips and exhaust tips, +15 hp.

Unless your pushing some serious power...

 

Not really an answer.

More filtering capacity, more flow, better filtering and a longer filter life. Same thing as getting a deeper tranny pan. Overall it helps your engine out, as a deeper tranny pan helps your tanny out.

So comparing a bigger filter to racing strips/exaust tips is foolish.

 

FYI, a larger filter does not provide more flow as stated above. The flow into and out of the filter is the same as with a stock filter because you have not changed anything except the filter. Increasing flow would have to come from using a better pump, or increasing pressure, etc... A larger filter does add more overall oil to the system (not much, but a little), but the rate at which it flows will not change.

The important thing to keep in mind with this type of change is that an oil filter has a bypass valve. The size filter that comes on our engines all have the same bypass valve specifications. If you switch to a larger filter, it is going to have a valve specification for whatever engine it was designed for, not our engine. So if you go with a larger filter, you have to make sure the bypass valve pressure specifications is the same as the filter that is designed for our engines. If it is not, you could actually do a lot of damage to your engine. The bypass valve is designed to open in the event the filter has become clogged or damaged. It allows oil to bypass the filter and return to the engine. The valve is controlled by a spring that opens under a certain amount of pressure. The larger filter you buy might be designed for an engine with much different pressure specification. So using it on our engines could result in one of two things happening:

1) If the valve is a low pressure valve, it might be open all the time when it is installed on our engines, which means your oil is just returning back to the engine without ever being filtered at all. This defeats the purpose of even having a filter at all, and is very bad for your engine over time.

2) If the valve is a high pressure valve, it might not open at all when needed because our system might not provide enough pressure to even open it. This would be really bad if the filter becomes clogged. The bypass valve not opening means your engine will starve for oil, and will pretty much destroy itself in short order.

This is why I only use the filter size that was designed for my engine or that meets the exact specifications for my engine.

 

More filtering capacity, more oil capacity (gain 1/4-1/3 quart of oil). The NAPA Gold 1515 I use has all the same specs as the stock filter (Except for length; From WIX).

 

Im using the FL-1A right now. Anyone had any problems with them? Had it on for 500 miles and no problems.. yet

 

With FL-1A filters, no problems, except they (Motorcraft) went cheap on themselfs and made the filters shorter.

 

How an oil filter works.
http://www.secondchancegarage.com/public/297.cfm

Silver's explanation is good.

 

great info, thanks

 

i haven't had any issues with the Motorcraft filter either. It's only about 16 oz increased oil capacity but every little bit helps. It always seemed strange to me that this big engine only took 5 qts of oil. My bike takes more, and it has an oil filter the size of a grey poupon jar!