Why You Need an Amsoil Oil Bypass Filtration System

Everyone knows that they need to change their oil. Here at Power Forge Diesel in Yuma, AZ, a debate as old as time is how often you need to change your oil. We won't be commenting on that today. What we will be going over is oil filtration and why that matters.

Full-Flow Filtration: Ford, Chevy, and Dodge Standards

Oil filtration has been around for a very long time. Full-Flow oil filtration is exactly what every OEM manufacturer puts on their trucks. Your Full-Flow filter is the oil filter that you change every time you do an oil change. The manufacturers rate their diesel oil filtration ratings as such: Ford Powerstroke 20-25 micron, Chevy Duramax 25-30 micron, Dodge Cummins 15-25 micron. A micron is a unit of measure for very small particles. A human hair is about 70 micron to put in perspective how little we are talking here. You might be asking, if my full-flow filter filters this well, why would I need a bypass filtration system and spend all that money?

Why You Need Bypass Filtration (Protecting Engine Bearings)

Bypass filtration has also been around for a long time. In fact, the very first oil filters used on automobiles were bypass filters. The issue with replacing a full-flow filter with a bypass filter alone, is that a bypass filters so well that not enough oil gets past it to properly lubricate engine components. A Bypass filtration system filters down to 1-2 micron. So why am I sitting here writing this blog post to tell you to get a bypass oil filtration system?

Your engine bearings have extremely fine tolerances. When people say engine wear, they are mainly talking about your engine bearings. If your engine bearings have too much wear, it can and will take down your entire engine. Your bearing clearances are 0.1-2 microns. This is very small. So your full flow filter flows enough oil to properly lubricate your engine components, but it doesn't filter out the particles small enough to destroy your engine bearings. The best rating between the manufacturers listed above is 15 micron, that’s not close to small enough to resist engine bearing wear. A Bypass filtration system does filter out the particles small enough to do damage to your bearings. With a bypass system, we are NOT removing the factory full-flow filter because that is the one that always has enough oil flow to lubricate everything. We ARE adding the bypass filter to the system by taking only about 10% of the engine oil at any time which allows the engine to still have proper lubrication and filter out the particles small enough to do bearing damage. For example, your bypass filtration system will filter all of your engine oil every 15 minutes while your stock OEM filter still filters and moves enough oil to lubricate properly.

The Diesel Soot Problem

You might be asking what particles are even present in the system that you need to filter out. If you did a clean oil change, then nothing new should be introduced right? So you wouldn't need to spend any money on a bypass filtration system anyway. WRONG! Your diesel produces what is called soot. Soot is basically unburnt diesel. Diesel is the enemy to oil. It breaks oil down prematurely. Soot particles are about 1-2 microns in size, the perfect size to get into your engine bearing and cause premature wear. Luckily for you, your diesel never stops producing soot, and soot easily passes by your piston rings and gets into your oil. You can get the biggest full-flow filter you can find to stick on your truck, but without a bypass system, you will never filter out those soot particles.

The Amsoil Solution & Installation in Yuma

Why we recommend the Amsoil Oil Bypass Filtration System, is because it has a clean inline filter design that uses a bigger Amsoil full-flow filter and then follows it with a bigger bypass filter that is designed to only filter 10% of oil at any given moment to achieve both the lubrication your engine needs and the filtration your engine bearings need.

You can change your oil as often as you want. You can get a bigger full-flow aftermarket filter, but if your goal is to make your engine last as long as it can, any efforts outside of install a bypass oil filtration system are in vain because you're missing out on filtering the small soot particles your diesel engine makes on every single combustion stroke. Yes, we at Power Forge Diesel in Yuma make money when we go to install these on your truck. But your truck doesn't filter its oil sufficiently until you get one installed, effectively seeing us less than often due to reduced engine wear and fewer repairs.