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note: because I talk too much (and exceeded the posting limits of the forum), this post is divided into 5 sections. The tables referred to are under the last, 5th section of this post.
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people upgrade their drum brakes to newer technology disc brakes, and their engine with newer technology electronic ignition and fuel injection, so to go along with these upgrades why not upgrade your engine’s oil filtering with a newer filtration technology, rather than using something that was designed 40 years ago?
Therefore the question “are there different grades of wix oil filters?” to me contains an implied second question of “what is the best wix oil filter for our engines?” and more generally, “what is the best (any brand) oil filter for the IH sv v8 gasoline engine?
So here’s the answer directly, so you don’t need to read any of the other supporting info I type below. The following information applies to the IH v8 gasoline engines 304, 345, and 392 but also applies to a lot of other engines too, both IH and non-IH. You be the judge for your application.
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– I –
the best: baldwin: b7311-mpg
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if you have the room, presently the very best of the best of all the spin-on full-flow oil filters we could put on our engine, and by a wide margin over any stock filter, is the synthetic oil filter made by baldwin, the b7311-mpg .
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– II – the best 7 inch (referred to as 2 quart) oil filters in preferred order:
– 1 – baldwin: b7311-mpg - the best of all wix/baldwin oil filters
– 2 – baldwin: bt217, bt237 - same filter, different part numbers
– 3 – baldwin: bt251
– 4 – wix: 51459
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– iii – the best 5 inch (referred to as 1 quart) oil filters in preferred order:
– 1 – baldwin: b2-hpg
– 2 – baldwin: b2
– 3 – wix: 51452
– 4 – wix: 51806
– 5 – wix: 51515
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For our daily driver applications, I would always prefer any 7 inch filter listed here to any 5 inch filter. They flow better, with less pressure drop, have more contaminant holding ability, and it’s less likely the by-pass valve will open on cold starts because of the greater flow/media filtering area.
Note that all of the filters listed above meet and most far exceed the original oem requirements with technologies not available 40 years ago. I would not hesitate to use any of the above listed filters on my truck.
The goal of this whole post is maximum protection and ultimately extended time between engine rebuilds. My IH 304 holds 9 quarts of oil. I don’t know how typical that is of these v8 engines, but that’s a lot of oil and $$ at oil change time. I don’t need that oil to get dirty from an inferior filter any sooner than possible.
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filters considered:
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due to time constraints, I only looked at the oil filters from two manufacturers, wix and baldwin . but of the thousands of oil filters wix and baldwin makes, there are 147 wix and 226 baldwin full-flow spin-on oil filters that will “fit” our engine . yes, I counted and looked at them all . and this is not taking into consideration the other “brand” filters they manufacture such as napa, carquest, hastings, purolator, etc . both manufacturers seem to keep their best filters in their name only . hence you will not find a napa equivalent to the wix 51452, or a purolator equivalent to the baldwin b7311-mpg filter . therefore in this comparison I did not ever look at, consider, or in any way include the other “brands” these two companies manufacture .
our v8 engines could possibly have either of two different sizes of spin-on oil filter threads . the oil filter plate that attaches to the block in a loadstar* type of gasoline v8 engine application uses a 1 – 12 oil filter thread which is different from the oil filter plate that attaches in a Scout or pick-up application with the exact same gas v8 engine block . that plate has an oil filter thread of 3/4 – 16 . and all those other loadstar type filters were looked at too .
but as it turns out if you have a loadstar type gas engine, and want the very best filter present production technology has to offer, you need to get an oil filter plate from a Scout or pick-up truck engine, put it on your engine block, and run one of the 7 inch filters listed above . I have not found any loadstar type filter you can run that exceed the specifications, and most don’t come close, to the filters listed above . so based on that fact, that’s another reason why my belief is all the filters above meet, and most far exceed the requirements of the old IH v8 gas engines in all categories - for particle size captured, quantity of contaminants held, and equal or better less restricted flow . and in some cases significantly less restriction and much better oil flow than a stock** filter and therefore less pressure drop resulting in higher oil pressure for the engine . and all filters above and in the tables attached use the properly rated by-pass valve and contain the anti-drainback valve .
*note: I use the word “loadstar” to represent all vehicle applications larger than a 1 ton truck that use these gasoline engines .
**note: for the purpose of clarity and comparison in this post I am calling the wix 51452 or 51515 as “stock” .
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filters not considered:
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By-pass oil filters were not considered. Although highly desirable as evidenced by their use on larger, more expensive engines, I would not recommend them because our oil pumps have such marginal reserve capacity. Although they (by-pass filters) could be used utilizing a small electric 12 volt oil pump, such as a weldon, mocal, exa-pump, tilton, shurflo, varna, or something custom from companies like
www.enginegearonline.com/, etc., the additional plumbing introduces the potential for more leaks, especially when driving hard off-road.
Also stainless steel screen mesh filters, despite their use in aircraft and in race cars, were not considered.
Canister filters were also not considered as very little data is available on them.
And there are other oil filter manufacturers not considered but worth taking a close look at too, such as donaldson and racor come to mind. But in the end there is only so much time and so I concentrated on the two largest, most established companies that produce the largest selection of spin-on engine oil filters, wix and baldwin.
I have no brand loyalty. I have no pre-conceived idea or emotional preference to which brand filter is best. My conclusions are not based on “feeling” this brand or that brand filter is best because I’ve always used that filter all my life, or my friend’s supermarket butcher recommends it because its always worked great in his truck. Before I purchased my IH truck, I’ve never seen an IH pick-up truck before, and never met anyone who has owned an IH, and could care less about filters. A fram or a sears automotive brand was fine with me for my car. My filter conclusions above, starting from a clean slate, are unbiased and based solely on current and available published engineering data. Consequently you May see other filters here more highly rated than your “favorite” filter.
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filter requirements:
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to me, the most important requirement of a filter is to filter . and the finer the contaminant particles it filters, the better for less engine wear . (for a frame of reference, 25 microns is about .001 inch) . and it must filter finer particles without increasing the pressure drop across the filtering medium . in other words, it must not cause your engine to see a lower oil pressure from increased resistance to flow just because it is filtering smaller particles . this also directly equates into better lubrication protection for your engine from the higher oil pressure, and better gas mileage from less parasitic drag losses, although that May not be noticeable .
in addition, the filter must provide a by-pass in the event it becomes plugged up with contaminants, or more importantly, when the oil is too cold to pass through the filter medium such as when the engine is first started on a cold morning . the by-pass valve allows continued full oil pressure to the engine, even though that oil is then dirty, unfiltered oil . for our engine, that by-pass setting should be at 8 psi .
also, it should contain an anti-drainback valve, so at start-up your oil pump does not need to refill your oil filter before pressurizing the remaining engine . but more importantly a one-way anti drain back valve keeps dirty oil from back-flushing into the engine from the filter when the engine is shut down . otherwise this could happen regardless of the filter’s mounting orientation .
some filters also contain a “standpipe” . all that does is allow the filter to be mounted in any direction, including pointed upward in addition to horizontal or downward . for our stock applications, a standpipe does not matter in any way . I just mention it only for those who May see that spec on some of the filters and wonder what that is all about .
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judgement criteria:
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Despite the attempt by the filter manufacturers council (the organization that represents the entire north American filtration industry) to standardize testing procedures so comparisons between different manufacturers and their filters can be made, in reality they have not been very successful in doing so. There aren’t a lot of cross-over specs between manufacturers, so comparisons between the different manufacturers’ filters can be very difficult, at best.
<<<<< part 2 continued below >>>>>
