Scott oil filter opinions?

[KevinC]

I've read the blurb at the Scott page, and the "review" that was done by JeF4y. I'm wondering if anyone has some actual long-term experience or real testing info on how these things compare to a stock filter?

http://www.scottsperformance.com/products.php?PartType=3

http://www.cbr600f4.com/secondary_pages/scottsfilter.htm

Supposedly it is particles in the 10 to 20 micron range that cause most of the engine wear, so Scott's claim of "35 microns absolute" may not mean it works very well.

I got one with a bike I bought, and I'm trying to decide if I should use it or not.

[Malik]

i'd try one..........just don't wanna spend the money........ahahaha ...cheap ass.

[lordbrian1]

i have one on my 2002 gsxr -600 and it works great.  the ccs want you to safety wire the filter cause they say they seen it come off, but i haven't even seen it loose when i race not even once.  for the money that you spend on the filter for the season you can buy one for the bike and use for the rest of the lifetime of that bike and my teammate have one too and he have kawi and the model uses same as gsxr.  so is also interchangable to different bike also give my sponsor a call and tell him that kuan send you to him and he'll give you a great deal if you race.  lithium motorsports 1-800-894-7190 ask for rob

8) 8)

[lordbrian1]

oh forgot the only bad thing is that the magnet comes off but some don't but is not a big deal it won't get into the engine, it'll just stick to the filter that is all

kuan ccs #545 am, ex???? have to wait when i get my # haha

[KevinC]

Well, I did a bunch of oil filter research, and asked the Scott guys and then the K & P Engineering people who actually developed the filters, a bunch of questions. (www.kandpengineering.com)

SAE has some pretty well defined tests for oil filters, the best being J1858. This is a multi-pass test, and gives capture efficiencies at 10, 20, 30 , and 40 microns. Some conventional filters do pretty good down to the 10 micron level. Scott and K and P claim there isn't any appropriate testing, which I think the SAE would argue with.

I also downloaded a couple of very good SAE papers (952557: The influence of Filter Selection on Engine Wear, Emissions, and Performance; 95255: Correlating Engine Wear with Filter Multipass Testing), and there are clear cut, tested, and documented advantages to engine life of trapping a large percentage of particles down to the 10 micron level.

I can't get a straight answer from the Scott or K and P people on the ability of their filter to capture anything below 35 microns. It would seem to me that for the price of those things, they should have some test data to the SAE standards. If the data was any good for their filter, I'm sure they'd show it. I can only conclude that the data below 35 microns doesn't make their filter look very good.

All that said, the SAE 952557 paper makes it pretty clear that the oil filter is a secondary concern when it come to engine life. The air filter is far more critical in keeping particles out of the engine, which I guess makes sense. Engines ingest a huge amount of air, and some of the dust in the air will make into the moving bits of the engine.

A good air filter, and not changing it too often, makes the most difference to engine life. Air filters actually get better at capturing fine particles as they get clogged, so changing it too often actually hurts engine life.

Frequent oil changes are good, and a high performance oil filter that captures a large percentage of particles down to 10 microns helps.

Given that Scott and K&P won't share any information other than their 35 microns "absolute", I can only conclude their filter isn't as good as a stock paper filter below 35 microns. While running the Scott filter probably wouldn't reduce engine life to 5,000 miles, there is certainly nothing to indicate it would make your engine last longer. Most motorcyclists change their oil so often, the oil filter probably has little impact on engine life. Still, the Scott oil filter is pretty expensive for an appearance only gizmo that may not be as good for your engine as a stock paper filter.

[Zac]

In general, a paper filter has a somewhat random distribution of pore size in a certain range.  This is why they talk about the multi-pass efficiency.  A 20 micron particle might pass through a 40 micron pore the first time through the filter, but the next time might get trapped in a 10 micron pore.  Because of the process of making paper, there is no way to control all of the pore to be the same size, so you have to determine an acceptable range that will yield the multi-pass filtering required.

With the 35 micron absolute filter, they laser cut a bunch of 35 micron holes in the filter.  No matter how many times a 10 micron particle goes through the filter, it will not be caught (unless it runs into a clump of larger particles).

-z.

[Super Dave]

Nice job, guys.

Good info!

Really, the oil is a closed system, unless something really breaks.  But, yeah, air cleaner.  Suck up a bunch of dirt and it whacks the rings and then bounces around.  

Keep it simple.

[cstem]

Zac is totally right about micron testing and sizing with paper.  In aviation turbine engines we like to use metal mesh filters because we can consistenly get 10 mic's out fo the metal type.  A word of caution- if any company can not tell you about a product that has thier name on it- it sometimes means they did not make it, they are buying from a import company at such a reduced rate to justify paying for packaging with their name on it.  At such a reduced rate they may not be purchasing and selling to you the best of product.  I see this a lot in the import car performance world.  One company in Taiwan will make springs for suspenion out of cheap steel with no real engineering for performance, slap some American companys' choice of paint on it, put it in a fancy package and tell you it is great.  A real shame.  Not saying this is the case with the Scott guys- but jeez- If I am going to market a product and claim it is better than something else- I would have test results!

[KevinC]

A 10 micron metal filter would be great, but the Scott is 35. That's too big to be effective. I wonder why they went with such large holes, when they are claiming huge flow rates that aren't required?

Yeah, the lack of decent testing results makes me very suspicious.

[GSXR RACER MIKE]

A 10 micron metal filter would be great, but the Scott is 35. That's too big to be effective. I wonder why they went with such large holes, when they are claiming huge flow rates that aren't required?

Yeah, the lack of decent testing results makes me very suspicious.

     I would imagine that the smaller the holes are the harder it is to produce them. One of the many machines I run is an industrial Laser capable of cutting steel up to 1/2" thick. At the opposite extreme is thinner materials which require different cutting parameters. At certain levels you will find huge increases in costs for producing a product due in part to longer production times per part and/or higher costs for specialized equipment. Economics may quite simply be the factor here. They need to produce a product that quantities of people will buy in order for them to make $. If the price is too high they most likely won't get the sales needed. It may be that going smaller than that size hole presented issues with the type of machine they wanted to use to do the work or the material they are trying to cut?

[GKing]

Be sure to safety wire the thing.  A guy showed up at one of the Gateways last year w/ a beautiful bike.  The scott filter backed off just enough for the oil pressure to blow out the o-ring.  Pumped all the oil out onto the track and his back tire.  Big crash!   :'(   They weren't requiring safety wire before that.

[zoner]

I ran the scotts on my r-6 racebike all last season and had great luck with it.  I truely like the fact that you can easily take the filter apart and check for metal to possibly catch a potential problem.  I did have the magnet come loose on mine also.  I also got mine through Lithium Motorsports.  Lithium Motorsports will be providing trackside support at most of the Mid-West CCS-FUSA raceweekend with a ton of raceparts and services.