oil filter
 

what is the best oil filter on A 500efi

I believe the AMSOIL EAO 25 or EAO 24 would be your "best" option. Whatever you buy, don't let it be a FRAM!

I like the K &N filter. I'd also like to kick the president of Fram filters right in the onions. :drink:

A lot of people are running the NAPA Gold series filters - supposedly they are made by the same people who make the WIX filters. They are supposed to have synthetic media instead of paper, which is supposed to be less susceptible to clogging if any water goes through it. I haven't cut one open to verify this, just going by what I have read.

Do a Google search on "best oil filter", or even a similar search on this site, and you will turn up a lot of information. There have been several people who went to the trouble of buying a bunch of filters and cutting them open for comparison. Trouble is, they may make them differently for different part numbers.

Make sure whatever you use is a "Hi Flow" variety. Merc had this figured out years ago as Merc filters are typically a pretty loose filter as far as filtering, thus more flow. Keep in mind a good tight filter that does not flow real well allows less oil thorugh filter, MORE oil through bypass....thus LESS oil gets to the cooler. Seen pretty dramatic oil temp drops just by changing from regular automotive filter to a higher "flow" filter, puts cooler back to work.

What's an oil by-pass valve??
 

Just so we stay correct on information here. I don't believe that statement that the standard Merc filters are "looser" filtering and flow more oil.
The part on a big block oil system that determines how much oil goes thru the filter and then thru the cooler is the oil by-pass valve that's installed in the engine. Certain oil filters also have a by-pass incorporated in them for by-pass due to filter clogging but this is pretty rare on most marine performance engines due to short interval change and service.
The standard GM stock type are the 11 psi units which when they are exposed to more than an 11 pound pressure drop across the filter and cooler (occurs quite frequently during engine operation) will open and allow a lot of oil to go directly back to the engine by-passing the filter and cooler. Not all the oil but probably 50 to 60%. If the engine was assembled with the 30 psi pressure drop by-pass valves then more of the oil will go thru the filter and cooler until the pressure drop exceeds 30 pounds at which point the by-pass would open and allow a great deal of oil to go back directly to the engine ,not cooled and unfiltered.
This is the reason we use the 30 pound by-pass valves in all our engine builds. The GM part number for this part is 25013759.
I've seen and heard of a lot of engine builds where this by-pass was either left out all together or the 11 lb was used by mistake to replace a 30lb unit that was originally installed by Merc Racing or other engine builders and oil overheating shows up very quickly.
There are also external oil cooler hose threaded openings on the lower pan rail of Gen 6 and Gen 7 GM BBC engines and this also adds the second by-pass valve to control these ports with oil flow routing at pressure drop.
If you are going to practice engine builds yourself or with a shop who does not know the system in the block you are using, make it a point to look at the diagrams available for oil flow and passages in the BBC and familiarize yourself with the pressured oil flow schematics and passage routing and location of by-passes and fittings on your block! It may save you an engine!!

The Devil Is In the Details!
This is why professional engine builders really earn their money!
This is also why we see so many posts on OSO about boat owners with engine problems!
Performance Marine engine building= GET GOOD or DON'T DO IT!!

Best Regards,
Ray @ Raylar

I have always wondered about filters. Last year I came across Pure Power. They are washable and seem to be very good. Kelly there will talk oil and filters all day with you. He says all paper filters are junk and don't really filter. Is there some truth to this or is that a sales pitch? He also likes to throw out that they are FAA approved and no one else is. Even Canton has something similar but there's is a replaceable element. If someone has some feedback on those filters that would be great before I throw out some money on them. I don't think I would be a good test candidate for you guys either.

gee... i ran fram for 25 years in every form of racing there is without a single failure of any kind. after the 24 hours of daytona, with the v6 buick motors making 450 hp spinning 7700 rpm for 24 hours would come apart with the bores and cranks looking brand new... i guess those fram things are just no good at all. oh wait a minute... this is MARINE stuff where everything is MAGIC... i forgot that...

I was running A Merc. racing filter and was geting hi. oil temp.
The oil was supper dirty wtth less then 10 hrs. on it.
I went back to Mobil-1 302 and cleaned the oil cooler, oil temp is way down, do you think the filter had sonthing to do with the temp. Also the pres. was way down but I think It was because of the Hi. oil temp. Everthing is back to norm. but what about the oil filter I have benn running the M-1 for 4 years.

I was just going to ask this very question. I have a 502 mag efi fully bone stock with 800hrs. Runs fine but i want to make it last another season or two before I refresh it. I have not leaned on it very hard yet but I did run it @ 3500-4000 RPM for about a 25 minute streach. Pressure dropped down to 20psi at idle . I ran the idle up to 1000 rpm to get the pressurs back and the oil temp down from 240 back to 160 then I went back to the 600 rpm idle and had 40+ psi. I repeated this a couple times and it seems when the oil gets hot the pressure drops.

I would like to know what oil and filter I should be running.

Thanks in advance.

Stevesxm:

Could not agree with you more about Fram high performance or Fram racing filters. Been probably hundreds of thousands of those particular oil filters used in Marine, High performance and Racing applications with total success. Having said that I have also cut open and seen a few of the standard inexpensive standard automotive Fram oil filters with cheap paper elements and cardboard ends where they have split and broken media paper elements with almost no real filtering going on with some even having paper media and cardboard ends clogging up top of filter return holes and passages. With Fram it's what type and number you buy and use that seems to be very important. Buy the simple cheap automotive filter versus the HP series Fram or Fram racing filters and you pretty much get what you pay for.
Fram is not alone with this problem of cheap paper elements and ends as a good many other filter manufacturers make these cheap (not worth the price) in my mind filters.
Just my two cents and always questionable opinion.

Best Regards,
Ray @ Raylar

you are right, of course. mine was just a knee jerk reaction to a generic condemnation of what i know to be a very very good company. in this single and unique instance, their R+D and manufacturing operation was actually in my home town and i got to walk thru there and talk to the engineers and work with them on a project i had going and i found them terrific. so many places that i dealt with had their engineering staff full of marketing and sales guys. not fram. therese were the old school, pocket protector , white shirt guys that if you asked them a question , you got the numbers and the math instantly.

i have a lot of respect for them. and , as i said, i'm certain you are correct about street stuff vs their HP stuff. by this time, i'm sure the bean counters have siezed control and the stuff probably comes from china anyway...like everyone elses consumer grade products.

i liked the mobil 1 synthetics and , in my OPINION, there are no lubricants better than those. you can argue this to death but i have never used any lubrucant mad eby anyone else that ever performed even close to how the M1 synthetics performed in the real world. as for filters... any quality name brand performance graded filter is as good as any other. again... you can agrue this until you get tired of doing and the difference in micron rating isn't going to be the difference in you motor living and dieing. oil change intervals will. correct oil and water temp will, correct air fuel ratio will , correct warm up and cool down will, correct long storage procedures will.

all the filter does is collect the trash that YOU caused to be there by running the motor too rich or too cold or too hot or any number of other things that are self inflicted. its like blaming the garbage can for your wifes lousy cooking.

When did you eat at my house?:evilb:

Thanks I have been leaning to changing to Mobil 1 full synthetic.

The standard Fram filter sucks, cut one open compare, it uses paper media and poorly constructed. Now the racing filters may be different, so a general statment about all Fram filters may not be true.
I used the amsoil AE 25 for several years, this year I am using the larger one, cant remember the number. Its huge almost 2 quarts of oil.

this oil filter discussion and debate is the same as the oil line size debate. meaningless. what is necessaryin in a technical sense for application is all thats required. everything after that is nonsense. for example... there are a 100 people on this board that have -16 oil lines... 1 " inside diameter going into ports that are 3/8 in dia. its the same with filters. i have over a career installed , maybe 15,000 or 20,000 oil filters. i have never ever once, in my life seen one fail. i have never ever once seen one be the proximate cause of any failure. i have cut apart filters after motors have lost every bearing inside yet the drty sump pump was sufficient to maintain pressure while the filter elements were coated with bearing. why ? becaus eif the filter clogs, the bypass does its job. if you say that the frams explode their paper elemnts then i have to wonder what the hell you are doing to them. you are talking about requiring a differential pressure on both sides of the media sufficient to deform the screen etc. you are also suggesting that every other cheapo junk filter you buy for 3 bucks is somehow immune to this. nonsense again. the filter is just that... a particulate accumulator. nothing more. little pieces go thru. big pieces get caught. there is some restriction but it is inconsequential because pressure is constant in all parts of the system and the flow velocity is actually quite low in a relative sense. so you can make this into magic if you want... but it isn't. you COULD ( empasize could as opposed to should) walk into anywhere at any time of day or night and buy any brand of oil filter made by anyone that is the correct size and configuration for your motor and if your motor is mechanically sound , that filter will adequate to the task. but like all things some are better quality than other and as such will tolerate extremes better than lesser quality ones will. there is your choice. pay a little more for some additional capability you may or may not ever need. but that's a choice. not a requirement. my 502's made 25 psi at idle hot and 50 at speed. do i need some magic hi zoot filter for that ? no. but there are people on here making 1500 hp and need 120 psi and extreme filter media to control contamination... different problem/different solution required . just like the oil lines... engineering rule number two : " what's right is right and everything else is wrong to some degree"

I have the same issue,My engines are rebuilt with about 10 hrs.First start oil pressure 55psi.gets warmed up goes to 40psi.Running 3500-4000 42psi hot 220F.Idle 20psi hot.cools down back to 35-40psi....