Oil Filters

Regular oil and filter changes are the most important maintenance services you can perform to prolong the life of your engine. Even premium motor oils break down with age and use, losing their ability to lubricate and protect your engine from wear, corrosion, and sludge. The oil filter keeps the engine oil as clean as possible between changes, but it too has a finite capacity for protection, and should be changed before it reaches its dirt holding limits. Some advocate changing the filter at every other oil change, but if you consider the risk of expensive engine damage vs filter cost, this is false economy.

Your oil filter has to filter and trap contaminants without impeding oil flow for many thousands of miles. The composition of the filter media is proprietary to the filter manufacturer but in general is cellulose or synthetic media, or a combination of the two. Filters can be rated according to efficiency and capacity. An efficiency rating of 99% means that for every 100 dirt particles entering the filter, 99 particles are removed. The filter capacity must be large enough to hold the trapped contaminants before the next oil and filter change. We carry highly efficient, high capacity oil filters for almost every application.

We offer replaceable element cartridge filters as well as the more common spin-on filters. Spin-on filters have a stamped metal housing that must be strong enough to withstand high oil pressure at engine startup and vibration during engine operation. Most filters have an anti-drain back valve that prevents oil from draining back into the oil pan when the engine is shut off, ensuring that oil will be available to flow to the engine at engine startup. A bypass valve in the filter opens to allow oil flow when the oil is too cold to flow through the filter element, or if the filter becomes clogged from lack of maintenance.

Standard oil filters don’t have the strength, flow rate, and filtration ability to meet the needs of performance engines. A high volume pump and a pan full of 20W-50 can create enough oil pressure to rupture a standard spin-on filter, and a standard filter can restrict flow, allowing oil pressure to drop with subsequent metal-to-metal contact and engine damage. And some co-called performance oil filters sacrifice filtration to achieve high flow rates.

Our performance spin-on oil filters have thick canister walls and heavy-duty base plates to prevent distortion even at extreme oil pressures, and these rugged housings also have the strength to resist punctures from rocks and debris, so you don’t end up stranded. While the specific media construction is proprietary to the manufacturer, in general most performance filters have specially designed synthetic media that allow high oil flow rates while trapping as much as 99% of harmful contaminants. Some of our performance filters have hex nuts for easy wrench-off removal, and they’re pre-drilled for safety wire attachment.