View Full Version : OEM Racor @ 5.3K with FilterMag
Kennedy sent me an OEM Racor filter to inspect with a twist - here's something you won't see every day:
http://thumbs.webshots.com/s/thumb4/6/95/65/95869565dCVMwN_th.jpg
The FilterMag is targeted primarily for oil filter use....This OEM Racor fuel filter has 5250 miles of use with a fuel lift pump. Based on Kennedy's past filter inspections and fuel testing reports, he has a CLEAN fuel supply. Notice the ferrous deposits that remain stuck to the inner case :eek: These deposits will smear with pressure, and feel/look like the deposits on a differential magnetic drain plug. I had a very hard time getting the FilterMag off of the filter....
The rest of the FilterMag pics are HERE (http://community.webshots.com/album/91806272mLISUS), or click on the second link in my sig and choose the DURAMAX FILTERS II album.
Who'd have thunk it :eek: ? It would be even more interesting to see what a post OEM filter looks like with a FilterMag....
I added a few pics of a Baldwin B1441 (http://community.webshots.com/album/91806272mLISUS)that I removed for inspection on 07/07/2002 after only 917 miles/34.7 hrs with a FilterMag.
http://thumbs.webshots.com/s/thumb4/8/9/96/95880996ifkCGd_th.jpg
Impressive Results with the filter Mag! http://forum.thedieselpage.com/ubb/icons/icon14.gif Looks like a nice product!
I've been planning on putting a few magnets inside my OilGuard but I didn't think there would be that much Fe accumulation from the oil (or fuel). :eek:
[ 10-21-2003, 05:27 AM: Message edited by: jbplock ]
What is shown in the pictures looks good, intuitively. But the question needs to be asked:
would not the majority of the metallic particles that are now drawn to the filter case simply have been captured by the filter media anyway?
A lot of us are running a two filter system. I would not expect much of this to make it past both filters. Might be interesting to see what is on the clean side output of your Mega filter set-up!! That would be a good test and is really what you should be concerned with (especially if the magnet attracted a lot of particles).
I have been draining both of my Racor filters monthly. It is amazing at the amount of sediment that comes out of the Pre-OEM filter. On my next drain, I will see how much of the sediment is metallic versus non-metallic.
I can understand how this magnet would be a good investment in the oil supply circuit of the engine. Most full-flow filters only filter down to 10-20 microns. Particles in the 3-10 micron range still cause engine wear. Some of the wear particles from the engine are "Iron", so they would be captured by the magnet in the filter. The silicon which induces wear would still get through.
Alan
george morrison
10-21-2003, 05:07
One of the great features of super magnets is that they capture the 'complete spectrum' of iron/steel contaminants, from the 1 angstrom level on up through chunks and clunks. *Any* iron and steel that can be removed from a high pressure fuel system such as our Duramax is going to be beneficial in terms of wear reduction. Any contamintants removed by the magnets is going to enable our filter medium to work more efficienctly. Iron and steel particles are not nice smooth rounded particles but have sharp, cutting edges which can slice right through a medium with velocity.
Additionally, as we have seen in the increased fuel mileage reported by many with ultra fine fuel filtration, removing non-burning contaminants increases the burn efficiency providing increased power/fuel efficiency. Our combustion chambers are state of the art and contaminants which impede that burn process, removed, win/win..
And of course the amount of iron/steel makes sense in that from the time diesel fuel leaves the refinery (and while IN process in the refinery), the fuel is passing through miles and miles of steel lines, going through steel valves and is pumped by steel pumps, all the while going through tank after tank, some of which are rusted/corroded to some degree. Iron/steel contaminants from sluff would then be obvious contaminants and ones we certainly do not want in our systems..
I have a diesel fuel sample processing for spectro analysis in the lab as I write. We should know today or tomorrow exactly what the contaminants are in my diesel fuel!
George Morrison
[ 10-21-2003, 05:18 AM: Message edited by: george morrison ]
I have a diesel fuel sample processing for spectro analysis in the lab as I write. We will know today exactly what the contaminants are in my diesel fuel!
This sounds like a good first step. (Raw pump fuel or highly pre-filtered George M storage tank fuel? smile.gif ) Would be interesting to sample post filtering (with and without magnet), then run your spectral analysis on both samples. That would help quantify the benefit of the magnet.
Iron and steel particles are not nice smooth rounded particles but have sharp, cutting edges which can slice right through a medium with velocity.
Maybe in some other filter systems, but in our DMAX fuel system I cannot believe that any particle attains to high of a velocity inside of one of the filters. On the high pressure side, especially near the injector output there may be some interesting acceleration/velocity profiles (have to think about this one).
How about an ENGINE OIL sample running at 16/14/11 (Harvard bypass) and .1% soot @7k miles, then adding a Filtermag to the next trial (fresh oil/filters) running 5.3k and scoring 13/12/8 with .2% (read as double) soot due to a very harsh and smoky dyno session? I should have left it in for the MI trip to let the bypass clean up the soot! What is truly eye opening is that the Spectro counts remained relatively the same, but the ferrography showed night/day differences!
If we can grab the ferrous metals and hold them prior to reaching the medium, we are doing the filters a favor. Storage tanks, pipes, pumps, etc are all made of what type of metal?
Dunno why a person would even begin to question the addition of a magnet on the fuel system where the metallic particle concentration would be greatest. After seeing JeBar's filter chunks, and rust growth, a little light came on....
After reading George's article in "Heavy Duty Trucking" magazine(along with Jim Wilson) It drives home the point of good filtration and inspection methods.
Now we're getting into rare earth magnets! Pretty cool John.
They found out what happened to the Mars Lunar Probes....
http://www.wondermagnet.com/dev/amazing.html
:cool:
zip
Dunno why a person would even begin to question the addition of a magnet on the fuel system where the metallic particle concentration would be greatest
John,
Cutting filters open and showing particles clung to the dirty side of a filter, while impressive, does not quantify the real benefit. Present facts similar to what has taken place over the last year for the supplemental filters. Make some before and after measurements. Correlate a reduction in particle count to the addition of the magnet. What is the actual reduction? Present the test data in a convincing maner and you would sell me one (and probably a lot of other people too)!
It sounds like you have done some testing. Why not write-up a small paper in a similar manner to what Mdrag did for your Mega filter. Post it on this forum.
Just trying to be constructive here (not destructive). My intuition says there is some benefit here, just show me the data! Sorry if the engineering side of me is getting through. ;)
Regards,
Alan
Sometimes intuition is all it takes. ;)
Seriously, some day, someone will document it, but as far as I'm concerned, seeing is believing. That residue with only 5.3k on clean base fuel speaks volumes to me!
Additionally, I have seen a very simply, and informally gathered fuel analysis where the ISO counts went from 14/13/11 to 13/11/9 after adding a Filtermag and allowing another 15 gallons to pass from the filling system being sampled.
Here are some test results (http://www.thebeartrap.com/testresults.htm) of fuel filtration with a magnet. They look pretty compelling.
Kevin
maDmax990
10-26-2003, 19:18
Hi folks:
I'm a materials scientist by training, with enough statistics background to get in line with what OCD is saying.
A couple of points, fodder for discussion:
1) JK's intuition is at least partially correct, since one has to answer the question, "how could a magnet (that never touches the fuel) have any detrimental effect whatsoever? I'm not convinced by the data yet that the magnet helps improve the life of the fuel system, but I can't argue with the obvious; it caught something that everyone can see.
2) I'd sure like to know what that black gunk is. When you're trapping particles that small, you should not rush to the conclusion that it's iron-based matter alone. I work in a high purity titanium plant, and we do magnetic separation, and tiny Ti particles always get stuck on the magnet (Ti is paramagnetic). So what I'm saying is, someone should collect the residue and get it analyzed. I might even be able to do this as a skunkworks thing, let me think about it.
3) The data from Bear Trap looks good, but is a long way from being statistically significant. As they explain it, there could be holes all through their theory, especially in the manner in which they ran the experiment. Now, note, I am not saying it's BS, I'm just saying that as an engineer, I would need more data and information before I could conclude it's the real deal. My inclination is that the data do indeed suggest that this is something worth looking into.
4) On data in general, just beware: single samples are just not stout statistically. The tester would have to run multiple replicates and then compare them via stat tests (ANOVA and t-test come to mind) to draw reasonable conclusions. Presentation of average vs. average in a chart would never be enough in my line of work. Single data points are, unfortunately, almost irrelevant.
Not meaning to bash anyone, but I deal with a lot of data every day, and we should be careful saying "aha, that's it!" when you just might have gotten numerically lucky, i.e., coming up with a "higher" result is akin to flipping a coin; the second data point is either going to be higher or lower than the preceding data point.
My apologies if that's too nerdy for everyone...I can't help myself....too much Six Sigma training drilled into me :(
Regards, Mat
Mat,
Makes ya yearn for the good Ol'e days when we thought,
Originally posted by maDmax990:
2) I'd sure like to know what that black gunk is. When you're trapping particles that small, you should not rush to the conclusion that it's iron-based matter alone. I work in a high purity titanium plant, and we do magnetic separation, and tiny Ti particles always get stuck on the magnet (Ti is paramagnetic). So what I'm saying is, someone should collect the residue and get it analyzed. I might even be able to do this as a skunkworks thing, let me think about it.
Mat,
I have at least (2) oil filters and (1) fuel filter that have the FilterMag residue. I can send the filter cases to you for analysis. If you're interested, send an email to More Power:
turbo@thedieselpage.com
I had a low mileage oil analysis performed with the FilterMag - the iron decreased from 16 to 7(same lab). The oil, oil filter, and air filter were/are the same brand for each sample. I can submit a >5K mile FilterMag oil sample at any time now to see if this trend continues.
Unfortunately, multiple fuel tests by a single person will not likely happen, since each fuel test is ~$60 , and ferrography is even more $$....
If you have not seen the SUPPLEMENTAL FUEL FILTER DATA (http://home.usadatanet.net/~jbplock/ISO/OC_Dmax.pdf) in pdf format compiled by OC_DMAX and hosted by jbplock, it's worth taking a look see....all the individual 'coin flips' may not be statistically significant, but they are significant tongue.gif :D
maDmax990
10-28-2003, 18:29
Hey folks-
mdrag, OK, what the heck, I'll give it a spin. I won't promise anything other than I'll report what I'm able to do. I do a fair amount of failure analysis at work, so hopefully I can have my guys run it as "smut" that I found "somewhere." ;)
We run a high-rez ICP-MS, which will tell you exactly what elements are present after dissolving the material in an acid solution. On a one-off deal like this, we won't be able to get absolute concentration. If there is enough material, I can probably also get it in an scanning electron microscope with elemental analysis capability for more data.
My only concern is how to get the sample shipped without losing it or otherwise messing with it. You might need to send it with the mag attached if the stuff is going to dry up and blow away when the UPS gorilla has his time with it. And we don't want anything scuffing it off, either.
I'll drop you an e-mail soon. Hopefully I can help figure out what this stuff is. Let's try the fuel smut first since that seems to be the lesser understood at this time.
Thanks, Mat
sonofagun
11-14-2003, 13:33
Here it is 11-14 and this post seems to have dried up. I am curious if Mat and MDRAG hooked up on the testing?
I have run magnets on my oil filters for years figuring that anything that keeps the junk out of the running parts can't hurt. If a oil filter is 8 -10 microns (?) and smaller stuff is still passing the filter does it make any difference? Seems to me that it does.
While I am a long way from an engineer I spent a lot of money on a truck that has some serious issues with the current fuel system. IF the problem is dirty fuel then I am readily prepared to try any method that will reduce the flow of junk here too.
A lot of people don't and probably won't run a secondary 2 micron fuel filter ( I just ordered mine) and it seems cheap insurance to trap the metallic stuff that the filter can't. The math works for me $45,000 truck ----- $115 mag filter--- got it.
I would, all said, like to see Mat's test to see if my layman's inituition is confirmed -- and thanks for offering it.
My point is, lacking such validation, I would go with rather than without.
My 2c,
Bob
son of a gun,
The filter cases were sent to Mat last Tues/Wed.
mdrag
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