What a simple idea, as soon as I became aware of this product I jumped onboard and ordered one for my engine without even looking to deeply at the promotional literature. I didn't need to, I knew with 100% certainty that it would do the job of catching all the fine particles of metal that circulate through an engine during its life of operation.
If you believed your oil filter was doing a good job of filtering the engine oil in your car, then I have got something to show you that will surprise you. But before I go into the product itself, let me first talk about where most of the wear and tear comes from in your engine and what most people believe the oil filter does. Let me first say that standard OEM or aftermarket standard oil filters are pretty much useless, but what choice does anyone have in the matter. We all believe that the oil filter captures all the engine contaminants produced by combustion and wear, such as metal, aluminium, bronze, carbon, silver, chrome, tin, nickel to name a few. In fact an engine oil filter depending on the brand in general is only capable of holding particles larger than 25 microns (.00098"). The reason for this is that if the filtering medium was able to hold particles any smaller, then the oil pump would not be capable of pushing the lubricant through the filter therefore starving engine parts of the lubrication they need to survive. To pump oil through such a fine medium would require larger oil pumps (as in hydraulic systems) to be used and therefore more horsepower would be robbed from the engine to drive them, not to mention the extra space required for the bigger pump. A compromise had to be reached that would be regarded as an acceptable 'filtration to wear ratio' to the automotive industry. So the standard was set where oil filters were made with a medium that would filter out on average 25 Micron or bigger and that standard has remained pretty much unchanged to this day. To help you understand the size of particles I am talking about throughout this article I have included a micron to thousandths of an inch conversion table below.
| 5 micron | .00019" |
| 10 | .00039" |
| 20 | .00078" |
| 25 | .00098" |
| 30 | .0011" |
| 40 | .0015" |
| 45 | .0019" |
A protective oil film between the crankshaft journals and the bearings is usually about 25 microns under light load conditions, but under severe load can decrease to as low as 3 microns or less if the oil breaks down. What this means is that the clearance between metal parts is so dangerously close that any loss in oil feed will allow metals to come in contact, therefore a small particle of metal as small as 5 microns can score the crank and its bearings as well as other parts in the engine with close tolerances. Below are examples of poor filtration of the oil, however these would be considered as normal wear & tear as it relates to filtration to wear ratio. OEM bearings are actually designed to withstand a certain amount of fine particles, but if you were to fit high performance bearing in place of OEM, then this amount of fine particles will cut the life of the bearings by more than half.
The grooves and fine polish marks in the bearings are caused by particles in the range of 3 to 25 microns. Obviously the oil filter did not catch them. I see bearings like these and much worse in every engine rebuild. It is part and parcel that engines will have this wear because of the standards applied to oil filter filtration. I have rebuilt engines that have only done 100,000 kms because of oil contamination, the worst cases are modern OHC aluminium engines that do not utilise camshaft bearings. These are notorious for cam tunnel damage due to fine abrasive particles in the oil that the oil filter is not capable of trapping. Under normal circumstances an engine is expected to last approx 150,000 km before any work should be required on the internals and in many cases you should be able to push that out to 200K before a rebuild. There are a lot of cars out there that have obviously gone well past this figure. By the time the owners finally admit that the engine needs a bit of fixing, it is usually not worth spending the money on due to the extreme damage done.
Another source of wear and this is a big one, is from starting the engine. Oil pressure is not instant and takes a few moments to build up. In that few moments the most damage is taking place because the moving parts do not have sufficient oil protection until oil pressure is achieved. You can minimise engine start up wear by using high quality low coefficient friction products in the engine oil such as Nulon E20 or E30. See my review on the E30 product. Wynn's and other manufacturers also make an oil additive with high pressure protection. The next cause of wear is short trips where the engine is cold. The car is driven a few kilometres to work & back again hardly giving the engine a chance to reach its optimum operating temperature. Cold engines wear out quicker. Another cause of engines running colder is of course the removal of the thermostat for one reason or another. A bad idea.
OK, let's get to the crux of the story, the FILTERMAG. This simple magnetic device just simply clamps to the outside of the oil filter case using the strong earth magnets to hold it there. I won't steel the advertisers thunder, you can read all about the promotional material yourself. What I will say and spend some time on is that you can't stop non ferrous material with a FILTERMAG as they will not be caught by the magnetic field of the magnets. Only ferrous material will be trapped and those are the ones more dangerous to your engine parts. Where does the metal come from, well plenty of places. The cylinder bore & piston rings are the main players as well as camshafts, lifters, rocker gear, timing chains and other components can produce small metal particles as the engine operates. Small amounts of metal are continually being worn away during engine operation and as I said earlier especially during engine start-up.
FILTERMAG will remove ferrous particles as small as 2 microns. (Information from SAE paper 881825) as shown on the American FILTERMAG website.
Below is evidence that FILTERMAG works and how much wear has taken place during a new engine break-in. The engine was serviced at 400km. This engine was flex-honed, so my assumption is, that engines not using a flex-hone to finish the bore correctly will have dramatically more metal stuck to the side of the oil filter case if using a FILTERMAG. If it has no FILTERMAG then all this metal will just circulate through the engine with only the bigger particles caught in the oil filter. Makes good grinding paste I suppose and over the years of servicing this grinding paste contributes to the eventual demise of the engine. The magnetic field of the magnets look a bit broken up and that is because I had to slide the FILTERMAG down the filter to enable me to cut the filter open. The yellow mark is where the FILTERMAG was originally positioned. You can see that the bigger particles were dragged down while the grease like paste which is the extremely fine metal has mostly stayed put.
I think this photo is very interesting, did this photo surprise you? Don't get me wrong, I know the product works (proof above) but you also need to consider that there is another source of engine oil contamination that is not mentioned in many places, is not ferrous and is the second highest contributor of solids into the oil crankcase. What is it? It is good old dirt introduced into the engine through the oil filling point in the tappet cover and also through loose fitting unsealed dipsticks and loose fitting breather hoses that are connected to the engine crankcase or tappet cover. The contamination can be through the use of a dirty funnel, careless cleaning and removal of a dirty filler cap and believe it or not from the brand new oil you just poured into the engine. Let me clarify this last one before you flob me off. Tests of brand new oil has shown that metal particles are present in new oil, YES unbelievable but its true, it is even present in the SAE paper I mentioned earlier. If you visit a CAT dealership as I have done, you will be amazed to learn that they double filtrate their new oil using high efficiency filters that filter out particles to below 5 microns. They run the filtration unit for 24 hrs prior to using any oil in their engines. How do these particles get in there in the first place, well the oil has to move through pipes and be pumped from place to place during the manufacturing so I guess small amounts of metal end up in the product. Obviously an automotive oil filter has no chance of trapping such fine particles but the Filtermag can trap them inside the oil filter before they pass through into the engine and start to cause damage. FILTERMAG also make these for automatic transmissions, differentials, fuel filters, hydraulic filters etc. Very versatile and well worth the money and lasts a life time. One last point. position the FILTERMAG where you want it to stick. Once it is on, the magnetic field is so strong that it is not easy to get off. I had to place the filter against my workbench with the FILTERMAG in contact with the edge and then smash the filter downwards to get the FILTERMAG to slide off. This is great re-assurance that any metal that comes anywhere near the magnetic field will be sucked in and held against the filter case until you release the magnet from the case. In summary, your engine will live a longer life by removing the fine particles of ferrous metal that recirculates through your engine because the oil filter is not capable of filtering it out. These fine particles over a period of time acts like grinding paste to wear your engine out prematurely. If you want your engine to live longer then FILTERMAG is the product for you, it is cheap insurance from early failure and wear out of the engine. Below is a photo of the FILTERMAG fitted to the oil filter of my engine.
with regular servicing, a FILTERMAG fitted and Nulon E20 or E30 added to the engine oil (see E30 article), you will extend the life of your engine considerably.
Below is a link to FILTERMAG, from there you might find a link to an Australian distributor.
Well here it is the long awaited 2nd filter change. The engine has done another 5,000km and I am glad to say considerably less metal is present in the can. I really botched up the opening of this one. The magnet spun on the filter about 15mm and then I had to raise it twice to open the filter up, so the pattern is not quit as clear as the first photo. Normally the filter would be replaced every 10,000km, so one would expect that there would of course be a little more metal present. Maybe about the same as after the initial run-in possibly. The next one I will cut open after another 10,000km just to see. All in all, a FILTERMAG fitted is a good investment and will decrease the filtration to wear ratio in your favour. This in turn will extend your engines life and save you heaps of money.
