Test Pictures and Results - Oil Filtration Comparisons From the Workbench

Pictures of the test results. If you skipped reading the previous pages, these won't mean anything to you...so go back and read those pages.

"New" Purolator, "Old Purolator, and STP

These are a comparison of similar size filters. A "97.5% efficient" Purolator Classic, the older style "96% efficient Purolator Premium Plus, and an older style STP (non-ecore).

Above left to right, "New" Purolator Classic, STP, "Old" Purolator Premium Plus.
Seems like Purolator did improve the efficiency.
The flow rates were basically a tie.

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Ultraguard UPF 52, AC Delco PF52, and PureONE PL24011

Above: Left to right, Delco, Ultraguard, PurONE.
My apologies for the photo clarity. I put the UPF slightly ahead or equal to the PureONE. The regular AC Delco did respectably well for third place though.
In flow rate, fastest to slowest, it was Delco, PureONE, Ultraguard.

Some Close-ups of the medias:

Ultraguard

AC Delco

The Ultraguard (top) appears to have a very fine, tight "weave" and is very thick compared to the AC Delco Duraguard below. No wonder it stopped so much dirt.

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New style STP "Ecore", Mobil 1 Extended Performance, WIX, Toyota OEM (Denso)

As the title says, from left to right:
(The contaminant level of the oil was much higher here than the above test, so there is quite a bit of debris in these tubes - it is all relative between filters though, as the mixture strength varied in almost every test picture.)

The Ecores the Champion Labs makes (far left) are advertised at 94% multipass efficiency at 20 microns. It filtered pretty well, but showed in this test as behind the WIX and Mobil 1 - which were about a tie in this case.
The Denso does not seem to filter at the high end of efficiency in my tests against other filters, but the flow is excellent. Perhaps a good choice for the "flow over filtration" people. The others were approximately equal and average in flow rate.
Incidentally, in these tests the WIX, and Mobil 1 Extended Performance, and the K&Ns, too, seem to be about equal (and good) in flow and filtration.

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PureONE, K&N, and Mobil 1 Extended Performance

Left to right as in the title:

I layed these flat, and by the time I got to the camera, the debris piles had flowed up the side of the tubes. The PureONE did best, then the Mobil 1, and the K&N just barely behind the Mobil 1.

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Bosch Premium, PureONE, and Purolator Classic

(and a Toyota/Denso 90915-YZZD1 for fun)

This Bosch model seems to be built by Purolator...but is it like the Classic, or the PureONE by Purolator?

Models 3421, PL20252, and L20252 for the same application for this test

Left to right, Bosch, PureONE, Purolator Classic, Toyota/Denso...The Toyota was not for the same auto application, but was included here for reference

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Below is a K&N HP2009 and Purolator Classic L20195.
These are popular filters for many Fords, and two that I use myself. They are for the same application.
K&N gives the efficiency for this model number as 98.9% @ 20 microns in the ISO 16889 multipass test. Purolator gives 97.5% efficiency @ 20 microns according to the ISO 4548/12 multipass test for their L30001 filter, which ostensibly, has the same media as this one.
There seems to be a good correlation in my test between both the stated efficiencies and each other. This is the best representative photo of three tests which all came out proportionally similar. It looks like the K&N does filter better than the "97.5%" efficient Purolator Classic. 97.5% is a good rating anyway, so I am pleased with the results, as I pay a lot more for the K&N. As far as fill-time flow, the K&N was about 20%-30% faster for me.

Left K&N HP2009, Right Purolator L20195

Bosch Premium

PureONE

Purolator Classic

Everything about the Bosch Premium 3421 says "PureONE clone" to me. And in my opininion, that's a good thing. Since the PureONEs did so well in my testing, I tended to use them a lot as a "good" reference to compare to.

Note in the pictures of the media, you can see that the Bosch and PureONE media is "finer" than the Purolator Classic on the bottom. The Classic looks pretty close to the Bosch and PureONE in the dirty oil test though...and flowed the oil quite a bit faster.

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Donaldson, Motorcraft, PureONE

Someone sent me a high-end Donaldson to look at next to a Motorcraft. I ran these with a similar PureONE again for reference.

Left to Right: Donaldson, Motorcraft, PureONE

Be sure to note that the test tubes are not in the same order as the filters in the top two pictures.

The flow rates on all three were similar for me. The Motorcraft had the edge, the other two right about a tie in flow and filtration.

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Here are ten popular Honda/Acura filters run all at once

Here we have a Fram TG7317, Fram XG7317, Hamp H1540-PLC-505, the equivalent Honda OEM (part number unreadable), Old style "blue can" PureONE PL14610 (the newer ones are yellow), and a Proline PPL14610

The bottom picture is NAPA Gold 1334 (like a WIX), Proline PPL14459, Purolator Classic L14459, and a PureONE PL14459

I believe all 10 are supposed to be interchangable on most Honda products

Left to right: Honda, Hamp, small Proline, small P1, small TG, small XG-----large P1, large Purolator, large Proline, large NG

The flow rates from fastest to slowest were: small Proline, large Purolator and Proline (tie), small Hamp and Honda (tie), large NAPA Gold, large PureONE and small Fram TG (tie), small Fram XG, small PureONE

*As a side note, I have run a couple of different old, blue PureONEs vs the newer yellow version, and the new ones seem to flow about twice as fast as well as having a slightly higher published efficiency rating as the old ones.
I attribute this to what I consider an improved media with (probably) a proportion of fine thread synthetic fibers.

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Some German brands

The Mahle, Mann, and Mobil 1 Extended Performance are, if I recall correctly, for the same application (I think for 1972 and later VW Transporters)

Left to right: Mahle, Mann, Mobil 1

Left to right: Mahle, Mann, WIX, Mobil 1

I don't have notes for flow rates on this early test, but no concerns either.

* This particular WIX I suspect has a tear in the media that I did not catch, as WIX and NAPA Gold normally filter better for me in this test.

Mobil 1 did best, then Mann, then Mahle.

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Some miscellaneous media close-ups

The [ 's are 1/8" wide, for scale. Closeups of medias, if you factor in that a thicker media of a certain fineness will tend to block more debris and hold more dirt without plugging up than a thinner one of the same fineness (up to a point), can give a pretty good idea of what to expect for efficiency.

All of these media samples were held right in front of a 100W light bulb to show up "pinholes" and texture.