My dad has been using mobile one for years. I'm admittedly "frugal" when it comes to these things. So far I haven't ever had an engines fail for any reason so I tend to think conventional oil is good enough. I have a '92 F250 truck with a 7.5L that I've been running 20-50 in for years. When I used 10-40 in it (recommended) it would use oil at an alarming rate.... About 1 Qt every 500 miles. It still uses oil at about half that rate with the 20-50. The truck still has good power at 135K. The 460 is pretty well known for using oil due to blow-by, especially in heavy towing applications such as what I use the truck for. The poor thing has not had an easy life as I haul a 11.5' camper and towed a boat as well for the past 10 years. After reading Bob's article I have to wonder if the bottom end has seen some additioinal wear as a result of all those cold starts with heavy oil. I don't drive it much in the winter at all so hopefully it will live for a while anyway. I'm tempted to try synthetic to see how it behaves. Mileage is abysmal regardless. Hauling 10,000 pounds GVW around isn't going to win any economy prizes.

 

In 92 I shifted my Suburban to Mobil One at about 5k. Then put on a prelube oil pump at about 40k. I get ~5k per qt and 15.5 mpg on 75 mph interstates @437k on the odo.

In 2001 bought a Mustang & shifted to Mobil One at 8 miles (the drive home) put on a prelube pump at about 1,000 miles. Did some extensive homework on bypass filters and put one on the Mustang at about 5,000 miles. Get ~6k per qt & 28 mpg on those same interstates @256k (4.6L DOHC engine)

After alot more homework concluded that with the bypass filter I could extend oil change intervals based on chemistry samples every 3k miles. The chemistry, with the bypass filter, never showed a reason to change oil. So I settled on 30k as the most I could stand between oil changes on the Mustang.

I installed a bypass filter on my FEH and it's doing real good. Took me several years to figure out how to put a prelube pump on the FEH but finally got it right.

After finding Mobil One more and more difficult to find I started using AmsOil (after alot of homework to convince myself it was as good as Mobil One). I use 0W-20. Cold starts in -20º to -30ºF out here go a bit better with that oil.

 

Impressive results with the 30K oil change intervals Bill. The old 7.5L (460) uses more oil than any other engine I've ever owned. My escape doesn't seem to use any at all and my 190K 97 Explorer uses less than a quart in 5K. I bought the truck with 88K on it so it's hard to know what the oil change intervals might have been before I owned it. That engine is pretty notorious for using oil anyway so I'm not too concerned about it. If I keep it I may just put a short block in it at some point but it seems to be running fine with the exception of the oil usage. Strangely it doesn't smoke at all... Hot starts, cold starts, no smoke. No appreciable leakage coming from anywhere either so it has to be blowing by the rings and getting vaporized.

The pre-oil pump has always seemed like a good idea. The mileage on your Mustang is impressive, both the total miles and the MPG. I haven't heard of many 4.6L mustangs living that long. What type of bypass filter are you using?

 

I'll have to look up the company. They're out in California. It is a string wound filter and they specify 1 µ filtration. I stumbled on it during an internet search as I was working on how to make my Mustang engine last. (Found it: www.OilGuard.com) The Navy uses a lot of these string wound filters in Hydraulic systems, so I was somewhat familiar with them.

Also, you might look up Canton Racing Products stuff. They offer 8 µ full flow oil filters. I shifted my cars to those filters. Interestingly my Mustang, which had a bypass filter on it since about 5k miles, had a slight increase in mpg after I installed the CRP filters at just before 95k.

It was only discernable as an increase after I'd gotten another 50k on the car and graphed the mpgs. It was only something like 0.4 mpg, but it was a step and consistent. I suspect that the bypass filter had kept the engine clean so that when the 8 µ filter went in it made a real difference in the "floaties" that populate engine oil.

The best I can find says that a spin-on filter does no better than maybe 30-40 µ. So if you introduce 8 µ filtration into your engine you then reduce the frictional losses inside the engine.

So what I settled out on is the CRP 8µ full flow filters coupled with a 1µ bypass filter.

BTW if you look up in the shop manual the engine has clearances in it that are around 8µ.

Bobistheoilguy has a lot of good stuff and he goes into technical details. You change oil for one of three reasons: its chemical package is depleted, its ability to hold "ash" is saturated, or you have cooked it. Chemistry analysis tells you whether the chemistry is still good (both the chem package and the "cooking" issue) and the bypass filter keeps the "ash" content low.

At the end of the day the chemistry told me that at 30k the oil was still just fine... but I couldn't stand it and decided to change oil anyway. My experimentation was over the life of the Mustang. I started out going to 6k, then 9k, then 12k, then 15k, then 18k, then 24k, then 30k. The chemistry analyses simply never gave me a reason to change.

I'm a believer in bypass filtration and synthetics. I changed over all oils & gear lubes on my FEH to synthetics.

On the oil consumption issue: that's why I drove the Mustang home and changed it to synthetics at just 8 miles. I had concluded that the "wear in before synthetics" philosophy was an old saw. But then if your engine is consuming oil its too late now. Oil can get into the engine either by worn rings or by worn valve trains. In the case of the valve train it just drips into the intake flow stream and is burned. So a short block might not fix the problem. Think about new heads also.

It took me 378 miles to change over my FEH because it took me that many miles to find an adapter to get the (expletive deleted) OEM oil filter cover off... But then I've since replaced the engine block filter adapter unit so that I can use the CRP filters!

 

Still chuckling at the oil filter cap comments... I shouldn't tell you how I get mine off. It's something I'm not proud of but it works with ease and it's one of the oldest most primitive tools in my garage... Are you ready? A pipe wrench. All the purists out there are probably scoffing loudly right now. It works quite well. I should pick up the proper tool but I keep forgetting to look for one. The cap was already a little chewed up from previoius mechanics using lord knows what to remove it. the pipe wrench grabs it moves it easily.

I'm not at all familiar with the filters you're using. I'll have to check it out. I've been changing the oil in the FEH at 5K so far with no exceptions. The last oil change bugged me though because the oil was barely even brown. This thing does not dirty its oil! I may go longer this time around.

 

I thought about a pipe wrench... but the engineer in me said na-a-a... and I couldn't bring myself to do that. I ended up buying three cap adapters that purported to fit... until I finally found one that really did.

Trouble was... the d--- thing was on so tight...

So good on ya!

It's sort of like that dog catcher job someone recommended in Vernal Utah... Just couldn't bring myself to do it!

BTW the website for Canton Racing Products is:
www.cantonracingproducts.com
Kind of a long one, but their filters seem to work well. At least worth a look.

You know, I decided to change the oil & filter in my Suburban every 3k, using Mobil One... And did so until I put a bypass filter on it. So changing the oil every 5k isn't bad idea if you're going to keep your FEH for the long haul.

In my case I figured that the cost of changing Mobil One and filter every 3k was cheaper than a replacement engine... so I concluded it was worth it. Looking back from 437k it wasn't a bad investment. A thought: the FEH transaxle has no filter, so changing its oil at some comfortable interval would go along with the care & feeding of the engine.

 

corski67... if you're interested I'll tell you where you can get a different engine block adapter so you can go to a spin on filter instead of being captive to that (expletive deleted) cartridge gadget they have.

 

Thanks for the tips Bill. Yes, I'm interested as some others might be as well. Would appreciate learning about the adapter for sure. To tell you the truth though the confounded cartridge type filter has sort of grown on me. It doesn't seep any oil as the spin ons typically do (just a little) and it doesn't trap oil inside like the spinners do... Hate the idea of all that oil trapped in the filter even after I leave it to drain for a couple of days.

I just knew the pipe wrench would make you cringe. The engineer in me was screaming "no" also but as I said it was already pretty chewed up so I figure I couldn't hurt it any more than it was already hurt.

 

Sometimes ya gotta do what you gotta do... like not buying baloney!

Here's the link:
http://www.batinc.net/mocal.htm

Go to the bottom of the page to "Spin on Kits" or to "Remote Oil Filter Equipment" & click on either one. You'll download a pdf. You want the FH-4. Both of these are "Ford/Mazda 2.0/2.3 Duratec Oil Take-off Plate."

It has the same footprint on the engine block as the current cartridge adaptor so you can use the current gasket unless its really bad looking. The oil pressure sensor is threaded into the side of it just like the current one. The sensor wire is supposed to click off but mine was really hard to get to do that.

This is for the Duratec engine. Our FEHs have a slightly modified Duratec engine (ie the intake cam). It's been around for decades in various versions and is all over Europe in a bunch of cars.

In my case I put a Canton Racing Products filter on. It does not hang down any farther than the old canister. I don't get any weepage.

I'm impressed with the Canton Racing Products stuff.

Also if you're into using the aeroquip style connectors, the BATInc guys sell their own brand (Black & Titanium color) at good prices, along with a bunch of different connectors, adaptors, & such. They seem to have a very broad selection to include stuff that bridges metric & american threads.

 

Once you figure out how to get that cover off easily I guess they could grow on you. In the end though these cartridge type filters do no better than other full flow filters - 30-40 µ particle size. So I did the filter block adaptor switchout to get to the Canton filter that advertises 8 µ filtration.

My experience seems to validate the better particle size capability for these filters. My Mustang and Suburban both have a double filter manifold on them. When I can get the time and so on, I'll put a double filter manifold on my FEH.