JackS

This may be a hairbrain idea but anyone truely interested could probably figure a way. Take a measured amount of baby powder which is talc and is also an insoluable mineral to simulate metal particles from an engine and attempt to force it through a small piece of filter media taken from each filter. The micron size of talcum powder should be uniform within any single brand. Instead of oil use any liquid (gasoline,lighter fluid or even water to speed up the process).
I know this is pretty anal but it could be done and might save you the cost of a UOA.

ahrmike

^I was thinking of stuff like that, but in the end..the only true result we care about is...does it filter the oil well? so I figured I might as well spring for a couple UOA's.

It'll also help me learn about the condition of my car, so I might as well go for it.

IcebergS2000

Just another thing to throw out is I remember reading somewhere that not all filter bypass springs are made the same. At idle there should be about 36 psi in the oil system and at 3000 rpm there should be 85 psi. The way I see it is, I would rather have a filter designed to work for the operating parameters of our engine than some generic filter that was made to be used on wide area of applications. I believe that the m1-104 is also recommended for B-series engines, and I am pretty sure you wouldn't put a B-series filter on your car, now would you?

slipstream444

Iceberg just covered one of the most important and ignored factors that ultimately make the OEM PCX filter the best choice for the S2000. Ikeyballz's excellent pictures demonstrate this quite graphically as well.
Oil filters are worthless if they unnecessarily bypass oil. Mobil 1, Amsoil or any of the other Top Tier filters that make high-end claims about their filter media ignore this fact. I would rather have a marginally less efficient filter material that actually filters, than a fancy filter that bypasses (subsequently does NOT filter). When my car is bouncing off the rev-limiter - I want filtered oil going through my engine - not unfiltered oil.

I have been using the OEM PCX filter in my S2000 from the start, along with Amsoil ATM 10W30 (following my personal break-in procedure) and my engine has incredibly good leak down numbers at 55,000 miles (a week ago).
The leakdown test was a "wet" test with the engine warmed up to 2 bars (AP1), and then the engine was subsequently turned over for 5 seconds before each cylinder test (using the starter only, all spark plugs removed and the fuel injection disconnected). The numbers were the average of three tests.

1) 1.75% 2) 1.5% 3) 1.5% 4) 1.75%

You could safely call it 2% across the board on a bad day. I'm quite pleased to be honest because a well built engine measured shortly after it's been perfectly broken-in typically gives you numbers between 0.5%-3.0% - and my car has seen some serious work over it's 55,000+ life.
These numbers were also very consistent with the leakdown numbers at 40,000 miles.

For note: this engine is all original (except for the precautionary replacement of the intake retainers with AP2 retainers), has suffered one major over-rev (early in its life) of approximately 10,200 RPM and two minor ones (around 9400-9500 RPM) in its life. It sees the redline several times a day, as well as WOT and VTEC all the time. My car gets a workout daily!
My conclusion: the OEM PCX filter is working perfectly (along with the Amsoil synthetic oil, of course). No need to screw around with any other filter in my book.

jzz30

doesnt honda only make like 2 filters? the b series pcx might be the same as the f20c. honda certainly didnt make a filter specifically for this car. i know the s2000 uses the larger diameter filter and the rsx uses the smaller diameter filter. but both will fit. im not sure what the negative would be of using the smaller diameter filter as i have used it because it was lying around the shop also hamp filters and mugen filters are that small diameter i dont know how they are internally different though...

2007 Zx-10

[quote name='slipstream444' date='Jan 14 2009, 09:31 PM'] Iceberg just covered one of the most important and ignored factors that ultimately make the OEM PCX filter the best choice for the S2000.

Supra-holic

FYI, any filter vs filter comparison needs to include micron ratings with their beta ratio, this is one of the main indicators of performance. That might be tough to find by the way.

Otherwise...

SpitfireS

2007 Zx-10 Posted on Jan 15 2009, 06:28 PM
After some searching I found that the oil pressure in the F20 at operating temp can reach up to 125 psi anywhere above 5000 rpm.
I don't know if that is high or not.

Anyway... what I really don't understand is that one can look at the pictures that clearly show the structural differences between the PCX and the M1 filter (being "cheaper" construction of important parts used in the M1 filter and undoubtedly less filter medium used in the M1 filter) and still reach the conclusion that the PCX filter is "mediocre" and "nothing special".
What makes the M1 filter so special then?
The OMG-SO-VERY-SYNTHETIC-SO-IT-MUST!!!-BE-BETTER-EVENTHOUGH-IT-ONLY-HAS-HALF-(YES> HALF!)-OF-IT-FILTER-MEDIUM?
I mean, that must be it because every other part is not up to PCX spec.
Btw.. if the M1 filter medium is so special one would expect to see some difference between that and the stuff used in the PCX.
I didn't see it.

And please... please... don't keep referring to that one post on BITOG that compares a M1-209 (not even a M1-104) to a extended drain interval Amsoil oil filter as "all over BITOG"
Please.

jyeung528

^
much needed relief. thanks - very well said.

2007 Zx-10

fine....show me that the fram/PCX performs well compared to ANYTHING, instead of the knee-jerk "it must be better because it's a Honda specific part and oil pressure is just too high"

I have limited data concerning performance, yes...you have ZERO....and I don't buy that it has double the media area, either