If you cut open the little Toyota filter, the filter media has the same area as the big original filter. Yeah it surprised me too. It’s just packed inside the little can much more efficiently. The big filter has a lot of wasted space.
A small oil filter housing is actually better for startup. The smaller the better. If a filter’s anti-drainback seal leaks, the canister slowly drains after the engine shuts off.
Then when the engine is started - the oil canister has to fill up before it starts circulating in the engine.
A little canister doesn’t take long to fill but a big one obviously takes longer.
During that time of canister filling- the engine has no oil circulation.
This was a problem for some giant WIX oil filters (51515). The drain back seal leaked, the canister drained after shutting down, and the next startup ran dry for too long.
There’s a thread here somewhere on mud 60 section where this exact thing happened to a guy’s 2F using a WIX 51515. After some amount of time (don’t recall) he was getting oil pressure problems and low compression etc.
Eventually it was found that his previously good condition engine got ruined from too many dry startups.
He cut open the filter to identify the problem, brought the defective filter attention to WIX, and they denied everything.
• That little Toyota oil filter is good. If you don’t like it’s demasculating apperance, use a Mobil M1 filter. Those are excellent- and expensive.
