Thoughts on oil centrifuge? (1 Viewer)

[DivByZero]

I'm seriously considering fitting an oil centrifuge to the 1HZ engine in my 80 series:

Oil Centrifuge

Diesel and oil centrifuge for filtering fine particulate matter and carbon. No replacement filters needed. Use on board trucks, 4x4s and generators to reduce service intervals.

www.scintex.com.au

This is something Toyota themselves had standard on the Landcruiser in times gone by, on some years of the 2H engine:

2H Centrifugal Oil Cleaner..

For those of you blessed enough to have an early 2H .. you may have a centrifugal oil cleaner fitted.. a super nice bit of kit. Under engine oil pressure it rotates at about 6000rpm flinging oil onto the inside ridged surface of a rotating cylinder. Each oil change you disassemble it and wipe...

forum.ih8mud.com

Does it make financial sense? Probably not. The idea isn't to extend maintenance and avoid changing my oil, it's to extend the life of my engine by keeping it significantly cleaner that filtration alone can manage. Since I plan to keep my 80 for a long time, and I just plain like the idea of this, I'm considering moving forward with a centrifuge. What I've had difficulty finding was much experience with this online. I have yet to find anyone else who's fitted an oil centrifuge to a 1HZ. People who have them for the 2H rave about them, but I can't find a record of anyone who's attempted it on newer Toyota engines.

I don't have a turbo, and no plans to fit one, so this would take me from a stock setup to something quite different. Obviously routing oil out of my engine creates a new failure point, but I have my oil pressure gauge, plus an oil pressure switch hooked up to a light and buzzer (post-filter), so I'm pretty comfortable I've got the leak/catastrophic failure cases covered to protect the engine in the event something does go wrong. I'm thinking of installing an oil filter sandwich plate to tap into the oil supply pre-filter, to divert some (not all) through the centrifuge:

M20 Oil filter sandwich plate adapter for Mazda Mitsubishi Honda Toyota Nissan | eBay

Suits filter thread M20 x 1.5, 3/4-16, M18 x 1.5, M22 x 1.5 threaded filters. Oil filter sandwich plates fit between the filter and block and provides ports for oil pressure/temperature sensor or turbo oil feed (Doesnt suit an oil cooler), maintains factory fit oil filter.

www.ebay.com.au

For the return line, I could tap the oil pan or the block, same thing people do for their turbo return line.

Does anyone have any personal experience, thoughts, or advice they want to share?

 

[mudgudgeon]

I would have liked to put one on my 1hz.
Never did it though.

I think they are definitely beneficial on a sooty diesel that dirties oil fast.
Keep the carbon particles out of the oil can't hurt

 

[sodafeld1]

I think they are an excellent idea. Many larger diesel engines for trucks have them, standard.
The combination of centrifuge and ultra fine secondary oil bypass filter is meant to be the best combination. Clean oil is the best, only second to clean air entering your engine.

As you have seen, the early 2h came with a centrifuge from factory, beautiful thing. Toyota was serious about the landcruiser being robust and long lasting. But due to manufacturing pressure it simply does not make sense for any manufacturer to make something to last a million miles anymore. Manufacturers all want you to get a new everything at least every seven years now. Sooner the better or they go out of business.

You may want to set up accurate secondary oil pressure gauges. I have a mechanical in the bay and electric pressure gauges in cab on my 2h. They run off the sandwich adapter which feeds my bypass filter. It relieves paranoia to watch happy digital numbers on oil pressure and coolant temp, I can turn the tunes up! I used jackmaster on ebay, he lives not far from me and a good fella. The centrifuge is usually only optimal at 70 psi oil pressure to spin fast enough. But any gunk you remove from the oil is good.

I can drive 1000km after a fresh oil change and the oil is still pretty clean just on the bypass filter. With the centrifuge it would be even better, but I have many things to spend money on, so have not done both.

Also, every extra aftermarket element you add, shall include extra oil seals to maintain and invite potential leaks. This is to be kept in mind.

Does it make a difference? Hard to tell with 320k km on the clock, be able to tell in another 300k km, I guess. But my engine hardly has any visible exhaust smoke, much less than many modern 4wds I see on the road. Also I got 8.8l/100km last week carrying about 100 bricks traveling at 90kmh at around 2100rpm on the hwy. It was a still wind day, so I am pretty happy. If I travel at 100+kmh same load 2200-2400rpm ish I would get around 10l/100km.

But things like city traffic, extended idle at revs below 2000 rpm is the real killer. The engine does not breathe/combust optimally, so it produces more carbon, which dirties the oil.
This can be observed if you do an oil change and drive 1000km 2000+rpm, on the hwy without stopping and check the oil. Take oil from dip stick onto some white paper and hold it to the sun. Then, another time, do say 200-300km with fresh oil in city traffic, start stop driving, let it cool down and cold start etc.. the oil shall be more dirty and your clutch is worse for wear too..

Carbon is very fine, so it cokes things up. Carbon burns at around 630c, it is hard to get rid of. Especially if it builds upon itself.

Plenty and frequent oil changes is arguably one of the cheapest , easiest ways. Some folks clean engines by doing consecutive oil changes, like 3 in a row, get to running temp, drain and repeat.

Sometimes the parts shops have sales on 10l of 15w/40 mineral oil for $50aud. It is pretty cheap really, for what it is. And compares favourably to the cost of setting up a centrifuge, about 2000l of oil which is a few oil changes.
You can get the special zinc oil for twice the price, it is super slippery. Some swear by it. Bypass filter guy reckons the zinc would get filtered out which may apply to a centrifuge too, probably, if it is spinning right.

But then still, one could still argue, clean oil is better. Longest lasting engines are kept warm and do long unstressed runs. Even without centrifuge and bypass filter. It is common for the hz to get a million kms without any special maintenance. Some are saying the vd engine is getting a million kms, I have no experience with it but I can imagine that is on long runs and whilst faster and more powerful would consume more fuel. The 'note' and rythym of the vd sound is very nice.