Re: Oil Filter for mercruiser 5.0L (220Hp) alpha 1
I had the same question -- is there something special about the Merc oil filter. My curiosity caused me to take apart 20 of them, measure them, and send the media off to a lab to do bubble point tests.<br /><br />The Merc mechanics are right -- there IS a difference between the Merc oil filter and an automotive filter. The difference is flow. At 4 and 5000 rpm, the Merc engineers care more about flow than filtration.<br /><br />The short version is these filters flow as good as or better and have an average pore size that is smaller than the Merc filter ):<br /><br />-K&N 3002<br />-Hastings LF279<br />-Purolator Premium Plus LF36341<br /><br />They are listed in reverse cost order: $10, $4.50, and $3.50 respectively.<br /><br />Here is the complete study for the long story:<br /><br />
www.OilFilterStudy.com<br /><br />The above filter numbers are for boats with remote mounts, if you don't have a remote mount, you may have the AC Delco PF52 family of filters. The equivalents of the above recommended filters for the PF52 maps are in the above link, specifically here: <br /><br />
www.oilfilterstudy.com/marine-applications.htm