Baxter Performance oil filter adapter

[Badunit]

I was using the term "oil pressure" as an indicator of when the drained filter and empty oil passages have been refilled with oil. Until then, the lubrication system is not providing sufficient oil to the parts it feeds, it is still displacing air in the system. I saw no reason to get all technical about flow vs pressure or oil film vs oil pressure.

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[ShadowsPapa]

I was using the term "oil pressure" as an indicator of when the drained filter and empty oil passages have been refilled with oil. Until then, the lubrication system is not providing sufficient oil to the parts it feeds, it is still displacing air in the system. I saw no reason to get all technical about flow vs pressure or oil film vs oil pressure.

Doesn't matter - there's still an oil film.
The rest of my post still applies. You don't need pressure or volume, you need oil film.
The only things that totally rely on oil "pressure" are things like the solenoids that control low or high lift mode, the pins in the intake followers rely on pressure to pull them back, and certain other parts, but that flow is so rapid, it's of no real consequence. The moment that engine is cranking, there's pressure because there's flow through the oil galleries. Some of the oil galleries won't even be emptied.
If you've ever done full engine rebuilds, you'll find that some passages still have a fair amount of oil in them.
Next time you park a Jeep with a PUG engine, change the cluster to show oil pressure and shut it down.
When you next start it, watch that pressure number carefully - and keep in mind the display is actually lagging behind what a true mechanical gauge would show. In other words, as it's ramping up to 70 in the display, the pressure is already at 70 before the number is displayed. And that happens extremely fast.
I've been in the field long enough to be able to say - as long as there's an oil film - there won't be damage.
This is literally a problem that doesn't truly exist.
If it did, no engine could survive for very long at all - let alone go over 200,000 miles with no internal work at all, minimal wear.

Some have studied the science of lubrication, others are tossing guesses into the internet because they haven't and don't fully understand it.

The problem is that when truths are posted, those who don't believe are pissed, offended, whatever, because it dispells what they've believed for years because of what's been read out there.
That's the sad part of the internet. Things that get repeated the most become the "facts".

 

[Badunit]

No need to get all high and mighty about "some people" and "not understanding" and "tossing guesses".

I hope that even you would agree that if an engine with a pressure-fed lubrication system (i.e., one with a pump) took 15 seconds to get oil to the bearings, the oil film on the bearings from residual oil would most likely be wearing thin by then and there would be some wear. How about 5 seconds? How about 2 seconds, after being parked for a week? There may be a point of diminishing returns but less time is better, yes? Zero time would be ideal, yes?

I hope that even you would agree that a pressure-fed lubrication system is not fully up to design conditions until the proper oil pressure has been achieved. Do you agree that low pressure indicates low resistance to flow? Do you agree that this low resistance is because it is displacing air, which means there is air flowing in places where there should be oil? Do you agree that air is not creating an oil film on the engine's moving parts and might actually be displacing the residual oil that had been there?

 

[TheRealStreetcommander]

hope that even you would agree that a pressure-fed lubrication system is not fully up to design conditions until the proper oil pressure has been achieved. Do you agree that low pressure indic

I agree with this in principal. The broader statement I was trying to convey was and remains this:

Pentastar, after closing in on perhaps 20 million units in service, do not have any oiling problems related to cold start.

This oil filter widget is not remotely necessary or beneficial on any objective level. It seems like a well made quality piece. It was innovative.

It IS a solution searching for a problem, and being evangelized desperately in an un-afflicted Pentastar land.

 

[ZeeJay]

Once after reading such bits and bots while back I couldn’t resist it. KOEO located live OP data stream, started engine, found within a second to two seconds OP was up to 70+, literally faster than I could even read digital readout. My trusty 96 ZJ has a high volume oil in the 4.0 since rebuild, armed with an Autometer mechanical gauge in the A pillar is substantially slower on cold start, so the 3.6 wins that contest. It’s a much better high flow pump, and why wouldn’t it be, it’s secondary function in life is mechanically trimming the overhead and as such will require a massive volume of oil to both lubricate engine and mechanically time it also, likely is contributing factor for 0W oil as well. Add to this any oil system drains back, gravity wins every time, however oil is always trapped in every component and if this were a true enough issue it would be headlined everyday “another exploded top end from bad oiling system” and that’s just not the case vs amount of engines produced. This thing is snake oil, and snake oil looking something to cure, there isn’t anything to see here.

 

[Badunit]

KOEO located live OP data stream, started engine, found within a second to two seconds OP was up to 70+, literally faster than I could even read digital readout.

Was this after a cold start after it sat all night and the filter and passages had drained down? Or was this after a "hot" start, like the start-stop system would be doing?

You all can (and will) do what you feel is best or most cost effective. I feel better knowing the filter is full, the pump doesn't have to spend even a split second filling it up when the engine is started after sitting all night, and the lubrication system is fully functional more quickly.

 

[ZeeJay]

Was this after a cold start after it sat all night and the filter and passages had drained down? Or was this after a "hot" start, like the start-stop system would be doing?

You all can (and will) do what you feel is best or most cost effective. I feel better knowing the filter is full, the pump doesn't have to spend even a split second filling it up when the engine is started after sitting all night, and the lubrication system is fully functional more quickly.

Stone cold, hadn’t run in two days, around March, which around here is still winter.
If you feel better about having it go for it, no judgement here.

 

[jmdwifi]

Why? Should I?
if I start the engine and the oil light is out within 1 second, and there's no clatter, am I hurting the engine? How am I hurting it?
People are freaking out over a filter not holding a quart of oil after shut-down. So? What's it matter?
We have very high volume pumps in these engines - in fact, it's such a high volume that it can easily hit 80 psi at RPM below 3,000.
Tell me what's being hurt and why we aren't seeing massive engine destruction on the PUG 3.6
All anyone can talk about is "look it's empty" and I say - so?

I believe I have also read in some of the FCA tech documents that the system holds a certain amount of oil pressure in the intake valve lash adjusters, meaning that the passages to the high lift portion is charged and ready, with oil held in it.

Ironically, the only testing that's been done is on one engine showing oil drain-down while sitting. Why not test to see how fast pressure is built during cranking and initial firing of the engine? Bet that would show that this is a nothing-burger.
the oil pumps in these blow away pretty much anything else we're used to. The massive volume of oil it can supply means that canister, if it DOES drain back, is filled pretty much the moment you hear the thing firing.
So, why hasn't anyone shown how fast the oil galleries are charged when you do a cold start?
Everyone talks of the draining - but no one covers the other side which should show the draining as a "so what?" thing. So what if it drains back?
Only non-engine people are talking of it - yikes, it's empty! My engine will be trashed without this!
To prove it's necessary, you also have to prove that beyond the filter housing being devoid of oil while sitting long-term, that it's devoid of oil for a long time after the engine fires - long enough to do any damage at all.
I submit that it's not - as if it were, engineers, smarter people than those buying into things like this, would spend $2 to put a simple valve in place.

Show me the damage, show me that these stay empty for a time period long enough to do even a little damage when you do a normal start.
Put a fitting in the housing with a mechanical gauge that shows there's no pressure in the housing for a period of time that can possibly do damage - or at least put a camera in there showing that the engine fires and runs for a couple of seconds before it's filled.
Millions of 3.6 Pentastar engines produced, many of them 100,000 miles or more and no one worried about this until someone said they need to worry about it - and made a buck in the process.

I wanted to read about the adapter because my experience with the 3.6 is, my 2016 which I bought at 70k miles, made the rattling noise at startup for just a few seconds. Now at 85k it's a few seconds but it is much louder. The jeep came with oil change receipts and I have changed it every 5k. My 2020 Gladiator would make that slight rattle sound when I started the engine and it did get a little longer after 60k miles. Now on my 2025 it is slight and just a second or two. I know there a millions of these engines and I am just going by my experience of 3 or 4 counting my 2015 wrangler I bought new years ago. Bottom line, they all made noise and it was longer and louder with miles on it. Do you think the adapter would hurt anything? I am just curious on your thoughts.

 

[Maximus Gladius]

I wanted to read about the adapter because my experience with the 3.6 is, my 2016 which I bought at 70k miles, made the rattling noise at startup for just a few seconds. Now at 85k it's a few seconds but it is much louder. The jeep came with oil change receipts and I have changed it every 5k. My 2020 Gladiator would make that slight rattle sound when I started the engine and it did get a little longer after 60k miles. Now on my 2025 it is slight and just a second or two. I know there a millions of these engines and I am just going by my experience of 3 or 4 counting my 2015 wrangler I bought new years ago. Bottom line, they all made noise and it was longer and louder with miles on it. Do you think the adapter would hurt anything? I am just curious on your thoughts.

The only way you’d scientifically know with hard data is to get two oil analysis done. Do a full run (pick your milage) change the oil and grab a sample for the lab, then replace the oil filter for the upgrade and do another full run, same milage and pull a sample. If you see a “significant” drop in the wear metals, then I’d say it worked. If the numbers are relatively the same, then maybe it didn’t do anything.

The other test is what you hear.

You’d have to find someone like me that keeps oil analysis records every time oil is changed and that person would have also changed out their oil filter for the upgrade and have continued to test oil samples. This would be much better data with knowing a long history of numbers before and compare with long history after.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

The only way you’d scientifically know with hard data is to get two oil analysis done. Do a full run (pick your milage) change the oil and grab a sample for the lab, then replace the oil filter for the upgrade and do another full run, same milage and pull a sample. If you see a “significant” drop in the wear metals, then I’d say it worked. If the numbers are relatively the same, then maybe it didn’t do anything.

The other test is what you hear.

You’d have to find someone like me that keeps oil analysis records every time oil is changed and that person would have also changed out their oil filter for the upgrade and have continued to test oil samples. This would be much better data with knowing a long history of numbers before and compare with long history after.

I wanted to read about the adapter because my experience with the 3.6 is, my 2016 which I bought at 70k miles, made the rattling noise at startup for just a few seconds. Now at 85k it's a few seconds but it is much louder. The jeep came with oil change receipts and I have changed it every 5k. My 2020 Gladiator would make that slight rattle sound when I started the engine and it did get a little longer after 60k miles. Now on my 2025 it is slight and just a second or two. I know there a millions of these engines and I am just going by my experience of 3 or 4 counting my 2015 wrangler I bought new years ago. Bottom line, they all made noise and it was longer and louder with miles on it. Do you think the adapter would hurt anything? I am just curious on your thoughts.

2016 was a very different engine, different oil pump, different oiling needs, different passages, different lash adjusters, followers and more. So we really can't count the 2016.
Adapter isn't going to hurt anything - as far as helping, there's no proof of that, either.
If you watch the oil pressure on these as they start, you'll note a jump in oil pressure the instant it starts, even building while cranking. They start up in high volume mode, which means more oil gets to places faster when starting. Mine hits over 70 psi by the time it's firing on all cylinders, then gradually drops back to 32. Pressure can't build unless there's oil in everything for the pump to "push against" since pressure is resistance to the flow of a liquid and the more liquid there is against that resistance, the higher the pressure. This means that the oil galleries, that tiny little filter housing, everything is full of oil all but instantly. That oil filter housing is small - it won't hold much oil at all, so it fills really fast (contrary to internet lore).
Even after pressure builds and everything is full, the lash adjusters can take a few cycles to even out and normalize, so a lash adjuster ticking for a couple of revolutions doesn't necessarily mean a lack of oil, it just needs more to build it up.

Likely you won't see any difference on oil analysis that you can directly pin on the filter adapter. It's pretty normal for lash adjusters to leak down some after sitting. It happens with pretty much any engine.
In order for it to be a fair test, it would need to be done after the first 2 or 3 changes, when wear metals normally drop off a bit anyway, and compare a series of tests, not just one or two.
A drop in wear metals after a single change won't mean a lot unless it's consistently lower with each subsequent change.
You may see elevated wear up into the 9,000 miles range - so I'd not do any testing before that.
If it was me, and I had even half a belief that the adapter could actually do any "good", I'd start doing analysis at 9 or 10 thousand miles, do that for two changes at least - and then if they were pretty similar in results, do the adapter and do an analysis at the first and second change after installing the adapter.

My experience shows that engines are still "wearing in" up to 8,000-10,000 miles. And that goes back into the pre-electronic controls era. Idle speeds continued to increase slightly, mpg continues to climb, they were still wearing in to some degree.
So if you take samples at 6,000 or 7,000 miles, install the adapter and then take another sample at 10,000 miles and say, gee - it's got less wear metals in the analysis results, that may not have anything to do with the adapter.

 

[Commodus]

Doesn't matter - there's still an oil film.
The rest of my post still applies. You don't need pressure or volume, you need oil film.
The only things that totally rely on oil "pressure" are things like the solenoids that control low or high lift mode, the pins in the intake followers rely on pressure to pull them back, and certain other parts, but that flow is so rapid, it's of no real consequence. The moment that engine is cranking, there's pressure because there's flow through the oil galleries. Some of the oil galleries won't even be emptied.
If you've ever done full engine rebuilds, you'll find that some passages still have a fair amount of oil in them.
Next time you park a Jeep with a PUG engine, change the cluster to show oil pressure and shut it down.
When you next start it, watch that pressure number carefully - and keep in mind the display is actually lagging behind what a true mechanical gauge would show. In other words, as it's ramping up to 70 in the display, the pressure is already at 70 before the number is displayed. And that happens extremely fast.
I've been in the field long enough to be able to say - as long as there's an oil film - there won't be damage.
This is literally a problem that doesn't truly exist.
If it did, no engine could survive for very long at all - let alone go over 200,000 miles with no internal work at all, minimal wear.

Some have studied the science of lubrication, others are tossing guesses into the internet because they haven't and don't fully understand it.

The problem is that when truths are posted, those who don't believe are pissed, offended, whatever, because it dispells what they've believed for years because of what's been read out there.
That's the sad part of the internet. Things that get repeated the most become the "facts".

I agree everyone is blaming the lack of oil on start ups for the cam failures yet many vehicles use this system including Ford and crickets on this causing any engine failures

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I agree everyone is blaming the lack of oil on start ups for the cam failures yet many vehicles use this system including Ford and crickets on this causing any engine failures

There really isn't a lack of oil anyway, these get oil at least as fast as any other engine due to the oil pump defaulting to high volume mode.

 

[Sandman 4x4]

From what I remember from back in the daze, there are two types of oil filter assemblies. One is a primary, like in Jeeps 3.6, the other is a secondary filtration system. The difference between the two are the primary filters the oil be before passing through the engine, a secondary filters the oil after passing through the engine and into the crankcase. Back in the 70’s is when I was told about this by a neighbor who was a scientist at Fram in E. Prov.,RI. The Ford V8’s were also designed with primary filter systems, which is why even though the 460’s in me families trucking company sales managers Lincoln, all ran great for 200,000+ miles, would always have a mechanical noise on startup after sitting overnight. GM V8’s used secondary filtered oiling design, that enables quiet startups. My biggest concern is the fact they use a plastic housing instead of metal? Why not use a cooler in a remote location?

 

[ShadowsPapa]

From what I remember from back in the daze, there are two types of oil filter assemblies. One is a primary, like in Jeeps 3.6, the other is a secondary filtration system. The difference between the two are the primary filters the oil be before passing through the engine, a secondary filters the oil after passing through the engine and into the crankcase. Back in the 70’s is when I was told about this by a neighbor who was a scientist at Fram in E. Prov.,RI. The Ford V8’s were also designed with primary filter systems, which is why even though the 460’s in me families trucking company sales managers Lincoln, all ran great for 200,000+ miles, would always have a mechanical noise on startup after sitting overnight. GM V8’s used secondary filtered oiling design, that enables quiet startups. My biggest concern is the fact they use a plastic housing instead of metal? Why not use a cooler in a remote location?

I don't know how you filter the oil after it goes everywhere.
The filter is after the pump, before the oil gets to any engine parts.
You can't filter oil after passing through the engine and going back into the crankcase.
Just not possible.
I can show you books with pictures of all of the oiling systems used in the 60s and 70s.

Please explain how you filter oil just before it goes back to the crankcase.
It's coming off bearings, the spray from camshafts, out lash adjusters or lifter holes, running down passages in the valley, through the heads and dripping from 100 places back to the pan. It's impossible to filter oil as it goes back to the pan.

GM engines filter the oil right after the pump picks it up, like any other. There's nothing they do differently to make quieter startups.
You were fed a line............. unfiltered.

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