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can I ditch my oil filter adapter?

You should be able to, the adapter isn't used on the C series trucks.
 
as long as it clears the front drive line. You may have to remove the u-joints to get the filter to seat properly.
 
there is plenty of room in there for a pf454 filter, which shouldn't be an issue with filtering with oil changed every 3k miles.. just be one less leak to deal with and less mess changing it.
 
I did that on my 6.2, any oil filter for a 8.1 chevy 4x4 will fit .
 
540s10 said:
there is plenty of room in there for a pf454 filter, which shouldn't be an issue with filtering with oil changed every 3k miles.. just be one less leak to deal with and less mess changing it.
Click to expand...

Less mess is good. But you may want to keep some trade-off's in mind:

You would want to check the filter specs for anti drain back valve, bypass: if any, amount of filter media in sq ft. Then think of the reduced oil capacity the filter has means less oil total in the engine.

The 1993 owners manual has oil changes at 2500 miles for heavy duty use. So you could be 500 miles over a oil change recommendation at 3000 miles (!) This would be made worse by less oil in the system with a smaller filter. (And I am lucky to stay under 3000 miles in a week sometimes.) Heavy duty use would be smoking like a freight train towing a trailer, or extreme cold weather, for example. Miles are a guess, to really know you need to do some oil samples. Reportable to critical (and flush the contaminates out) doesn't take much on these dirty engines. After all you have seen the soot/sludge build up on the inside like on the pushrods, if not, trust me these are dirty engines. Lack of enough oil capacity is one reason.

Think of the Olds 350 Diesel with it's joke of a small oil filter. There was a lesson learned and the 6.2/6.5 has a bigger filter. Although the 2WD 350 gas has a huge filter over a 4x4.
 
Oil technology has progressed quite a bit since 1993, and with synthetics even more.

Let us know how it works Si.
 
I've noticed newer vehicles are going with smaller oil filters. For instance the 6.0 chevy 's have 1042 Wix bUt we put the 1522 on which is longer. After a certain year they don't fit though.
 
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It will probably be ok but I'm kinda with warwagon a bit leary. Oil is different but so is the emissions and cleanliness of the burn of newer vehicles. Older vehicles (model and design plus age and condition) are going to have more soot production. More filter area would be better for this.

The difference would be hard to measure without oil samples and a fairly long term study of wear. I don't think you would see any difference on the dash guage in oil pressure but maybe with an actual differential pressure across filter near the end of the oil change interval and then it might only be at idle???

Probably fine for most trucks but I wouldn't want to go to smaller filter for a normally heavily loaded 6.5 truck that burns a lot of fuel between oil changes.
 
I have never done the math before but my last post made me think about it more seriously.

If you say a severe service truck tows and is working hard it will probably get about 10 miles per gallon. So at 2,500 miles at 10 miles a gallon you should change your oil/filter at every 250 gallons of fuel.

If you figure regularly get 16 mpg then oil change at 16x250 = 4,000 miles between changes.

So miles between changes doesn't really correlate exactly to anything other than rotations of tires. Maybe its better to use gallons of fuel between changes as other measures vary according to usage more. And minus time or temperature swings or stops/starts gallons of fuel consumed is the better indicator.

The amount of fuel burn would be directly proportional to soot production. And the amount of soot in oil would consume dispersants/detergents and clog the filter.

So look at the amount of fuel you burn between changes to see how you compare to milage etc between changes and see how a smaller filter may impact you.
 
How about this for further figuring. Anyone want to suggest how they figure filter media size?

So 250 gallons of fuel is a semi-calculated-guess at what point oil/filter should be changed.

If you guestimate stock filter is 50% dirty/plugged/used up at that point (250 gallons of fuel burned). You still have 50% more filter usage.

1.50 x 250 gallons is 375 gallons before the stock filter is done and really has to be changed.

Now figure the filter is 50% smaller you really should change the filter at 375/2 = 187.5 gallons of fuel.

187.5 gallons at 16 mpg is 3000 miles of driving.

So maybe its just ok to use smaller filter but not near the safety margin of the big filter???

I know I have seen other engines that are used in trucks and cars and the truck specs the big filter while the car specs the smaller one. Are they interchangeable for the engine but not the body configuration ???? Typically cars get better mpg than trucks so maybe it might point to looking at fuel consumption more ???

Is is a percieved thing that a mechanically minded person is going to really prefer a bigger filter and thus think a truck with small filter couldn't be a HD truck and thus is partially marketing issue ??????
 
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