Motor Project # 15 - Oil Filtering

From Steve Hannes - This project is meant to educate Click on any picture to enlarge, then F11. I am still working on the exhaust headers, but extensive business travel has stalled my recent progress. This project will focus on the the oil filtering on the 3.0L Duratec engine used in the Jaguar X-Type. Because of the exhaust design that Jaguar has incorporated to accomplish goals of high emmissions efficiency, much greater heat is generated around the engine block and heads. This is evident by the large number of heat shielding pieces used on both banks. Additionally, the tranverse layout hinders airlfow in the engine compartment. One problem created by these designs is significantly increased oil operating temperatures. Jag engineers reduced oil operating temperatures by incorporating a cooling system sourced at the oil filter and fed by the coolant system. The potential problems for the X-Type owner are a number of additional small rubber hose components that wouldn't normally be part of the cooling system that will fail some day. Of course, these are not that easy to see or get to when they eventually fail. Several pictures below show the components that make up the system and a mock up of the coolant lines The first picture shows the mock up assembly. Right below the header you'll see the filter cooling radiator with inlet/outlet hoses. The larger hose on the left is inlet and is the bottom radiator hose. Coolant flows through coils that contact oil flowing into the filter. Coolant then flows out of the coolant radiator to the coolant system's thermostat. Connections here consist of two very small rubber hoses with a rigid aluminum pipe connector in the middle. These two small hoses will be prone to failure, and I will elimintate them in my modifications. BTW - The thermostat is located in the vertical pipe assembly to the right/rear of the headers. It is the triangular flange housing seen in this picture. The small hose immediately below it is the notorious TSB hose that had a tendancy to blow off and Jaguar issued the TSB to install a screw hose clamp. You'll see both the old and replacement clamps on the aluminum pipe left from when I removed this assembly. Jag techs would install the new clamp and not remove the old one. A picture of just the filter and coolant housing as designed by Jaguar Here is a picture of the filtering components on the Jaguar design. The Cooling readiator is shown on the left. The extension stud in the middle and the factory numbered oil filter in a FRAM crossover, the XG3600. In my modified design, used with the header system, I will eliminate all of these parts including the extra coolant lines. With the header system and cat back design I am freeing up a lot of heat bulidup and congestion in the filtering area. By reducing the coolant line extensions I will improve the overall coolant flow in the system, eliminate these small hoses prone to failure on the road, and replace the factory oil filter with a larger capacity (FRAM PH 2) for increased oil filtering. The larger filter will also aid in natural cooling. For my design I will route the lower radiator hose directly to the coolant system's thermostat. Here is a picture of the replacement oil filtering components. The small stud shown here is from a circa 1999 V6 Duratec. It screws directly into the mounting location on the block of the existing filtering system. Then the oil filter mounts to that. Here is a picture of the smaller stud installed in the engine block. In the engine manufacturing process, the oil filter flange is milled to specs the same way on all V6 Duratec variations, then different division users accessorize the filtering system according to their designs. This makes the PH 2 filter variation work directly on the original engine factory machined flange, which is a variation in itself. You can see the small stud installed on the circular flange directly under the first and second header pipe, counting from the left. The final assembly with headers in place will look like this: I expect this modification, in addition to the headers and modifications to the coolant system will overall improve performance and clean up some "clutter" in the engine compartment. Again, I appreciate your patience for those waiting to see the completion of the header system. It's been a busy time for my business and will continue in the near future. Enjoy.