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| Tony's Tips |
ARTICLE DATE: 09/01/2007 |
| Marine Fuel Filtration - "The Seaboard Way" |
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| And I thought you knew all of this stuff - Tons already
written on this site http://boatdiesel.com/ about fuel filtration, gimmicks,
and the like - many individual postings, a few very long threads, and a few
good articles. |
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Custom SEAMAX FUELTRATION TM system for polishing, priming, and transferring fuel put together by the owner who was tired of clogging his Racors every 8-10 hours. |
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But in a nutshell, "Algae-X" and "Fuel Mag" are some of those "magic magnet"
contraptions, "RCI" is one of those "spinning" devices, and Multi-Stage Fuel
filtration is filtering in series with progressively finer filtration from
large to small ( maybe 30/20, 10/7 and 3/2 mics) . No "gizmo's" no "magic,"
just proven mechanical filtration using the most modern filtration product
available.
BTW, if you are into fuel "gizmo's", this link is a winner...http://www.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/reports.htm
And more important, there is NO such thing as "too much" or "too clean" concerning
diesel fuel filtration when one really thinks about it. All you have to do
to confirm this is to do some injector seat inspections at 2000 hours on some
good running engines. This will tell you who has the minimum fuel filtration
that gets by, and the ones who really have clean fuel.
The Overview of the Marine Fuel System
Because of the changing requirements of the modern "Common
Rail" fuel systems that are showing up w/ the new Tier 2 marine diesel engines,
it's time to revisit this subject to be sure ours readers have the most up
to date and field tested information available to protect their investment.
Much of the information below has been part of other postings and small articles
I've put together, but I thought it would be best to try and bring some of
the older info into this and blend it in with some new ideas and information.
I would also like to point out that all of this information is derived from
a conglomeration of 10's of thousands of hours of field operation, 100's of
thousands of gallons of fuel filtration with our proven systems, and from keeping
up on the latest requirements and data from popular engine and filter manufactures. |
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| Commercially
proven Multi-Stage System meeting strict common rail fuel requirements
- 20 year old fuel tanks, 1000 hours later, approx 60,000 gallons of
fuel thru these filters, and ZERO issues |
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| There are some very important points to understand about the overall selection
of YOUR filtration system, and listed below are some of them that seem to be
the least understood and may require some additional thought before you make
the choice: |
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The Total Fuel Flow of your engine-not
just the max rated fuel burn. It's real typical to have a diesel engine rated
at 300 HP (16 GPH max fuel consumption at rated WOT) but have a fuel flow of
60 GPH-1 gallon per minute ! Your entire fuel delivery and filtration system
needs to be sized for the max fuel flow and not just maximum fuel consumption. |
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The Tankage or Holding Methods your vessel-older
fuel tanks will typically have something in the fuel tank that that you do
not want your engine to burn or get anywhere near the "on-engine" or last chance
filter that is part of the engine fuel system. Whether it is be some type of
growth (algae), accumulated "mud" (diesel fines, sludge build-up, etc), rust
flakes (from older steel/iron tanks), water, internal tank coatings that are
deteriorating, or ???, there is always something in there that should not make
it past your OFF-ENGINE / PRIMARY fuel filter system. Remember this for later. |
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Your Application and Use - Using your
vessel for the weekends and making 150 mile round trips 10-20 times a year
is very different than working your vessel 20 days a month 10 months out of
the year. Big fuel burners will typically need larger capacity fuel filters
to keep maintenance intervals to an acceptable level, but anyone will benefit
from more filtration capacity as it will eventually pay dividends by not clogging
as easily when you (finally) get that lousy tank of fuel. |
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The Fuel Injection System Requirements of your engine - Every manufacturer of diesel engines have certain MINIMUM
requirements for the quality of the fuel that is fed to the engine. Cleanliness
is next to godliness when we talk fuel injection as there is no such thing
as "too clean".. So, after spending 10's of thousands of $$ on either a new
boat or a repower, why would not spending a few $100 more by upgrading the
"minimum" of fuel filtration equipment that is typically part of the supplied
equipment list in just about every boat I see, not be a wise investment? Adding
an additional layer of fuel filtration protection and using the most modern
filtration media available will always be the best money spent for long term
reliability for any fuel supply system on a diesel engine-and that applies
to your truck and RV too. Things have improved much since the days of cellulose
or treated cellulose media typical of most replacement fuel filter elements. |
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| 100% "Marine Tuff" Multi-Stage fuel filtration with new SEAMAX designed Filter Heads, premium Fleetguard Filters, and "Drag Pointer" vacuum gages - With rated flows ratings to 100 GPH + with a minimum of restriction along w/ superior filtration and capacity, Multi-Stage Fuel Filtration has been proven in the toughest marine applications for over 20 years |
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