I was just reading NOLN and there is an article about NEXCEL which is a development from castrol with a changeable all inclusive oil filter and oil cell. It was developed for high end applications and is only available in 24 cars worldwide right now but looks like an awesome concept. Looks like Castrol is looking to have it mainstream by 2020.
Anyone know more than the articles are stating or have any experience with these?
Found a PR video on it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWlPyM1gzQ4
I can't see how this is a good idea on a wet-sump car. It's basically a massive remote-mounted oil filter that holds a large amount of oil. The AM Vulcan has it, but you can bet that a $2M track-only car has a dry sump, so this Nexcel box replaces the oil tank - swap it and very nearly all of the oil is changed. On a wet sump car, you swap it and maybe half the oil is changed?
It is supposedly available in some ford ecoboost cars in Europe. It becomes the oil pan essentially for a wet sump or the cell for a dry sump. I'm at a loss where they plan to put it in modern cars and what the pay off is.
Quick oil changes, lower CO2 emissions, longer oil change intervals (cell has a computer that tests the oil), environmental savings are their claimed pay offs. The cell is reuseable up to five times and the oil is refined back To base and reused.
I had an idea for how this could work on a wet-sump car with a little modification. If the car's sump has a second drain port that goes to an electric low-pressure oil lift pump, this could be activated to pull the oil out of the pan and put it in the cell before the oil change is done. Then when you swap the oil cell, practically all your oil is changed at once as with the dry sump.
Still I don't think that having a huge, expensive, only slightly reusable oil filter is a good idea for a street car. Containment of used oil isn't actually much of a problem. It makes sense for endurance racing where a quick oil change saves time in the pits.
It must have an internal pump because they are touting the ability to put exactly the amount of oil exactly where it is needed.