I have been consistently seeing dry oil filters from by b16 (OEM filters, Wix filters, it doesn't matter) am leaning towards it being a stuck oil relief valve and replacing the entire oil pump if I have to go through the trouble of removing the whole thing anyway. 160,000 mi on it

Before I tear into this, are there any other diagnostics that can be done to verify what might be going on? I have an OBD scanner tool, but it doesn't seem to have any output for oil pressure.


EDIT, I WASN'T REMOVING THE OIL FILTER QUICK ENOUGH. VERIFIED THERE WAS OIL IN THE FILTER, BUT ITS DRAINING OUT FAIRLY QUICKLY.

 

If you're not getting any oil or very little even after immediate shut down,yeah Im gonna agree the oil is probably by-passing the filter altogether.

Only test I can think of is to put an oil pressure gauge on it. If the relief is stuck, Id assume the pressure would be lower than normal...

 

Can you/anyone verify clarify how the oil flows in the system? After more research, I think the sprung valve in the pump simply maintains a maximum pump output pressure when the pump spins up (at high RPM). There's only one output port on the pump and that probably means that the entire flow is going to the filter. Yeah, there's a relief valve in the filter itself, but when triggered, the oil entering the outer housing of the filter will bypass the media and exit through the center bore of the filter.

Clearly i'm not spinning bearings, so I think i'm getting faked out by how quickly it's draining out. I've read a few theories about oil siphoning out through worn mains.