Racor fuel filters

Racor filters have become so synonymous with fuel filtration that the word Racors has almost become a generic term for filters. On recreational boats the 500 series are the most common and these are often fitted to both sail and power vessels. These area turbine style filter with the element sitting on top of a clear bowl. Fuel passes through the turbine where large bits of dirt and water are deposited in the bottom of the bowl then fuel travels through the paper element where any other debris is picked up. Racors are designed as primary filters, in other words fuel should pass through a further secondary filter before reaching the injector pump. Racors in concert with all other fuel filters are measured in terms of microns, the smaller the number the smaller the particles that are trapped by the filter. Typically these are 2,10 or 20 micron sizes filters. The actual size of the filter is the same so any one of the above filters will fit into the same housing it all depends on the amount of filtration required. A 2 micron filter may be better at cleaning the fuel but it will tend to clog faster especially if the fuel in the tank is less than perfect, on the other hand a 20 micron filter will tend to let larger particles through thus clogging the secondary filters sooner. I tend to use 10 micron filters in my Racor and 2 micron filters in my secondary fuel filter bowl and this seems to work well for me. As you will see in the first of the pictures at the top of this page a fair bit of sludge has collected in the bowl although this is actually the filter off the generator. Even so you can see the amount of muck that is kept out of the engine, a good thing. The lower picture is included which shows the bottom of the filter element, on the left is the old style element and on the right the newer style that Racor have recently introduced. With the old style it was necessary to slip on a spacer to the center post of the element holder, this sometimes used to get stuck and was hard to remove especially when the placement of the filter housing is in less than a perfect location. The new filter style has an extended sleeve as can be seen and this negates the requirement for the black spacer, an altogether far better arrangement.