Guglatech Fuel Filter

What it is

• A pre-filter for your fuel.

The Guglatech fuel filter has a funny name but it is designed to strain out everything but gas when filling your tank or fuel can. The filter is a sleeve or tube of the company's proprietary HDM3D material that is claimed to trap particles down to 10 microns and prevents contaminants like water from passing through. Designed to catch the bad stuff before it gets to the fuel pump’s pre-filter or worse yet, into the carb or fuel injector, the typically simple to install filter is meant as a first line of defense. They retail for between $60-$110 depending on the application.

How it works

• Takes the dirt and particles out of bad gas.
• Easy installation with minimal tools.
• Won't stop water in ethanol gasoline.

We’ve been using the Guglatech filters in a few of our bikes for the better part of the last year and a half. Typically we get clean gas here in the US at most of the stations we are familiar with. So gas coming from a higher volume retailer isn’t much of an issue for the most part. But with anything we have had some issues. Some self caused like dirt getting into some of our gas cans. Some of them random like possible bad batch or the bottom of the tank at a station every so often. Don’t believe us, look at the bottom of your gas tank or can next time it is near empty.

In use the Guglatech filter slides right into the tank on your bike with a lip or rim on the filter that mates to the mouth of the gas tank. Best Rest Products (the US Importer) also makes a nifty tool to help push the filter down into the tank and open it up. Install takes all of two minutes on the bikes we used it on. We also used one meant for slipping on the nozzle if the fuel pump then pushed into the gas can or tank.

Then we gassed up bikes like normal and never had any issues to report as far as fuel filtration goes. After a while we pulled out the filters and examined the membrane and noticed a fair amount of particles for sure. And some gunky material in one instance. The filter works at taking out stuff that would largely contribute to shortening the life of the fuel pump’s filter. Clean gas flows right through the filter in our smaller sized units at the pace of a normal fuel station pump speed. If the gas is dirty or the filter is dirty from use over time the pass-through slows down accordingly. Especially when water is present.

For racing and quick filling the filter may not pass the gas quick enough.

We have seen plenty of demonstrations of this filter not letting water pass through it, but this is highly dependent on the gasoline you are using. If you have non-ethanol gasoline, the filter will remove the water in fuel (and most anything else that will separate from the gas if it is let to sit) without having to let it sit for some time. The more water the slower the gas begins to pass and the Guglatech will actually start to overflow if there is that much water, yet that seems very uncommon and only happened when we were messing around for testing purposes. Of note when new, we added just water and it seemed to pass through at the seams and where the ink was on the membrane. But after repeating this test later when gas had been through it, the filter held watertight enough that it would take a long time for water to pass into your tank or can.

After time we cleaned out the filter by little back-flushing it using gasoline and passed the fuel across a white paper town. The filter's contents revealed a lot more contamination than we’d thought. The company says fuel injector cleaner can be used also. We used soap and water, additionally back flushing the filter, which worked for getting the filter looking more clean but the company advised that the soap can contribute to plugging the filter also. Our bad.

With ethanol gas, the ethanol absorbs quite a bit of water and will drag it through the filter. So be aware of this if using ethanol gas--as it always has a bit of water in suspension and with temperature changes and especially in areas with high humidity passing water will occur. The filter tries to separate free-standing water but the ethanol wins this battle of chemistry.

In areas with sketchy gas, often when traveling in remote areas, this filter can be a huge advantage and possibly save you lots of time and hassle as a simple and effective smart measure. At $60-$110 depending on the application it is cheap insurance (comparatively) from dirty fuel and can really prolong the life of your internal fuel filters and injectors especially.

https://bestrestproducts.com/shop/guglatech-fuel-and-air-filters/guglatech-dirt-bikes-with-plastic-tanks/guglatech-fuel-filter-install-tool/

https://youtu.be/U2AXv5RRHCE

*8-15- Test updated to include company's recommendation against using soap to clean filter.