oil pickup/strainer question

[Touchdown038]

I was reading about overhauling engines tonight (somehow landed on a Volkswagen site) and I read about a guy who never keeps the strainer on his oil pickup when he rebuilds an engine. This got me thinking... if you have an oil filter, what's the point of the strainer? To keep little bits and pieces out of the oil pump?

And would it be safe to do the same on my motor I'm rebuilding?

[s13sr20chris]

i would not do that unless it was a one race drag motor or something. a dual stage filtering system is always better than a single stage. dont think of the filter as "THE FILTER" but rather a filter at the end of your filtering system. i always clean or replace the screen on my motors. and i never leave it out.