Hey Bobzilla,
My dad does the Blackstone analysis for his 07 Cayman S to try and keep an eye on the IMS. He's at 98k miles so we're pretty sure it's a good one. Are the Blackstone reports the right one to look at or should he be using something else?
Thanks and happy new year!
If they are answering your question then yes. If you want to know if the oil itself is still usable then probably not. They are fine for what they're selling. There are better and there are much worse.
In reply to bobzilla :
Ok, good to know, so what should I do differently to learn how this oil is holding up to race conditions? FWIW, our oil change is about 8 quarts, plus the cooler and lines hold another qt, and the filter we use is one of the big ass Ford 5.0 filters.
bobzilla said:If it's something you see yourself doing go straight to Polaris and get their 10 pack. It works out to about $17 a sample.
I R DUMB! Went to the Polaris website and did not find this. Any help would be appreciated. Also, is it based on all samples being from the same vehicle or can you do multiples from several vehicles?
secretariata (Forum Supporter) said:bobzilla said:If it's something you see yourself doing go straight to Polaris and get their 10 pack. It works out to about $17 a sample.
I R DUMB! Went to the Polaris website and did not find this. Any help would be appreciated. Also, is it based on all samples being from the same vehicle or can you do multiples from several vehicles?
https://polarislabs.com/horizon-store/
Sonic said:In reply to bobzilla :
Ok, good to know, so what should I do differently to learn how this oil is holding up to race conditions? FWIW, our oil change is about 8 quarts, plus the cooler and lines hold another qt, and the filter we use is one of the big ass Ford 5.0 filters.
You need to be checking bae number, oxidation/nitration and gc for actual fuel content which it appears bs doesn't do
Will Polaris do that for me normally, or do I have to ask? I appreciate your knowledge and advice, just trying to figure out how to get the info you say I need to know.
In reply to Sonic :
Their advanced mobile kits do all that testing standard. I would recommend sending in one new baseline of the oil you are using to give you those starting values. Even more so if you're using a boutique oil
bobzilla said:Moly is a friction modifier iirc. It's an additive. Newer Diesel engine oils use higher amounts of moly and boron/borates and less phos/zinc and calcium.
Moly is in Mobil products and off brands that use Mobil base. I used to have twenty of the On-Site analyzers to do quick tests on the trucks we were servicing so this is kinda fun reading.
In reply to bobzilla :
Ok, thanks. I'm using rotella t6 in this application so nothing unusual
chandler said:bobzilla said:Moly is a friction modifier iirc. It's an additive. Newer Diesel engine oils use higher amounts of moly and boron/borates and less phos/zinc and calcium.
Moly is in Mobil products and off brands that use Mobil base. I used to have twenty of the On-Site analyzers to do quick tests on the trucks we were servicing so this is kinda fun reading.
Moly is used a lot more now than it ever was. Chevron has gone to a almost zero zddp diesel engine oil that is using a potassium borate type ep additive in its place with a couple hundred ppm of moly as good measure. It's also in most assembly lubes
Sonic said:In reply to bobzilla :
Ok, thanks. I'm using rotella t6 in this application so nothing unusual
Even so, keep in mind shell updates their products with new formulations but doesn't change the name. The T6 was still the same a few months back but the T4 was different to meet the newer ck4 requirements
So, I thought I'd share one of mine. I have been slacking lately on these and I have 2 to submit still.
This amount of fuel dilution is quite common for a DI engine. I know Honda and Ford expect those numbers to be higher. This is what I used to call a "perfect report". Wear is minimal for the miles (over 9k) and base number is down to the point it's time to start considering a change.
bobzilla said:Let me just air this.... I loathe BS test packages. Insolubles in a gasoline engine oil is a pointless test...
Why pointless? Of course, soot is more prevalent in diesel engines, but aren't there other sources of insolubles in gasoline engines (oxidized oil, unfiltered particles)?
In reply to motorhead13 :
Just caught this... oxidized oil will be caught by watching, obviously, oxidation and nitration results along with the viscosity. Oxidized oil thickens with age and depletes base faster. Unfiltered particles are less of an issue in a modern engine. Tolerances are more than the filters of even the crappiest filter and if you have that much wear or contamination you'll see it in the elemental analysis.
In reply to bobzilla :
That makes sense, thanks for reply!
I'm comparing sample analysis reports across multiple labs and Polaris looks very good. One thing I'm not sure about is if their Water test using FTIR is sensitive enough. I know it's a screening test like the Crackle method, but even Crackle is more sensitive (> 500 ppm) to alert you if Water is creeping in. By the time FTIR indicates the presence of Water (> 1,000 ppm), you've already got a problem.
yep, i do them on mine periodically, to establish when the additive levels are just about used up and keep an eye on other wear metals, then call it good. i had potassium and sodium spiking on my old Xterra analysis and it helped me troubleshoot a leaking intake manifold gasket that was weeping coolant into the intake.
my 8th gen Si, currently running Castrol 0W-40 and will do a sample on that too, and then probably pick one to call it good for a long time. should have gone with somebody would could run an oxidation test on that last one (ran it for 15 mos) but just got lazy.
i don't put much stock in BS's flashpoint values due to the way they calculate them, but otherwise i think they're helpful to dial things in.
In reply to motorhead13 :
Water in engines is not that helpful on most cases. That's why they rely on crackle (or hot plate) to determine the presence. The reason being, most engines oils will be hot enough to burn the water off in use so condensation isn't an issue unless you're not erring the engines get to operating temps. If it's coolant, the water portion will burn off and the carrier salts will show even in very small amounts. Keep in mind, they typically consider anything below 300ppm of sodium/potassium as too small to detecting with pressure testing or leak down test. Ftir is good for low to medium amounts of water where it's not critical to machine operations. Karl Fischer is the most accurate test (and most expensive) for critical machines that must not have any water presence and for diesel fuels.
So in other words vehicle engines hot plate is fine. Gear boxes and industrial equipment ftir/hot plate is sufficient. Hydraulics, turbines and compressors will need KF.
This thread convinced me to get my first one:
Not bad! Hopefully the fresh oil and clean filter will take care of the silicon reading. I'm interested in getting back the samples on the C5Z because it's "old" oil with a lot of cold starts, and the 986S's because it's a (light) season of autocross on it.
Anything else you see in the S4 sample to watch for?
In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :
I didn't watch the video but silicone can be from gasket material if there's been recent work, could be dirt but if you don't see a 2:1 of silicon to aluminum ratio and increased wear probably not. I can make more sense of the actual report itself.
In reply to bobzilla :
We had the rear timing covers resealed and the valve cover gaskets replaced on this oil change. It also had a wicked dirty air filter (Arizona car).
In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :
And there's your silicon. 95% of the time when there were high levels of Si recent work had just been done. Considering most cars use some form of sealant instead of actual gaskets this isnt uncommon
Bob,
My 2004 Prius just hit 200k. I change the oil at 10k intervals with synthetic (various brands) and genuine Toyota filters that I got for $2.50 each when I bought a case of 10.
I'm glad to report that now due for an oil change I am just down 1/2 qt (half way between full and low) on the dip stick. I know for a fact that no oil has been added over the 10k interval.
Should I do an oil analysis? I'd like to get another 100k but having never done an analysis, I'm not sure what it would tell me on this car that seems to be running fine.
I mean, if it works why mess with it. Oil analysis is great for long term to watch for wear trends etc etc etc. Single samples with no history is hard to make any kind of predictions or comment on severity of wear etc.
If you're testing for oil usage, 1/2 qt usage in 10k miles is negligible.
Since I helped to inspire this thread, I finally got around to getting some oil sampled and sent in. I went with Blackstone only because they seemed to be the easiest to work with - maybe I'm just not good at reading things, but I couldn't really find anybody else that had a button that I could press that would spit out a test kit....
Anyway, this is the Excursion's oil. Synthetic 5w30 with 2000 miles on it, dumped it into a brand-new pan when it started having oil pressure issues. The cams had some pitting on the lobes and the balance shaft up in the left head was a little gnarly as well so I'm putting new ones in now. It's probably hard to tell with a single data point if there's anything else to worry about. Once it's back together I was going to run it for a couple hundred miles and change the oil and filter, then run that oil for another 2000 miles and sample it again to compare.
You'll need to log in to post.
