‘17 Honda Civic - how does this oil look?

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May 21, 2017
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I’ve been trying to figure out the tapping/knocking noise while idling I’m hearing on my civic (took it to Honda, they said it’s the HPFP), and decided to pull the filter off and open it up (waiting on the cutter to come in). I’ve changed the oil around 700 miles ago, filter was in service for total of 4,700 miles. How does this look to y’all? And yes, I’m pulling a sample to send it out for UOA.

 
what is HPFP? Looks milky, hard to tell. Cut the filter and look for debris when you can. Drain oil through a light weight undershirt to catch some stuff. Does the engine knock at overrun indicating worn rod bearings?
 
High pressure fuel pump. No knocking when revving up (or at least I can’t hear it). Here’s the noise I’m chasing (not the injectors firing, but the knocking in the background, low frequency)

 
High pressure fuel pump. No knocking when revving up (or at least I can’t hear it). Here’s the noise I’m chasing (not the injectors firing, but the knocking in the background, low frequency)


Wow, those injectors sure got picked up by your mic, but with the headphones I could hear the background knock.

Usually if the knock disappears when the engine is at higher RPM, it points to the bottom end. The big metal flakes point to that as well IMO.
 
IMG_4803.webp
Nothing in the filter. Pleats are clean with no flakes or chunks of metal

IMG_4802.webp


IMG_4801.webp
 
Yeah, if those are confirmed to be metal flakes from this engine (and not just random debris in the pan), he has a legitimate problem.
Those large chunks are NOT from the oil filter I took off, just debris in the pan. I’ll clean the pan, drain the oil and collect a sample for UOA (not sure if this would be helpful at all)
 
Those large chunks are NOT from the oil filter I took off, just debris in the pan. I’ll clean the pan, drain the oil and collect a sample for UOA (not sure if this would be helpful at all)
Don’t bother with a UOA. If they’re truly large chunks, the particle size will be outside of detectable range.
 
What oil viscosity are you running, OP?
When I ran 0w20, it sounded similar to this.
Once I switched to 5/10w30, there's far less engine noise in general.
YMMV
 
For just 700 miles I'd expect it to look far cleaner than that to be honest.
For some reason oil in this engine gets this “dirty” pretty much instantly. Few years ago I slightly overfilled and had to pull the excess through the dipstick tube after driving 30-40 miles. Oil was black
 
Polaris labs are quick. Here’s the result (QS Ultimate 5w30). Not sure what to think

IMG_4816.webp
 
Polaris labs are quick. Here’s the result (QS Ultimate 5w30). Not sure what to think

Ignore the report. As was mentioned already, these UOAs only pick up particles of specific size, not all particles.

Can you take a video from the bottom of the car instead of the top? That should make the bottom end noises much clearer, if it is the bottom end that makes the knocking sound.
 
Ignore the report. As was mentioned already, these UOAs only pick up particles of specific size, not all particles.

Can you take a video from the bottom of the car instead of the top? That should make the bottom end noises much clearer, if it is the bottom end that makes the knocking sound.
Here it is. In person it doesn’t sound more pronounced. Not sure if the video reflects that
 
Here it is. In person it doesn’t sound more pronounced. Not sure if the video reflects that


Listened to if through my headphones again and you're right, it sounds about the same as in the previous video.

How does this noise behave when you rev up the engine? Like slowly raise the RPM. Is there a spot in the RPMs that it's louder and then goes away? Or is the idle noise the loudest and then it quiets down as the RPM go up?
 
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