Not to turn this into an OCI thread, but unless you have a bypass filter, HPL is still going to get contaminated at the same rate as anything else. An oil that holds up great doesn't do you much good if it's not kept clean enough to be usable.
2 Valvoline Restore & Protect tests
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I'm confident that my Civic most definitely could go much further than 10k on its HPL runs. Very clean motor, & doesn't burn a bit. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable doing that with the Rodeo considering the amount of varnish. Dave recommended testing if I were to go past 10k, but felt it wouldn't be an issue taking it to. If the oil becomes too dark for my liking before 10k, I will happily dump it for fresh knowing that it's cleaning things up.
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Who's HPL? ....I kid...I kid
The only real ways too tell IF Mobil EP and Valvoline RandP work are, removing valve cover after 3,000 mile run,or engine teardown.
I would be really interested if Valvoline R & P could clean the carbon deposits in the turbo drain lines.
Gotta agree. The engine is so old that it lived through the extended oil change fad and also probably had mineral or semisynthetic at one time or another. Mileage and age aside, this engine is cruddier that it would be if it had frequent oil changes with the good stuff… or even the not so good stuff. These cars are capable of many, many miles.
Great points. Like I said in another post, these engines also seem somewhat prone to oil sludge by design judging by how many develop cold lifter tick over time. Hopefully modern synthetic oil, frequent oil changes, plenty of long trips, and a clean PCV valve prevents this from happening again once it's cleaned up.
Mechanically it still seems very healthy judging by the fact that it has 180-185 PSI on all cylinders, doesn't seem to burn any oil, runs and sounds great once warmed up, and has very minimal wear on the one rod bearing I checked while I had the oil pan off, so I don't think it's at much risk of dying any time soon.
Interested in seeing how your rebuild works out. I wonder if the engine only needs a refresh, which to me would be gaskets, valvetrain cleaning, belts, hoses and so on, as opposed to rings, bearings, machine work. Best wishes.
That's the plan so far, but that may change once I get the engine out and torn down if I discover more issues. I have yet to see any signs of wear on the hard parts, just things like the obvious need for a through cleaning, oil leaking from every place possible, old hoses, the timing belt and 3 accessory belts still being original until I recently changed them, etc.
Or if an engine that consumed a significant amount of oil stops or slows down that consumption.
Plenty of folks running HPL WAY out there on this forum with no bypass filter and no issues.
Perhaps under ideal conditions, but what are the long term effects? Are those engines still clean and reasonably healthy after, say, 300K miles?
There are also plenty of people doing extended oil changes with plenty of different reputable oils and wondering why they ended up with an oil burner at 100K miles.
To me, the risk vs reward of heavily extended OCIs just isn't worth it. I realize that type of thing is a game to many people and that's cool, but the way I see it, by the time you buy a very expensive oil and filter and have it analyzed a million times to see what the "right" interval is for your usage, you could have just changed it at, say, 5K miles and probably have a longer lasting engine for cheaper.
And if/when the extended OCI idea goes wrong, who will be out? Do you think the oil manufacturer or oil analysis company is going to replace your prematurely failed engine because they told you that you could go 20K miles between oil changes and you believed them? How much do you trust their advice?
I have a Blackstone report showing that my Amsoil SS needed to be changed after "only" ~6200 mostly highway miles despite that Civic calling for 10K mile OCIs on conventional oil from the 90's.
If I asked how long I should have run Amsoil SS in a low stress Civic engine that spends most of its life on the highway, how many people do you think would have guessed 6K miles?
I ran Amsoil Signature 0w-20 a couple years ago in my new to me 2021 Subaru Outback 2.5L D.I. Tested the oil around 4800ish miles with roughly half of that being a 2k mile road trip / Anyways It was barely hanging on there in the 20 weight category. It caught me completely off guard. Well I now run 3k/ 6 month OCI with Mobil 1 AFE 0w-30.
Yet another great example of how engines and oils can do unpredictable things under different use conditions. And if you asked the internet experts how long you should run that oil, I'm sure the general consensus would have been twice that if not more.
In my case, the viscosity and flash point were perfect with no fuel or water present, but the aluminium and silicon were high enough that Blackstone suggested changing it.
Also keep in mind that oil/lubricants are a hobby for many of us here. The uoa’s and spending a little more on lubes is just part of that hobby, not an expensive burden.
I happen to be a firm believer in the awesome chemistry in modern oils allowing them to be run far out, safely, in a lot of motors. Even modern engine tech is quite good nowadays.
I get it that there are some motors where you just can’t get away with longer changes. I find it interesting that the only people reverting to 3k-5k changes are home mechanics, where it seems fleets are all about going for the long oci’s on quality lubes and seems to be working, from the small bit of information I have found.
I completely understand and respect that, I was speaking from a practical perspective of keeping the engine running for as long as possible while keeping cost and complexity to a minimum, not a hobbyist perspective of trying to stretch the last mile out of their very high end oil.
I agree that modern oils are amazingly good, but that still doesn't address the undisputable fact that the oil is going to become contaminated with carbon, soot, dust from the air, wear particles too small to be removed by standard filters, etc. The best oil in the world doesn't do much good if it's full of abrasive particles.
Of course the intended usage is a critical variable too. If the goal is to keep something for 50-100K miles and then get something else like many fleets do, maintenance isn't nearly as important as if you plan to keep something for decades.
Here's the valvetrain of a 28 year old 357K mile Civic engine. It was owned by a Honda tech since new until he passed away a couple years ago and he changed the oil every 4K miles. Many would call that wasteful, but when it runs as good as new, burns no significant amount of oil, and is that clean this many years and miles later, was it really wasteful? Do you think the engine would still be in that condition if he tried to experiment with 10K+ mile oil changes?
If the oil can go the distance then why not keep using it? I personally like the value proposition while not sacrificing my motors. Then again, I own pretty tame engines. I’m just going to point to Wwilsons threads for extended oci’s working fine. Anyhow, I look forward to your results with R&P, quite a promising oil.
If this is the report you are referencing:
Amsoil SS 5W-20 6251 miles 05 Honda Civic 1.7
Hello all, this is my first time doing a UOA and I decided to start with my part time daily driver 2005 Honda Civic with the 1.7L VTEC engine and 5 speed manual transmission. I'm not sure of the mileage on the engine since it is a replacement from Japan, but the Amsoil Signature Series 5W-20 and...
bobistheoilguy.com
You are at a year in service. Plus, there was no TBN provided. Despite the mileage, this was a year interval, no?
A single UOA doesn’t tell you much about the oil’s performance other than the basics regarding if it’s contaminated and worth changing. A trend for this engine hasn’t been established.
Upping to their 30 grade SS oil and re-sampling at a year; possibly seeking to address the elevated Si reading if it’s an unfiltered air issue would likely yield better results.
Concluding you can’t run higher miles than this seems like a reach at best. Get more data before conclusions are reached.
JMO. .02
Great points. Yup, that's the one. The interval was roughly a year, but that in itself won't explain contamination, which was clearly the major issue there. I'm using their SS 10W-30 in that car this OCI and may have it analyzed next time I change it. If I do, I'll definitely post the results here.
My point wasn't at all that I or anyone else couldn't run longer intervals, but rather as a word of caution and a reminder that unexpected and unpredictable things can happen and that assuming it's safe to run longer intervals without even having any data to back up your assumption other than what someone else did may not work out well.
Like I said, how many people do you think would have guessed that I would have had to change Amsoil SS after roughly 6K highway miles in a D series Civic engine that calls for 10K mile OCI's on conventional oil from the 90's? I certainly wouldn't have guessed that.