2008 Trailblazer SS - second UOA with high Fe

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Hi guys,
Looking for some advice on high iron numbers that I'm starting to see on my 2008 Chevy Trailblazer SS with just over 57k miles on the LS2. Engine is all stock other than an IEATSRT8 CAI (uses an S&B filter). This is my Fall/Winter daily driver and it sees mostly just highway miles - no racing or anything out of the ordinary.

Here's the latest UOA:


As you can see the Fe numbers were elevated during the previous run, which was using the last of my PU 5W30 stash (although the numbers look more like PP). For the latest run I switched over to my old standby of Redline 5W30 and took a sample at only 1355 miles to monitor the iron levels. Looks like on a per mile basis iron is up even more vs. the previous sample and now silicon is up too.

My plan is to look over the intake and make sure there are no air filtration issues and beyond that I was planning on following the Blackstone advice to change oil again and re-sample after another 2k miles. Any thoughts or advice? Anything jumping out that I should be looking at based on this sample?

For reference, oil filter is a K&N HP-1017, which is the same oil filter brand that I've been using for all of the previous samples. There have been no mechanical changes to the engine during the series of samples depicted here and, FWIW, the truck runs and drives great (no vacuum leaks or anything odd that I can tell).

Thanks.

Joe
 
Why use an oil so high in zinc and phosp? Your engine is not designed for that. Use a quality synthetic like PP or M1. IMO. Also GM engines are known to show higher metals in UOAs, but that doesn't mean high engine wear. GM engines last very well, so If you are going to continue to do UOAs, learn to ignore that part of the UOA. Also go to 10K OCIs with one of the other synthetics.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: tig1
Why use an oil so high in zinc and phosp? Your engine is not designed for that. Use a quality synthetic like PP or M1. IMO. Also GM engines are known to show higher metals in UOAs, but that doesn't mean high engine wear. GM engines last very well, so If you are going to continue to do UOAs, learn to ignore that part of the UOA. Also go to 10K OCIs with one of the other synthetics.


I've been using Redline oils in LSx engines for the last fifteen years and have never had high iron numbers. Again, previous sample was using PU so IMO oil is not the common denominator here.
 
As we used to say when the RedLine gave less than steller UOA's, "Its cleaning things up"

The Cr is low so it is probably not coming from the cylinders.
 
Originally Posted By: tig1
Why use an oil so high in zinc and phosp? Your engine is not designed for that. Use a quality synthetic like PP or M1. IMO. Also GM engines are known to show higher metals in UOAs, but that doesn't mean high engine wear. GM engines last very well, so If you are going to continue to do UOAs, learn to ignore that part of the UOA. Also go to 10K OCIs with one of the other synthetics.

LS engines were designed to run on SL oil.
 
Originally Posted By: tig1
Why use an oil so high in zinc and phosp? Your engine is not designed for that.

Why? What is the harm?
Originally Posted By: tig1
Use a quality synthetic like PP or M1.

One more "why" here.
Originally Posted By: tig1
Also GM engines are known to show higher metals in UOAs, but that doesn't mean high engine wear.

Hm-m-m. Sounds pretty weird, doesn't it? I can't imagine other metal source in the engine. Sorry, forgot about Harry Potter and his wonders...
Originally Posted By: tig1
GM engines last very well, so If you are going to continue to do UOAs, learn to ignore that part of the UOA.

What for to do UOAs if their results should be ignored? This does not make any sense for me.
Originally Posted By: tig1
Also go to 10K OCIs with one of the other synthetics.

Excessively brave approach. How can you evaluate the OCI without knowing TBN and TAN?
 
Originally Posted By: Al
As we used to say when the RedLine gave less than steller UOA's, "Its cleaning things up"

The Cr is low so it is probably not coming from the cylinders.


^This. +1 The Red Line could definitely be cleaning things out some while your engine adjusts to a fully ester base oil formula with that much Calcium among other things in the add-pack.

Also, these are all 'parts per million', so to the OP you won't see much control for 'wear numbers' between oils worth comparing. It's mostly to analyze how the oil is holding up to whatever the engine is going to do anyway, regardless of which lube is there though one may hold up better than others, it is hard to be conclusive wrt 'wear' between OCIs.
49.gif


However, it is good to notice if there is a sharp change from an already established trend. Your engine trends seem consistent. Just compare them to the Universal Averages.
thumbsup2.gif


PS: Did this engine use Valvoline before? I noticed sodium at 50ppm on the first UOA and then a small tick in potassium the previous UOA. Coolant?
21.gif
 
Originally Posted By: ltslimjim
Originally Posted By: Al
As we used to say when the RedLine gave less than steller UOA's, "Its cleaning things up"

The Cr is low so it is probably not coming from the cylinders.


^This. +1 The Red Line could definitely be cleaning things out some while your engine adjusts to a fully ester base oil formula with that much Calcium among other things in the add-pack.

Also, these are all 'parts per million', so to the OP you won't see much control for 'wear numbers' between oils worth comparing. It's mostly to analyze how the oil is holding up to whatever the engine is going to do anyway, regardless of which lube is there though one may hold up better than others, it is hard to be conclusive wrt 'wear' between OCIs.
49.gif


However, it is good to notice if there is a sharp change from an already established trend. Your engine trends seem consistent. Just compare them to the Universal Averages.
thumbsup2.gif


PS: Did this engine use Valvoline before? I noticed sodium at 50ppm on the first UOA and then a small tick in potassium the previous UOA. Coolant?
21.gif



Thanks for the feedback. That first oil sample was with M1 5W30. I switched to PU after that and ran it until I switched to the Redline on my current run. There was some sodium in that one sample for some reason and we were watching it, but it never resurfaced. Must have been an anomoly
21.gif
 
Originally Posted By: tig1
Why use an oil so high in zinc and phosp? Your engine is not designed for that.


The stuff you read on here.....

Unless it's an EMD nothing wrong with extra Zinc/phos

Trailblazer SS has a bad oil pan design, well documented, rod #6 gets starved.
 
Originally Posted By: Fraser434
Originally Posted By: tig1
Why use an oil so high in zinc and phosp? Your engine is not designed for that.


The stuff you read on here.....

Unless it's an EMD nothing wrong with extra Zinc/phos

Trailblazer SS has a bad oil pan design, well documented, rod #6 gets starved.


I think some of the stuff preached on here is funny as poo
 
Originally Posted By: timeau
Originally Posted By: tig1
Why use an oil so high in zinc and phosp? Your engine is not designed for that.

Why? What is the harm?
Originally Posted By: tig1
Use a quality synthetic like PP or M1.

One more "why" here.
Originally Posted By: tig1
Also GM engines are known to show higher metals in UOAs, but that doesn't mean high engine wear.

Hm-m-m. Sounds pretty weird, doesn't it? I can't imagine other metal source in the engine. Sorry, forgot about Harry Potter and his wonders...
Originally Posted By: tig1
GM engines last very well, so If you are going to continue to do UOAs, learn to ignore that part of the UOA.

What for to do UOAs if their results should be ignored? This does not make any sense for me.
Originally Posted By: tig1
Also go to 10K OCIs with one of the other synthetics.

Excessively brave approach. How can you evaluate the OCI without knowing TBN and TAN?


Can damage the catalytic converter. Thats why ZDDP has been dropped to lower levels.
http://www.enginebuildermag.com/2012/03/zddp-when-where-what-why-how/


Because these and other quality synthetic SN oils are approved for this engine.


If you looked at GM UOAs most all show higher metals than other brands, but as we all should know, this doesn't translate into higher engine wear. Only a tear down will show this.


Because it will only cause anxiety, as it has with the OP. For the most part we know the metals part of the UOA doesn't tell us much.

Absolutely go to 10K OCI. Quality synthetics easily do this, as I have been for 36 years and don't do UOAs. However I might if I suspected coolant, high fuel, or dirt getting into the engine.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: cven
Originally Posted By: Fraser434
Originally Posted By: tig1
Why use an oil so high in zinc and phosp? Your engine is not designed for that.


The stuff you read on here.....

Unless it's an EMD nothing wrong with extra Zinc/phos

Trailblazer SS has a bad oil pan design, well documented, rod #6 gets starved.


I think some of the stuff preached on here is funny as poo


Read this.
http://www.enginebuildermag.com/2012/03/zddp-when-where-what-why-how/
 
He doesnt seem to be burning oil in this car so its ok to use an oil with higher ZDDP. Plus he does have a higher wearing engine so the higher ZDDP can only help combat wear in most cases.
 
I forgot to mention wrt to Si numbers, it's relatively low considering I believe RedLine has around 10-15 ppm in virgin ? I may be recalling wrong, though.
 
The OE's are scared [censored] of having to take cars back through the same emissions EPA testing up to 5 years old, this isn't some OBD test, these are the OE EPA test cell type tests, basically the EPA is going around asking OE's to run these tests again on vehicles with miles on them to see them meet the same tailpipe thresholds . It's funny the OEs basically buy a car off a used car lot to run these tests. The interest is maintaining the emissions system, low SAPS oil and low sulfur diesel etc

Low SAPs oil, the engine will last but will show wear prematurely , provided it will encourage catalyst longevity they will spread their propaganda.
 
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