2018 tuned/tracked VW Golf Sportwagen 104K/4K mid-OCI checkup after 3x track days HPL Euro 5W40

Looks like flashpoint (fuel contamination?) contributes most to wear metal increase - especially aluminum (piston) wear.
Did you do something different before or after the 9/20/2023 test with regards to fuel or trip duration?
Run an injector cleaner?
 
Looks like flashpoint (fuel contamination?) contributes most to wear metal increase - especially aluminum (piston) wear.
Did you do something different before or after the 9/20/2023 test with regards to fuel or trip duration?
Run an injector cleaner?
I would point you to the table/chart I posted - that spike in metals is most likely related to a bad intake/filter issue I had/excessive dust let in....is that what you are asking about? I don't buy that fuel dilution can be correlated to anything in any of my UOAs b/c firstly, BS doesn't test for it directly and second, all of the trends seem to correlate nicely with repairs or new hardware.
 
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Yes, the cowling/lower windshield is a high pressure area. For this
reason the cabin inlet is sitting in this place. And that's what I tell
for more than 15 years. Leave that rubber seal alone.
.
I've even read of some folks using washers to space out the hood from the hinges to make more of a gap there, again, I don't see that doing a thing.
 
A bit of an update on my UOA dataset. Based on the post in the main PCMO sub-forum with a discussion of LSJR's lastest YouTube video regarding M1 0W40 oils and statistics of what is meaningful or not in a UOA, here are some quick stats on my dataset as I probably have one of the more robust ones here in the BITOGosphere (21 to-date).


I just calc'd stadard deviation of each variable and looked at anything above/below as being worth a note/look.

A few notes:
I just used my best judgement on what to exclude - the orange highlighted cells. These are when the engine was new and the intial drop of the various analytes hadn't been "flushed out" yet, roughly 20K miles but you can see some had dropped to close to average levels after the first change so I kept those in. I didn't include the first change in the viscosity analysis b/c it's a 30 grade best I can tell from the factory. I'm primarly looking at values higher than one standard deviation from the average as something important (red highlight/"bad") but for example cSt 100 being high is better than low so those get a green highlight/"good". Flashpoint being lower than average is "bad" so gets a red lightlight. TBN is related to OCI so left it out. Finally, the HPL oils pose a bit of an issue as they VOA I have done shows ~10ppm Si so I backed out 8 from each (except the 5/8 sample as this was a custom blend David was working on with me and the it only had 8ppm so just backed out 4..again, judgement call). I know some folks are seeing a bit of Al in their VOAs but mine had none - I *think* these are only in the no-VII VOAs? @OVERKILL showed 3 I believe in his Supercar 5W40 which is the same as my Euro but I just left that alone, they seem reasonable to me as-is but maybe a few ppm could come out. Won't change anything.

This is about what I would have flagged without the quick stat analysis and jives with the notes of what would be expected with those issues/repairs/etc. To the question about LSJR being concnered with a slight up-tick in wear metals switch oils/two changes to flush the previous oil out, yeah, 4 ppm variance without a lot of data isn't valuable at all/can't say much to compare two oils...it's just dataset noise. With that said, few will ever have 30 UOAs on a vehicle (30 being a good number you can find for a sample population to use for this kind of analysis) so at some point, you just look at what you have and make a call.


View attachment 231285
Look at 8/24/2022, 4/17/2023 and 9/20/2023
Same oil, same "dirt" (Si), different flashpoints.
8/24/22 flash was 405f with 11ppm Al and 4ppm Si
4/17/23 flash was 390f with 12ppm Al and 4ppm Si
9/20/23 flash was 430f with 6ppm Al and 4ppm Si.
Lower flashpoints had double Aluminum wear.
That's why I'm asking about what you may have done differently with trip length, fuel type (more ethanol?) or if you added a fuel injector cleaner in prior to 9/20 to help with atomization, washdown and contamination as LSJR has indicated in his recent Q&A.
 
Look at 8/24/2022, 4/17/2023 and 9/20/2023
Same oil, same "dirt" (Si), different flashpoints.
8/24/22 flash was 405f with 11ppm Al and 4ppm Si
4/17/23 flash was 390f with 12ppm Al and 4ppm Si
9/20/23 flash was 430f with 6ppm Al and 4ppm Si.
Lower flashpoints had double Aluminum wear.
That's why I'm asking about what you may have done differently with trip length, fuel type (more ethanol?) or if you added a fuel injector cleaner in prior to 9/20 to help with atomization, washdown and contamination as LSJR has indicated in his recent Q&A.
Look at the notes.

8/24 - major engine repair/timing chain tensioner and all related kit. Al increase was most likely from the new parts/remnants of the timing chain eating into the aluminum timing chain cover.

4/17 - Al dropping off, still remnant from above.

9/20 - Al now back down to normal levels.

This has nothing to do with fuel dilution. I run an E blend almost 100% of the time and have for many years in this car.

As I said before, look at the graph w/r to your above dates and the notes I have, the wear metal variation correlates well with the repairs or addition of new turbos. Additionally, my track use increased a lot after ~85K miles which will increase wear but I still think any slight variations you are seeing are related to the large timing chain tensioner failure, subsequent visible metal in the oil from it, and the repair/new parts.
 
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