Medic,
You need to look at the whole picture ....
The Ford engine you cited had only 24k miles on it. These engines are known to leach silicone for the first 30k-40k miles - so that level was normal for that particular engine. This engine has 68k miles on it, so this level of silicon and sodium, along with the elevated wear metals, indicates a major air leak. Most of the dirt you ingest goes out the tailpipe and never gets past the rings. However, it does a great deal of damage as it works it's way through the intake system and into the combustion chambers.
Testing the oil after 3000 miles will result in a "cleaner" analysis, but unless you correct the root cause of this problem you will continue to see abnormal wear.
This problem isn't limited to one small area inside the engine - all the wear metals are elevated with the exception of Pb. I'd suggest doing a particle count analysis or ferrography to really see what's going on.
I'd also do a compression test ....
Ted
[ October 27, 2003, 01:11 AM: Message edited by: TooSlick ]