B2300 valvetrain pics - 200k+ miles on dino

[brad_d]

1997 Mazda B2300 (2.3L I4 Lima engine), 203,000 miles on it when these photos were taken in early April. Full-sized versions of these photos and a few more taken that day may be seen here:

I've had the vehicle since new. It sees a lot of Los Angeles freeway miles. It's had various brands of dino 10W-30 for its entire life, changed at 3,750-mile intervals; Chevron exclusively since late 2003. The engine runs fine except for some knocking at high loads below 2,000 RPM or so (on 87 gas; 89 eliminates that). It does not consume enough oil to observe over an OCI.

I didn't know what I'd find under that cover, but to my relatively inexperienced eye I'd say it looks pretty good. Certainly clean....

The valve cover gasket had been seeping for some time, making a bit of a mess. As it turns out, some of the bolts were loose - but access to them is so bad I pretty much needed to go all the way if I was going to accomplish anything. Besides, I was curious to see how it looked under there (there's a baffle under the oil fill cap, preventing any kind of inspection that way).

This is the first valvetrain I've gazed upon in the flesh, so I have little feel for what I ought to expect. Thoughts....?

 

[Merkava_4]

That is sweet!

Just goes to show that short OCI's do pay off in the end.

 

[sxg6]

Looks incredible. I wouldn't change a thing.

 

[theedge67]

Looks very clean. Looks just like new!

 

[ThirdeYe]

Wow looks good as new! You could almost eat off that

I bet that will last a long time!

 

[ARB1977]

Wow thats incredable.

 

[TimVipond]

Very nice.

I noticed on the Amsoil site that 5w20 is recommended for all temps and was wondering why you chose 10W30.

I also wonder if using Amsoil at 20,000 mile OCI would have achieved the same results with less than 1/5th of the oil changes. 54 dino changes vs 10 Amsoil changes.

 

[jorton]

I would increase the oci to 4500 miles.

 

[Chris Meutsch]

Quote:

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Very nice.

I noticed on the Amsoil site that 5w20 is recommended for all temps and was wondering why you chose 10W30.

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I believe it's because Ford back-spec'd all their engines to 1992 or some year near there for 5w20. Most likely, his manual states 5 or 10w30.
That is one clean engine. Looks like it has about 500 miles on it.

 

[Patman]

Quote:

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That is sweet!

Just goes to show that short OCI's do pay off in the end.

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As tempting as it might be for you to say that, in reality you don't know for sure that the short OCIs are the reason for the cleanliness of that engine. It is entirely possible that if he had done 6000 mile intervals with the same oils, that his engine would look just as clean.

 

[gudkarma]

The head & valve train looks like it just came back from the machinist.

Any car buff has to say that looks: very pretty.

I would not change anything you are doing with regard to oil change interval or oil type (dino).

 

[RippyMan]

That is absolutely beautiful! The 2.3 Lima must really be easy on oil. That is cleaner than some of the engines I've seen on this board that have run Mobil 1 at 5k intervals. Are you sure you aren't showing us a new engine?

Anyway, I'd stick with what you're doing, though you could probably bump up the OCI some. No 5W-20 or synthetics needed.

 

[Warlord]

Quote:

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That is sweet!

Just goes to show that short OCI's do pay off in the end.

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I would say it has more to do with this being a good, reliable and low stress engine design from ford. I wonder if we would see any varnish on 5k oci's?

 

[Pablo]

Yes that looks exceedingly clean! The pooled oil has 3.7K miles? It looks not so used.

 

[Patman]

One thing I don't understand is why so many people go with 3750 mile intervals? In Canada that works out to 6000km, so it makes sense, but when your odometer is in miles wouldn't it be simpler to just round it up to 4000 miles (or even better, 5000 miles is the easiest one for remembering your oil changes!)

 

[LouDawg]

I hope my 2.3L Duratec looks that good at 200K.

 

[brad_d]

Wow - thanks for the responses, all! Y'all have some good questions; let me try to answer them:

The Mazda owner's manual specifies (IIRC) 10W-30, with 5W-30 permitted if temperatures never go above 100F. The Ford-printed sticker on the radiator support just says 5W-30, period. Sometime in the late 90's I called my local Mazda dealer and asked what they use, was told 10W-30, and just went with that (even though I now realize their answer may not have had any special reasoning behind it). I've done a couple of OCI's with 5W-30 over the years, and couldn't really tell much difference. I saw some time ago that this engine had been back-spec'ed to 5W-20, but never managed to convince myself to pull the trigger on a switch.

I did two OCI's with Chevron High Mileage 10W-30 a couple of years ago just for kicks. I didn't observe any real difference, except that my fuel mileage did drop enough to notice. Once the 12 quarts I bought were gone, I switched back to the regular stuff.

The owner's manual recommendation for OCI's is 5,000 miles for normal service, 3,000 for severe. My driving these days is a 1-hour freeway commute each way - some of it full-speed and some bumper-to-bumper. I have been giving serious though to going up to 5,000, but was worried that the engine's age would work against that: worn rings -> more blowby -> faster oil degradation.

The 3,750-mile interval I've been running is something of a coward's compromise, I guess.

Splitting the difference between the two recommendations (that's the average frequency, not the average period) since I couldn't decide whether I was "normal" or "severe", and it still goes into 15,000 miles an integer number of times.

It may well be an overly conservative interval: My next change will be at 210,000, and since that'll put me back at round numbers (

) I'm very seriously considering switching to 5k intervals after that (having seen how it looks, finally). When I think about it, I realize that the service it sees is probably very easy on the oil....

The pooled oil visible in the photos is actually pretty new - under 1,000 miles. Currently, at 3,750 when I drain it it's dark-ish but not black by any means - but I can definitely tell a difference between that and the new stuff.

Again, thanks for the feedback!

 

[ARB1977]

Quote:

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The head & valve train looks like it just came back from the machinist.

Any car buff has to say that looks: very pretty.

I would not change anything you are doing with regard to oil change interval or oil type (dino).

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X2.

 

[ARB1977]

Quote:

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Wow - thanks for the responses, all! Y'all have some good questions; let me try to answer them:

The Mazda owner's manual specifies (IIRC) 10W-30, with 5W-30 permitted if temperatures never go above 100F. The Ford-printed sticker on the radiator support just says 5W-30, period. Sometime in the late 90's I called my local Mazda dealer and asked what they use, was told 10W-30, and just went with that (even though I now realize their answer may not have had any special reasoning behind it). I've done a couple of OCI's with 5W-30 over the years, and couldn't really tell much difference. I saw some time ago that this engine had been back-spec'ed to 5W-20, but never managed to convince myself to pull the trigger on a switch.

I did two OCI's with Chevron High Mileage 10W-30 a couple of years ago just for kicks. I didn't observe any real difference, except that my fuel mileage did drop enough to notice. Once the 12 quarts I bought were gone, I switched back to the regular stuff.

The owner's manual recommendation for OCI's is 5,000 miles for normal service, 3,000 for severe. My driving these days is a 1-hour freeway commute each way - some of it full-speed and some bumper-to-bumper. I have been giving serious though to going up to 5,000, but was worried that the engine's age would work against that: worn rings -> more blowby -> faster oil degradation.

The 3,750-mile interval I've been running is something of a coward's compromise, I guess.

Splitting the difference between the two recommendations (that's the average frequency, not the average period) since I couldn't decide whether I was "normal" or "severe", and it still goes into 15,000 miles an integer number of times.

It may well be an overly conservative interval: My next change will be at 210,000, and since that'll put me back at round numbers (

) I'm very seriously considering switching to 5k intervals after that (having seen how it looks, finally). When I think about it, I realize that the service it sees is probably very easy on the oil....

The pooled oil visible in the photos is actually pretty new - under 1,000 miles. Currently, at 3,750 when I drain it it's dark-ish but not black by any means - but I can definitely tell a difference between that and the new stuff.

Again, thanks for the feedback!

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Maybe add some auto rx to give you that extra piece of mind to go 5K.

 

[teven7492]

This proves once again you DONT need a full synthetic to keep your engine clean and free of wear. Keep doing what your doing, i wouldn't change a thing.