Excellent UOA Comparison Guide

[TC]

This is exactly what I was looking for...an excellent, comprehensive UOA comparison guide. (Although I'm not sure about that "oilanal" moniker that shows up in their web address. I'm not sure that oily pooters are a good thing?.....a bad thing...? We should ask Christina Aguilera.)

http://www.v8sho.com/SHO/oilanal.html

[ October 20, 2003, 09:22 PM: Message edited by: TC ]

 

[robnitro]

I think I saw this before, at least the explanations of the different metals. Interesting how lead has 40-100ppm acceptable, and other metals having their limits.
I wonder if single digit really makes a difference. So, the 3MP test showed that an OTC synthetic oil can go long in a powerful car, and not cause undue wear! Yeah, there was replacement oil, but still it shows that the wear doesn't grow exponentially as one would think when extending use of the engine with floating wear metals in the oil!

 

[TC]

I'd be curious as to where the limits came from in that website. For example, it lists "acceptable" Iron limits at 100-200 ppm, whereas I seem to recall a UOA in this forum listing roughly 75 ppm iron, with several people offering feedback to the effect of "Your engine's going down for the count! Make changes now." These two viewpoints don't jive -- I'd be curious why.

 

[deepsquat]

Right on the back of the results that came from my Shaffers oil analysis report

code:

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Iron 100

copper 40

chromium 40

Aluminum 40

Lead 50

Silicon 20

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All these levelsa are considered "Normal" Though as they are about 10-20 times higher then the levels my car puts out ...I would be very conserned with readings like this!

[ October 22, 2003, 11:36 PM: Message edited by: deepsquat ]

 

[Spector]

quote:

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Originally posted by deepsquat:
.I would be very conserned with readings like this!

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Would you be concerned if you had 5 of these UOA reports (same engine, basically same mileage and driving conditions)and they all showed the same high level of wear metals? I wouldn't be. I would then consider them normal for this engine and dribving pattern.

What what you do, shorten the OCI, that does nothing really on a per/1000 mile basis. Switch oils, maybe but you need several more samples then before interpreting results. What NO One knows is how long the engine in question, given those high numbers will actually run before a catastrophic failure or operates too poorly to keep on the road. We are overly concerned with high metal wear counts and not enough about trend analysis.

 

[TooSlick]

TC,

I'd consider the following ranges to be "normal" wear, depending on engine type:

ppm/1000 miles:

Fe, 3.0-5.0
Cr, 0.1-0.3
Pb, 1.0-2.0
Al, 1.0-1.5
Cu, 1.5-2.5
Sn, 0.1-0.2

You also have to take into consideration the ration of engine displacement to sump size. A 5.7L V-8 with a 5 qt sump will generate more metal than a 1.6L with a four qt sump.

TS

 

[Patman]

quote:

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Originally posted by TooSlick:



You also have to take into consideration the ration of engine displacement to sump size. A 5.7L V-8 with a 5 qt sump will generate more metal than a 1.6L with a four qt sump.

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This is definitely true, and I should know, because coincidentally my Firebird is a 5.7L with a 5qt sump and my wife's Honda is a 1.6L with a 4qt sump!

And even though the LT1 5.7L engine typically shows high wear metals in analysis, whenever someone does a "mileage check" thread on CamaroZ28.com, there are always a good number of guys who post in there that they've got well over 200k on their LT1s, and these guys all drive hard (they either autocross or drag race or both)

 

[TooSlick]

Patman,

GM engines seem to do horribly in oil analysis tests, but the data is skewed by the number of large displacement V-6 and V-8 engines. Having said that, the V-6 and V-8 Toyota engines almost always outperform their GM counterparts when it comes to wear rates.

The only GM engine that performs really well in oil analysis testing is the 3.8L, V-6, with or without the supercharger.

 

[Patman]

quote:

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Originally posted by TooSlick:
Patman,

GM engines seem to do horribly in oil analysis tests, but the data is skewed by the number of large displacement V-6 and V-8 engines.

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So I guess I should be very happy about my last UOA on my 5.7L engine, considering it's wear numbers in ppm/1000mi were the following:

Iron-2.6
Lead-1.16
Al-0.80
Chromium-0.09
Copper-0.70

It's even less than this if you subtract the trace wear metals which were present in the VOA on this same batch of oil used too, but I didn't do that above, I just used the actual total metals reported in the UOA.

I do have to give a lot of the credit for these wear numbers to other areas besides the oil itself though.

One is from my driving style, which I agree is mostly aggressive yes, but I also drive very gentle when the engine is first warming up (except at the dragstrip when I'm going for best ET and run it cold).

Another factor is good air filtration (I refuse to run K&N air filters!)

We also cannot forget the oil filter. From Bob's testing we learned that flow could be one of the most important factors, so I went with one of the highest flowing filters, the K&N Performance Gold.

And last but not least, the two treatments of Auto-rx definitely helped my engine out a lot.

Getting good wear numbers from any engine is just as much these other factors as it is from the oil! Now if I could convince my wife to stop giving it so much gas when her engine is still cold, I bet her lead numbers would drop considerably!

[ October 23, 2003, 04:47 PM: Message edited by: Patman ]

 

[TC]

You folks are showing some truly low wear numbers, so you're definitely doing something right!!! Congratulations.

Although I must admit I'm surprised at such high expectations, TooSlick, such as iron in the 3.0-5.0 range as you mentioned. Isn't this the exception, rather than the norm? (I just glanced through a number of random UOAs on this site before saying that.) A possibility that occurred to me regarding such standards as 100-200 FE "acceptable range" might reflect the assumption the majority of people who post on this site are more proactive in maintaining their vehicles than most people. Since the "acceptable" ranges listed in that website presumably reflect the broader spectrum of vehicle owners, including fools, lazies, etc., perhaps the "norm" for wear is much higher than we realize??? It reminds me of the icon (Carnegie? Rockefeller?) who, back in the 1920's or 30's said during a conversation (true story), "Now take the average citizen's annual income of $100,000..." Since he only associated with other moguls, the "norm" was elusive to him. I'm thinking that maybe our UOA expectations may be a bit high in many cases...???

 

[TooSlick]

TC,

Look again, those are the amounts of wear you should expect for every 1000 miles of oil usage. For example, 3-5 ppm/1000 miles of iron would be:

After 3000 miles, 9-15 ppm
After 5000 miles, 15-25 ppm
After 10,000 miles, 30-50 ppm

If you look at the wear rates I've posted and take into account the # of miles on the UOA samples, you'll see those are very reasonable numbers.

 

[TC]

Ahhhh. I missed that....my bad. Those numbers appear in line with the UOAs on this site. By the way, I'd be curious as to the source(s) of your numbers, such as from one of the major labs or other time-weighted compilations? Just curious. Thanks, TooSlick.

 

[TooSlick]

TC,

My numbers are based on ten years of experience with oil analysis in a number of vehicles and various types of engines.

Ted

 

[Roger]

TooSlick, I was intrigued by your post of "normal" wear in terms of ppm/1000 miles. I follow the Oil Spreadsheet that Bill99gxe posts on the Maxima site. So I did an analysis of several oils I'm interested in that he posted using the same ratio you did.

Boy, are you close! Actually, the word BULLSEYE comes to mind.

code:

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Yours M1 5W30 Am 0W30 GTX 5W30

Fe, 3.0-5.0 3.25 1.78 1.53

Cr, 0.1-0.3 .25 .23 .19

Pb, 1.0-2.0 2.64 2.47 1.25

Al, 1.0-1.5 .91 .69 .84

Cu, 1.5-2.5 1.48 1.56 .86

Sn, 0.1-0.2 .27 .09 .09

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The M1 5W30 is the average of ten Mobil 1 5W30 UOA's that Bill posted which looked to me to be good reports without any abnormal situations. The Am 0W30 is six Amsoil 0W30 reports, again all cars in good operating order. The GTX are the eight reports he has for Castrol 5W30 GTX...heck, all his GTX analysis are super.

I have no doubt that a representative sample of reports anywhere else would yield similar verification.

Anyway, thanks for the education. I really like interpreting my own reports this way now.

 

[TooSlick]

Roger,

The ranges I posted for normal wear were generic....the actual wear pattern will depend of the metallurgy/design of the engine. The rate of iron wear will largely depend on the ratio of the displacement to the sump size. All things being equal, a V-8 will always show much more iron wear than a 1.8L, four cylinder engine.

As for being on the money ...as we say in the south:

"Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while ..."

Your calculations nicely illustrate some of the comments that have been made with regards to Mobil 1 and iron wear....

Ted

[ November 17, 2003, 08:45 AM: Message edited by: TooSlick ]

 

[widman]

The numbers posted on that site might be maximum limits, but would certainly shorten the life of the engine. The limits vary based on the size of the engine and construction materials. Caterpillar, cummins, and some others publish the limits where 100 ppm is the condeming limit, and a normal interval of 250 hours, meaning "time for an oil change". However, they also say the engines should last 18,000 hours. With pro-active maintenance and a decent oil I've demonstrated on numerous Cat equipment that we can keep the Iron down in the 20's at 400 hours and not touch the engines until after 24,000 hours.
My lab flags iron around 40 ppm. I flag it for my customers after 15 ppm or so in light vehicles and 30 ppm in heavy equipment. I have a customer with a fleet of heavy trucks that change on 10,000 km (half dirt/half pavement) with 8 to 10 ppm iron.

 

[JohnBrowning]

GM claims that reading of the wear metals as high as 150PPM is acceptable includeing lead! I just read this at work a week few weeks ago. It did not say what the acceptable life cycle was though. So depending on what you of life span you expect from your engine the upper limit for concern is going to be different!