Honda J35 V6 (J35Z4) Sludge and Cam Scoring

Honda are one of the few manufacturers that still use the valve train type where you have to adjust them and no hydraulic lifters. Due to their tight tolerances and generally good materials adjustment rarely has to be done according to schedule.

Well, almost all Asian manufacturers dropped the hydraulic lash adjustment on their engines years ago. Most Honda’s can be adjusted as part of normal maintenance. Toyota and Hyundai use a shim and bucket setup that usually requires removable of the camshafts. I think Ford uses direct acting mechanical buckets on the 3.3 V6 which aren’t self adjusting either. I believe BMW still uses this setup in some engines too.
 
Amsoil is a very good product but I believe excessive oci can cause problems with any oil. I would never go so long on an oci. 5K is the most I would go. In this case there are obviously some bad design or poor metal used for the cam.
 
Man that sucks. Our 19 Pilot EXL at 15% is at 5500-7500 miles depending how much freeway driving my wife does. I ran SS 0W20 and after this last run I’ll be switching to Mobil One EP.
 
Amsoil is a very good product but I believe excessive oci can cause problems with any oil. I would never go so long on an oci. 5K is the most I would go. In this case there are obviously some bad design or poor metal used for the cam.

Do you base that 5K on UOA's? or some measurement or some other metric?
 
Why has no one discussed consumption and how much is reported in the OPs case. Run ANY oil low over and over and it will produce similar results. If consumption is the issue then the OP may be lucky he was running SSO; a lesser oil might have crapped out sooner when run at lower levels.

If the OP consistently monitored and topped-up the fluid, then my guess is stilll that this result of a design issue.
 
Why has no one discussed consumption and how much is reported in the OPs case. Run ANY oil low over and over and it will produce similar results. If consumption is the issue then the OP may be lucky he was running SSO; a lesser oil might have crapped out sooner when run at lower levels.

If the OP consistently monitored and topped-up the fluid, then my guess is stilll that this result of a design issue.
Good point "if" he ignored the sump for 15K and was down to a few quarts - it could get pretty rowdy in there.
 
Good point "if" he ignored the sump for 15K and was down to a few quarts - it could get pretty rowdy in there.
Owner claims the consumption was minimal (which is surprising) and only needed to add a quart between oil changes.
 
Owner claims the consumption was minimal (which is surprising) and only needed to add a quart between oil changes.
That tracks with my Ridgeline, it only moves about 1/8 of the stick in 10K.

I watch closely because I had heard VCM stands for "voluminous consumption of oil" and I get it into VCM often and for lengthy periods.

So far its much ado about nothing to me. All the noise and vibrations people talk about are a less than shifting a stick car into high gear and lugging a bit vs downshifting.
 
That tracks with my Ridgeline, it only moves about 1/8 of the stick in 10K.

I watch closely because I had heard VCM stands for "voluminous consumption of oil" and I get it into VCM often and for lengthy periods.

So far its much ado about nothing to me. All the noise and vibrations people talk about are a less than shifting a stick car into high gear and lugging a bit vs downshifting.
You've got the newer gen engine which isn't known for consumption, and has more of a seamless transition to 3 cylinder mode. I'm the same, haven't found reason to muzzle and if anything I'm more concerned about oil level going up with DI fuel dilution than going down.
 
I could conceive of maybe going to 10K depending on your driving habits and oil you use, but anything beyond that seems lazy and insane to me. I don't think I've ever taken any oil change interval past 7-8K in any car I or my family (that I had control of oil changes) owned.

Also the longest running engine I know in real life was a Ford Vulcan V6 in a Freestar ran to 450K miles without ever going into the engine, on dino 15w40 changed at 3000-4000 miles. It drove under its own power to the junkyard.

I know both of these opinions are off topic somewhat and controversial, I just really don't understand the logic. 3K oil changes were drilled into me as a teenager by parents and all, but I just can't understand the logic of extended drains just to brag about extended drains.
 
Based on my quick reserach, latest Honda engine don't have these issues ... I did a quick research because we were thinking about a Honda Pilot maybe in 2-3 years.
my friend has a 2017ish Ridgeline and is very happy with it. Except the rear main seal is leaking or seeping ...

btw, you would think a guy who uses any fancy oil would never run it low. I'm sure he checked the oil weekly maybe daily maybe twice a day. lol

I also think the oil technology is at a point that any oil can be abused and the protection window is not any wider (delta wise) between and comparing top quality oils.
 
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................. seems lazy and insane to me.........................................I just really don't understand the logic........................ I just can't understand the logic of extended drains just to brag about extended drains.
No it really has nothing at all to do with bragging.

Properly extending lubricant life actually has to do with LOGIC. So darn good choice of words. Using an oil until it is somewhat near it's complete life is logical - it's frugal, it's better for the environment, it allows the equipment owner to make better use of time. Just arbitrarily picking 3K is completely nuts in my opinion, it's intellectually lazy and wasteful. Time and motion wasteful. Wasteful of resources. Logical OCI extension is indeed what smart fleets do - what frugal businesses do.

This case was NOT caused by a logical extended OCI interval. Dollars to donuts one or two UOA's would have picked up the cam failure (which was not the fault of the oil) . We certainly don't have all the facts in this case, but just extending to 15K or 20K will not cause cam death. If that is your take away, then not sure what I can say. Amsoil maximum in this case is: Up to 15,000 miles, 700 hours of operation or 1 year. We don't know if the owner went beyond this.
 
Looks like an oil and/or maintenance problem. If it was a metallurgy issue with the cams more than just a couple of lobes would show the same wear/pitting.
 
Looks like an oil and/or maintenance problem. If it was a metallurgy issue with the cams more than just a couple of lobes would show the same wear/pitting.
If it was an oil problem most all the lobes would show scars and streaking. The fact that this was a known problem also confirms this.

It is possible and agree if valves were never adjusted then yes maintenance issue. Odd that most frequently happens with VCM.

As for oil, maybe a 5W-30 is better for such engines.
 
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If it was an oil problem most all the lobes would show scars and streaking. The fact that this was a known problem also confirms this.

It is possible and agree if valves were never adjusted then yes maintenance issue. Odd that most frequently happens with VCM.

As for oil, maybe a 5W-30 is better for such engines.
Is the history of this engine eating cams were only a few of the lobes are damaged? Hard to believe that only some of the cam lobes would show such wear if it was a metallurgy issue. Could be a manufacturing issue where some lobes for some reason didn't get case hardened properly - depending on the process (ie, whole cam treated or just the lobe surfaces one at a time process).

It could also be an oiling issue, where certain cam lobes don't get adequate oil flow/lubrication for some reason.
 
Random lobe damage seems to be a "thing" with some j35's.


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