im doomed...metal particles & bubbles on dipstick

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I have a turbcharged Lexus IS300, and just went to the track this weekend. I ran my car hard, but did not push it to the limit. I can go 17 psi max, but only ran it at 12.5 psi.
Well, I checked my oil level today and noticed it was a bit lower than normal, but nothing major. I refilled it, drove to get some dinner and checked it again then I noticed it had some bubbles on the dipstick. I thought I overfilled filled it, but I only added about 1/4 of a quart. hmmm...then I cleaned the oily dipstick with my two fingers, rubbed my fingers together then noticed the oil felt different...maybe less viscous?. Upon further examination I found shiny tiny metal particles in the oil from the dipstick! I have come to a conclusion that I probably blew my headgasket because I was low on oil and the bubbles are from the water/antifreeze in the oil and the metal particles are probably from my bearings or so.
...very sad
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Could there be any other explanation?

Could it just be fuel contamination? I have been tuning my car and it has been idling excessively.

Car is running strong and normal, no blowby and the exhaust smoke looks normal.

btw this is Redline 10w30 and was the first time my engine saw Redline Oil!!! I had switched from Mobil 1 TDT 5w40.
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Does the oil look milky, or white? That is one sign of severe water contamination. Also, how is the coolant level? If it has not lost any coolant, then no contamination.
 
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Does the oil look milky, or white? That is one sign of severe water contamination. Also, how is the coolant level? If it has not lost any coolant, then no contamination.




i couldnt sleep so I went out and changed the oil. it looks regular. it doesnt look milky or white and there has not been any loss of coolant. its the exact same level as last time i checked.
that led me thinking. i went and dremeled cut the oil filter (purolator pureone) and holy ---- i cant believe how oil would flow through the filter material that was in this filter! it looks like a thin piece of cardboard...you know what it basically was. it didnt even look like it filtered/catch anything either...
i suppose my engine starved of oil and thats what led to the metal particles. what do you guys think the particles are from? it looks like theres alot of tiny specs in my oil.
i used this filter/oil combo only for about 1000k miles, and my car has 46k miles on it.

i went ahead and filled her up with the leftover oils i had (4 quarts of mobil 1 tdt, 1 quart of redline, and 1 quart of valvoline maxlife) ill run it for 15 miles...change the oil, run another batch of oil for another 15 so all the particles are out...then im going to stick with amsoil and the stock filter for best oil flow.

i hope it hasnt done that much damage...:crosses fingers"
 
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Did you take some oil to have a analysis run?




yes i did, and will probably have it shipped out tommorrow.

do you know if anyone has had oil pressure problems with the pureone filter?
 
You could also take a magnet and swish it around in the used oil for a while, see what kind of debris it picks up. I do that sometimes. So far no suprises, just a little iron dust once in a while...and that is using a very powerful magnet too.
 
I don't think your engine starved unless there were idiot lights, bells and whistles from the computer. I do think particles are supposed to be collected in the filter so you may be right about about that. You need OEM or K&N oil filter and the mfrs prefered oil grade.
 
I think that your oil starvation scenario may be the best one. Another is that you may have had some knocking from the turbo. Could stress the crank or get metal from the combustion chamber. Heat from tracking won't help here either. 12.5 psi isn't taking it easy unless your motor is built up and you've done something with the timing and mixture. It aint the oil or filter. Though the filter was in bypass for much of the track time. The particles that your getting haven't seen the filter under normal driving conditions so they haven't been filtered out. For racing, I'd go with a high flow filter instead of a restrictive one that will be in bypass more often. Pure one is great on the street but it would be one of my last choices on the track unless significantly oversize to reduce pressure over the media.
 
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Strange that 12.5 psi is pushing it for these cars. Saab, Volvo both have many cars that come stock with max psi at 15.5. Suprised that a toyota engine cant handle that psi.
 
If Toyota built it for a turbo it would do just as well or better. This is an after market install. He's probably getting a lot higher power to displacement ratio than the cars you mentioned with a motor designed for less. He may be starting out with significantly higher natural compression. He also doesn't have the advantage of Toyota turbo management and their ECUs are notoriously hard to crack. His set up is capable of more than doubling his 215 HP. 450 HP is a lot for a 3 liter that wasn't pupose built and a lot more than than Saab gets from a similar displacement. Viggens would crack pistons and have other failures when tracked. It's not the real world. Apples and oranges and Saabs most reliable turbo to date has been the one that they borrowed from a Japanese manufacturer, Subaru. If it was oil starvation due to cornering capability of his suspension changes than the motor's not at fault and he needed a different pan or to overfill by a qt. or as much as possible before tracking.
 
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Very small particles of carbon, or anything, often shine white like metal, in the sun. They were probably shaken loose from the high rpm operation.
 
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Strange that 12.5 psi is pushing it for these cars. Saab, Volvo both have many cars that come stock with max psi at 15.5. Suprised that a toyota engine cant handle that psi.



Yea thats interesting...guys with a TRD supercharger on the 3.4L have nearly doubled their horsepower with injectors, computer upgrades, proper tune and some other goodies added that are pretty reliable.
 
Ummmmmmmmmmmm, turbocharged engines from the factory come with low compression, beefier bottom ends, and fuel and ignition mapping adjusted for the boost.

Throwing 15 psi from a large turbocharger through a factory naturally aspirated engine with hyperutectic pistons and skinny little rods, with 10.5 to 1 compression, weaker head gaskets with less torque on the bolts, and yea, you may have issues.

So Mr. Saab, ever heard of the Toyota Supra turbo 2JZ-GTE engine? Can a Saab handle that much boost and airflow through the stock motor (ie 1,000 hp on a stock bottom end)? NOPE.
 
This engine is built to withstand what i give it. This is a 2jz-ge almost identical to the 2jz in the supra and sc300's. the only difference is that it just has skinnier rods. the block can handle over 1000hp, and as far as pistons and rods they can handle 400rwhp easily. my compression is lowered to 9:1, and im running methanol injection with a fuel return and fpr rising rate 1:1. This is all orchestrated by a Haltech standalone. My car does not knock, and if it does the knock sensors will detect it and the ecu will pull timing and when I take it to the track I use unleaded 100 octane gas just to be safer.
 
I bet your worried over nothing. let's see how the UOA turns out before you change the next batch of synthetic oil
 
well hopefully it is nothing serious ...
as for the filter not catching big particals..2 summers ago my Nissan Altima , started making noise under the hood..not too bad ..but I heard it a few times when I slowed..my son and I stopped the car and I raised the hood ...noise was coming from under the valve cover ..Home was 10 minutes away ..I probably drove 100 miles total with the noise ..ended up being a timing chain guide plate..did some research . made a few calls and found I could run without it.
long story short ( too late
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) I changed the oil ..and my bypass...my bypass caught even very large particals that slipped by the main filter...because main filters are JUNK
 
the pureone was not filtering. it was probably in bypass mode.

like a previous user mentioned, time for a higher flow filter.
 
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