M1 SuperSyn 10W-30, 93 Pontiac Firebird

[Soma07]

Dyson Analysis

Oil Brand/Weight : M1 SS 10w-30
Oil Filter: AC Delco PF35
Type Equipment : 93 Pontiac Firebird/Trans Am, 5.7L V8 LT1 motor, 6 speed manual tranny
Miles on oil : 5300
Total Mileage : 163377
Notes: Milage is about ~50/50 city/hwy. Car is nearly always driven for at least 20min so oil always has enough time to warm up. The car generally doesnt see much over 3000rpm on the streets (I cruise at ~2000rpm on the hwy) but this interval does have two Autocross events on it where it got flogged a bit.

Results ppm/% Comments (blank=normal)

Wear
Copper 4 low
Iron 14 slight elevation
Chromium 1 low
Lead 9 normal
Aluminum 4 low
Silicon 17 elevated
Tin 0 low

Additives
Molybdenum 51
Sodium 4
Magnesium 48
Zinc 751
Potassium 0
Phosphorus 639
Calcium 2290

Physical Properties
Water negative
Fuel negative
Antifreeze negative
Soot 0
Oxidation 13% (26 on 0-199 scale)
Nitration 18% (36 on 0-199 scale)
Sulfur 0
TBN 8
Vis@100 C 10.5

Any comments? This is my first analysis ever so I'm not sure what to make of it. Terry did say everything was pretty good aside from the silicon and iron.

Right now it has a homemade cold air kit with a conical K&N filter. I made it way back before I knew any better so I suspect it has some leaks in it which are contributing to the high silicon. I'm probably going to switch back to the factory setup since I dont do much drag racing anymore and the extra power is the last thing I need autocrossing. Hopefully that will get the silicon
Jason

 

[Pablo]

Pretty good. For 5300 miles, I would say that your Si is not high enough to indicate any (gross) leaks.

 

[Patman]

Jason, these results look pretty similar to my LT1 reports so far, other than your silicon being higher. I'd definitely go back to a stock type air filter, or at least get some foam filter wrap for the K&N. My silicon on a 4300 mile interval was only 8, with the stock airbox and a paper air filter (I can't get the airbox open so I don't know what's in there!)

Have you ever had any kind of engine cleaner in there? Your engine looks pretty clean for such high miles, mine at 68k on it's first analysis looked terrible, and I had to use Auto-rx to get the numbers similar to where yours are at.

What kind of intervals do you plan on running? Looks to me like 5k is a walk in the park with this setup, you could most likely double that interval.

By the way, how much oil do you run in your 93? I find I can add 5.5 quarts to mine with the long filter, and the dipstick reads right on the full line. So the LT1 can obviously safely take 5.5 quarts. Funny how the manuals all say it takes much less oil. I'd much rather run the higher level of oil, as there is less stress on it that way.

I'm also curious, how much oil do you use? Mine consumes about 1 quart per 6k, but I believe almost all of that is through the intake leak. If I ever get that fixed I expect consumption will go down to almost nothing.

 

[Patman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pablo:
Pretty good. For 5300 miles, I would say that your Si is not high enough to indicate any (gross) leaks.

---

Maybe not, but if he had the stock airbox with the stock type filter like my car he'd be better off for sure.

 

[Pablo]

Patman - since you have a baseline, you probably are correct. It could just be the K&N -I would think, though, if he had a real opening, somewhere, that the Si would be 30+....after 5000 miles.

 

[Al]

I would be very happy with that report. I would think lowering the silicon would take the iron even lower. The oil held up really well. Note its the 10W-30 vs the 5W-30 stuff.

 

[Soma07]

Thanks guys

Patman: To my knowledge the car has never had any kind of oil additives or cleaners in it. I bought the car used ~2yrs ago w/118k on it so I can't be sure though. I have run some top engine cleaner through it a few times but I dont think that would affect the oil any.

I think I'll push the interval to 7,500 and retest. Terry said once I take care of the Si problem it should be good to 8k, possibly 10k. Just curious, seeing as its still a 30wt and the nitridation/oxidation numbers are good would you say these motors are pretty easy on oil?

FWIW I've always run 5qts in the car, my owners manual says the crankcase capacity is 4.5qts so with the larger PF35 filter I think 5qts is pretty close. With that much the dipstick reads slightly high in the "normal" range.

As far as I can tell my car uses very, very little oil. The level on the dipstick barely moves at all over a 5k interval, maybe 1/16" if that. I do have a small leak at the front of the oil pan, and another small one coming from the rear main seal but neither are big enough to worry about. I also replaced the valve seals ~20k ago so that may be helping towards my lack of oil consumption. Before when I had the intake leak I would get oil all over the ground so once yours is taken care of I bet you wont loose nearly as much.

Jason

 

[Patman]

Jason, I definitely think the LT1s are easy on oil. When you consider how hard we push these engines, the results look great. Just think how low the wear metals would be if we drove them gently all the time!

That top engine cleaner (I'm assuming Seafoam?) probably did help a lot as I'll bet it helped the ring seal a bit.

If I were you I'd go with 5.5 quarts like I've been doing. That extra half quart means 10% more oil in the system, so it's reducing the stress on the oil overall and will enable you to extend intervals that much more (or if you use the same intervals, the oil will be in better shape at the end of it)

 

[Patman]

I thought I'd do a comparison between our two cars since they are so similar.

code:

---

Soma07 Patman

Mobil 1 Schaeffer

5300 miles 4300 miles

Copper 4 3

Iron 14 15

Chrome 1 1

Lead 9 7

Aluminum 4 6

Silicon 17 8

Tin 0 2

Moly 51 78

Sodium 4 8

Magnesium 48 36

Zinc 751 774

Potassium 0 0

Phosphorus 639 696

Calcium 2290 1530

Soot 0 0

Oxidation 13% 22%

Nitration 18% 31%

Sulfur 0% 19%

TBN 8 6

Viscosity 10.5 10.2

---

 

[sprintman]

Is that Supersyn?

 

[Patman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by sprintman:
Is that Supersyn?

---

Yep. The title says so, but even if it didn't, you can tell SuperSyn over TriSyn because SS has very little magnesium in it while TriSyn has a lot.

 

[Soma07]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Patman:
I thought I'd do a comparison between our two cars since they are so similar.

snip...

---

Aside from the silicon the numbers are fairly similar. Makes me wonder what my Iron would be if I had my silicon numbers as low as yours. I also wonder what the numbers would look like if I used a better filter vs. the $3 AC Delco.

Oh well... Overall I'm pretty happy with the results. The main reason I did the analysis was to make sure the motor wasn't headed for a quick death with all the miles I have on it. Looks like I dont need to worry about that (thankfully beacuse this thing needs to last a while).

Jason

[ January 08, 2003, 07:05 PM: Message edited by: Soma07 ]

 

[Terry]

2 of many differences in these samples besides the brands that really affect the results;

1) area of ops, one in Florida, one in Toronto

2) mileage usage of each engine is not the same, patmans car has over half the mileage.

collect as many variables as you can,identify, sort and apply the weighted affectation to any test BEFORE drawing conclusions.

 

[Patman]

Good points Terry! But just for clarification, the interval which that oil was in my car for was during a warmer than average period up here. For instance, almost every day in September it was 75-80 degrees up here. It wasn't until the very end of the interval where we started getting some extremely cold weather. But for most of that interval the temps were pretty nice.

 

[Terry]

Patman, "area of ops" includes temp,pressure,humidity,dust generation,variation of high/low temp variation,to name a few.

Don't forget to include differences in taxes,relative beauty of the women folk, beer quality, etc.

Florida and Toronto are quite different when all that is taken into account.

[ January 09, 2003, 08:50 AM: Message edited by: Terry ]

 

[Patman]

True, we do have some pretty beautiful women up here!

Too bad they have to stay so covered up for 4 months of the year.