Newbie ?s on OCI & UAO plan

[samiam]

OK, before you guys get out the welding wands, I did search, and while some of this has been addressed in pieces, I didn't find all my answers. I wanted to throw this in front of the lubehead community for comment. I've got a new F250SD V10 6-speed, 900 miles right now. Taking it to Cape Hatteras (NC) to play on vacation next week. When I get back home, it will have roughly 2100 miles on it, including about 50 in 4WD in the sand. I figure that would be a good initial change marker. Tentative plan is to go to Mobile Delvac One synthetic with an M1 syn element filter (if I can locate one for this truck). I also plan to do an initial UAO on the factory oil. Going forward, I'll probably do another 3K change and UAO to establish a baseline for the synthetic regime. I'll then stretch the OCI to 5K for the remaining engine wear-in period (20-25K) doing a UAO at every 2nd or 3rd 5K change. After the 20-25K mark, I plan on stretching the interval to 7.5K for 2 changes with a UAO at each change, then 2 at 10K, ditto on the UAO. I believe this should give me reasonable criteria to determine the most effective OCI for the remaining life of the engine. Obviously, if I see readngs going out of control on the UAO at any of the 7.5K or 10K intervals, I'll immediately retreat to the next lower OCI. I realize that I'm sacrificing the ability to test different oil & filter combos, but that introduces more variables than I want to play with. If my brief reading of this forum unearthed any consensus, it is that the M1 syn products are good in an absolute sense, and probably the most cost-effective products to use in a modestly extended OCI program. OK, I just put the asbestos skivvies on. Thoughts? -Scott

 

[Pablo]

Sounds fine. But bag the M1 filter and use Ford or equivalent. Nothing really wrong with the M1 filter but you just don't need it. Any well made, well spec'd filter should provide the chunk protection you need, the right flow characteristics, etc. No need for new skivs (as far as I know)

 

[Amkeer]

Since you are under a warranty you will want to stick with the manufacturers NORMAL interval and not exceed it. Since this is a new engine I would think it would be better to start UOA after a decent break-in period, maybe after 10,000 miles or more. Delvac is a great oil! I would opt for the Wix filter. Daily Drives: -2003 Toyota Tacoma PreRunner XtraCab, 2.7 Liter , Mobil1 Synthetic SS 5W-30. ODO 7950 Miles. -1995 Toyota 4-Runner 3.0 V6, Mobil1 Synthetic SS 10W-30. ODO 84300 Miles. http://community.webshots.com/user/amkeer

 

[Schmoe]

I usually don't say this, but I have to agree with Amkeer on the oil changing interval suggestion. Especially with Ford and the modular engine. There have been quite a few problems with the heads,blowing plugs and gaskets with the 5.4l in the past. They have supposedly been fixed since the later part of 03, but these type of problems won't show up until about 50 to 60K and a lot of these vehicles haven't yet met the mileage so the jury is still out. The V10 is the 5.4 with two extra cylinders thrown in. Ford has been getting really picky about warranty issues lately, from information picked up on 3 different Ford forums that I troll around on. Definently stick with the FL820S Motorcraft filter, has proven to be a well constructed and worthy filter.

 

[Pablo]

I can defer to Schmoe because he seems to know the engine but: a) the OCI's you are talking about are NOT that extended. b) your are easing into it c) most important stick with the UOA's