Nitration -causes?

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I just had a anaylisis of a 2600 mile oil have a Nitration of 24 which was said to be good. But I see other analysis with many, many more miles with less nitration numbers,can someone enlighten me? I thought I knew about this, now I guess not
shocked.gif
 
Excessive nitration is caused by incomplete combustion, so I would look at all the possible causes of that, including:

1) spark plugs/wires/cap and rotor
2) engine timing
3) dirty fuel injectors
4) dirty air filter
5) misfunctioning EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) valve
6) defective oxygen sensor

TooSlick
 
It was the 0 to 199 scale,and nitration ws 46,not what I posted above. Could it be the Lucas Upper Cylinder Lubricant additive I used during that period??
Thanks for the replies

[ September 20, 2002, 10:51 AM: Message edited by: dragboat ]
 
I had about 23% Nitration (out of 100%) on the last posted analysis for the Nissan and about the same on one just received. I have changed plugs so we'll see if that makes adifference.

So yours is about 23% on the 0 to 100% scale.
 
Well the car is new with 7k on it. Out of 10 tanks of gas,7 had the Lucas UCL in it for aid in break in purposes. I am going to pull the spark plugs and look for deposits of any kind and post findings. Also have not used the product since oil change and swithed to Shell gsoline,and will remain that way until next analysis is performed to see if some different is made.

With Winter coming on,it would only get worse it seems without some type of change
 
I just found out yesterday that both of my oxygen sensors are trashed, they are causing a rough idle and check engine light on my car, plus a severe performance drop (my 1/4 mile ET is WAY off and the engine bogs badly on a full throttle launch.

So if it turns out my recently sent oil sample isn't lost in the mail, it'll be interesting to see how the nitration numbers turn out. I suspect these oxygen sensors have been slowly going bad ever since I got the car, since even last year when we did scan tool testing on it, the car was running leaner than most LT1s usually do (my 02 readings were around 830-850mv at WOT)
 
I also think that high amounts of cold start idling (such as in the winter when people warm their cars up before driving) will increase nitration.
 
The root cause of nitration is the reaction of the +NO2 ion with a hydrocarbon. Any sulfuric acid in the mix will accelerate the reaction.

To mediate the nitration process you need a strong base to keep the +NO2 ion from attacking the electrons in the hydrocarbon and neutralizing any sulfuric acid.
 
Can a Bypass filter keep Nitration low? If so, does it have to filter to a certain level or will even the lesser bypass filters do it?
 
Good answers so far:

Typical causes are improper combustion, excessive temps, excess blow-by gasses - of course it seems to be a pathway with water to increased acid in the oil and depletion of TBN.

I don't think any kind of filtration will help.
 
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