Sucessful piston soak 96 Saturn S Series

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North Carolina
The car:

96 Saturn SL1 manual transmission, $800 used car with a little over 100k now showing on the odometer. The oil change history is unknown.

It was burning more than a quart per 1 thousand miles in "average" driving conditions, and getting noticeably worse.

Driving at "interstate speeds" resulted in consumption of 1 quart or more in 500 miles or less.

At WOT anything over 4 K RPM was leaving behind a blue haze from the exhaust.

Thicker oil (15W40) didn't measurably reduce oil consumption.(surprise for me)

There was considerable blow-by from the PCV opening in the cam cover at idle.
Opening the throttle resulted in a LOT of white blowby out the PCV opening (no missing coolant).
Yes I know about the cracked SOHC heads.

Treatment:

After cleaning around the spark plug openings with compressed air then carb cleaner I removed the spark plugs.

The plug electrodes were heavily contaminated with greyish black deposits.

I used an aerosol can carburetor cleaner and extension nozzle to spray a liberal dose of solvent into each spark plug hole. I used almost the entire can for this.

Next I poured a tablespoon of MMO through a suitable funnel into each spark plug hole.
The MMO is to replace the oil washed away by the carburetor cleaner.

After this I cleaned, re-gapped, and loosely reinstalled the old spark plugs.

After allowing the pistons to soak for about an hour I used the accessory drive belt to move the crankshaft a few degrees in both directions.
I repeated this each few hours to loosen carbon and distribute the solvents.

After about 10 hours I removed the spark plugs and placed shop towels across the spark plug openings. I weighted the towels down with a small tool box.

Using the starter I turned the engine over for about 8 seconds or so until the solvent was expelled.
I noted that the shop towels had a considerable amount of carbon "chunks" deposited on them afterwards.

Replacing the plugs and plug wires I cranked the engine at WOT until it caught and gained RPM.
Then I let it idle until it came up to operating temperature then changed the oil and oil filter.

After the first treatment there was a noticeable increase in low RPM torque.
Hills that had previously required WOT or a downshift to 4Th could now be pulled at 1/4 throttle in 5Th!!
Blow-by was noticeably reduced as was oil consumption.

After @ 2 K on the oil change I decided to repeat the piston soak with Berrymans B-12 Chemtool substituted for the generic (WalMart brand) carb cleaner.
This was done with with all else being the same.

After the second treatment blow-by is down to nothing.
Oil consumption looks like it will be less than 1 quart in 2 k with 10W30 Defy oil in the sump.
A small portion of the consumption is from an oil pan gasket leak (no oil spots in the driveway, pan stays a little oily).

The jury is still out but I believe I see a significant improvement in gas mileage now as well.

Overall a worthwhile improvement in oil consumption and engine performance.
Your mileage may vary. (pun intended)

Rickey.
 
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Saturn S series are notorious for clogging the oil drainback grooves on the pistons...

Use a full synthetic oil, and to clean the grooves, Mobil 1 Turbo Diesel or Rotella T6 in 5W-40, with a Fram 3600 equivalent oil filter.

Use a PVC10009 from Autozone, not the recommended PVC10006.
Has a fixed hole .1 inches in diameter...
 
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Originally Posted By: Rickey

It was burning more than a quart per 1 thousand miles in "average" driving conditions, and getting noticeably worse.

Driving at "interstate speeds" resulted in consumption of 1 quart or more in 500 miles or less.

At WOT anything over 4 K RPM was leaving behind a blue haze from the exhaust.




Oil consumption looks like it will be less than 1 quart in 2 k with 10W30 Defy oil in the sump.



Hi Rickey,

You listed 2 "before" amounts, but just 1 "after" "looks like amount".

Is it your "after" 1 quart in 2k in "average" or "interstate"?

Please clarify so we know 1:1.

Also, come back to list results so we have...

1) Average before & after
2) Interstate before & after.

Thanks!!
thumbsup2.gif
 
Nice Job and thanks for the post!
smile.gif


Also keep in mind that the QS Defy has more Zinc and with blowby still present, this extra Zinc over a period of time, could damage the catalytic converter. Considering that the engine has already had a substantial amount of blowby already, the time may be shorter/sooner!
 
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Yup they're dirty engines inside and the knock retard really cuts their meager power.

I always wanted to dub around with putting water injection on one to keep the carbon down.
 
Originally Posted By: Turk
Originally Posted By: Rickey

It was burning more than a quart per 1 thousand miles in "average" driving conditions, and getting noticeably worse.

Driving at "interstate speeds" resulted in consumption of 1 quart or more in 500 miles or less.

At WOT anything over 4 K RPM was leaving behind a blue haze from the exhaust.




Oil consumption looks like it will be less than 1 quart in 2 k with 10W30 Defy oil in the sump.



Hi Rickey,

You listed 2 "before" amounts, but just 1 "after" "looks like amount".

Is it your "after" 1 quart in 2k in "average" or "interstate"?

Please clarify so we know 1:1.

Also, come back to list results so we have...

1) Average before & after
2) Interstate before & after.

Thanks!!
thumbsup2.gif





To clarify:

I'm projecting 1 quart in 2 thousand miles of mixed city, 2 lane blacktop, and some interstate.

This projection is based on being slightly over 1K miles mixed driving on the OCI with less than a half quart gone on the dipstick.

The real eye opener for me is the before and after blowby with no detectable blowby now Vs: almost blowing the PCV valve out the grommet before.

I suspect the previous blowby was contributing to the oil pan gasket leak too.

I plan some extended interstate miles on it when the weather warms a bit. (a vacation trip to the NC outer banks)

This is a backup ride by the way.

And yes I'm worried for the catalytic converter too.

Almost forgot; the WOT blue haze from the exhaust is absent now!

I may do a third piston soak depending on how the oil consumption is going forward.
If so I will take and post pictures.

Good day.

Rickey.
 
My first piston soak smoked up the neighborhood. That was the main reason I did not try it again. The neighbors were talking.
grin.gif


I have been using HDEO oils like Rotella and Delvac during summer. Over 250,000 miles and on original cat, but second engine on 99 SL2. Oil used quart per 1,000 or less for both engines.

Your effort and results is very inspiring. Your attention to detail and persistance seems to be working well for you.
 
Originally Posted By: MONKEYMAN
My first piston soak smoked up the neighborhood. That was the main reason I did not try it again. The neighbors were talking.
grin.gif


I have been using HDEO oils like Rotella and Delvac during summer. Over 250,000 miles and on original cat, but second engine on 99 SL2. Oil used quart per 1,000 or less for both engines.

Your effort and results is very inspiring. Your attention to detail and persistance seems to be working well for you.


Thanks for the kind words.

Interestingly mine really smoked up the neighborhood on the first soak, but only slightly on the second soak.

Rickey.
 
Char Baby and Rickey: I honestly don't think Defy has enough ZDDP to contaminate the converter. I believe the 10W-30 has 1,000 ppm of ZDDP, as does the 5W-20 and 5W-30. Now, the 10W-40 has 1,200 ppm, but I still doubt its enough to contaminate a cat. QS formulated the oil to be used across a rather wide range of engines and scenarios, and has covered the contamination issue before it was even a problem. If you are still concerned, you could try Havoline HM. Still a high VI high mileage oil, but with SN ZDDP levels. Personally, I'd continue to use the Defy. Glad to hear your piston soak worked for you. (thumbs up)
 
Update:

On the second piston soak and oil change oil consumption was 1 quart of Quaker State Defy 10w30 in about 2200 miles.
This was with mixed driving.

Just changed oil again (Defy 10W30) and did a repeat piston soak as above with Berrymans B-12 Chemtool.
For oil filters the Fl-400S are being used.

This is the third piston soak on this engine.

As soon as some miles accumulate on it I will report back with the results.
This is a backup car so it may take awhile for the mileage to accumulate.


Good day

Rickey.
 
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