Chemistry reactions happen with all oils introduced. Even brand new fresh oil of the same brand/grade will show a slight spike in wear metals shortly after an OCI. I personally believe a UOA anywhere short of 3k miles is useless, unless you're specifically looking for contamination from outside sources (silicon, fuel, coolant, etc).
The only downside to oils that heavily contribute to chemistry changes with large range shifts is that they can mask events that otherwise would be obvious. Here's a quick example of what I mean:
Consider two engines; one on dino, the other on a product that heavily contributes to "naturally high" chemistry reactions. If you have an "event" (such as a particle streak or something) that would add 10ppm of Cu, how does that affect the relative change in range? If the dino averaged 10ppm, and you add 10ppm, that is a 100% increase! If the syn averages 30ppm, and you add 10ppm, that is only a 33% increase. Now factor in the sigma ranges (statisical variation) and you're having to decide if this "event" is noise, or a major cause for concern. Get it?
No, running Amsoil is not a bad thing. They have premium products that do quite well when "used as directed". Most all synthetic products do a great job of extending the lifecycle of the fluid. But there are times when they also contribute to confusion if some other issue has arisen. Yours could be one of those cases. You're trying to see if the Cu spike came from your lube choice, or some mechanical issue. Frankly I really doubt if it's the Amsoil in your case; but to rule it out, you have to stop using it, and see if the problem persists or ceases.
If it was the Amsoil, you'll have to decide if you want to go back to it. If you do, then you need to run several consistent UOAs back to back to establish ranges and trends, so that you can know what is "normal" noise, and what is a true problem. Actually, that's the whole point of real UOA use, for any fluid.
If it wasn't the Amsoil, then you'll have to determine if the Cu and Fe spikes were isolated from some problem that happened once and has subsided, or is the issue continuing? Hence, the need for a steady, consistent set of UOA ranges and trends.
Both your Fe (high) and your Cu (way high) were of note. UOAs are NOT capable of telling you everything in every situation. UOAs are great tools, but only when used within thier scope, and only when their limitations are understood. They can show obvious things like contamination from outside sources. But wear metals are more tricky to decipher. UOAs do not see any particles over (approximately) 5um in size. You could have a huge event that throws off a chuck or two of metals, and a UOA would never see it if the chunks were still too large. Then, over time, those few chunks might break down and start to show up in the UOA, and even start to cause wear on other parts causing other wear metals to show up.
Having history of UOAs makes things easier to establish baselines. You don't really have that yet. So, I'm trying to get you to establish them as close to "average" as possible. You chose Blackstone; nothing wrong with that. Their historical "universal averages" show around 6k miles of use with a preponderance of dino useage. So, my suggestion is to pick one dino product, run it at 6k mile OCIs/UOAs, for several cycles, and see what develops.
Another thing to know about UOAs is that when things are running well, and the UOAs show no signs of any issues, then it's easy to say the engine is likely healthy. Singluar UOAs cannot show which oil is "best", but they can show that a particular lube paired with a particular engine, resulted in no harm. IOW - the absence of significantly high data points is reason to suspect all is well. But when you do get high readings, you cannot automaticlly point to the engine, the lube, or anything else. Now you have to go on a fact finding mission, and the first thing to do is start elminating variables and put consistiency into your UOA, moving it as close to "average" as possible.
If your high Cu came from a coolant leak, and the leak is still there, the Cu will continue to be high even with dino in short runs; UOAs will confirm or deny this. If the Cu came from a coolant "spill" from your EGR delete, then dino several flushes will have pushed this out and it should be gone. And this may or may not explain the Fe ... Again, this is why it is completely unfair to blame the lube (Amsoil); we don't know what the root cause is.
You're asking for answers but the evidentiary data hasn't really been developed yet. Let's see what turns up first, then hypothosize and formulate an action plan AFTER we get plenty of good data.
