High Copper on Schaffers UOA

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Yeah, possibly. They tthink that the crack might just be starting to form and that antifreeze would be a tell-tale sign of that if the crack gets big enough. The last 2 UOA's were the 5th and 6th fills with the Schaeffers, so there really wasn't a change in oil until just recently. I don't know at this point. The Delo UOA will point me in the correct direction hopefully.
 
Well I got my latest sample back from Blackstone today. This was the Delo 400 LE 15w/40: Miles on oil 5,624.

Aluminum 4
Chromium 0
Iron 8
Copper 15
Lead 1
Moly 1
Nickel 0
Manganese 0
Silver 0
Titanium 0
Potassium 2
Boron 427
Silicon 7
Sodium 2
Calcium 1503
Magnesium 491
Phosphorus 1088
Zinc 1391
Barium 0
SUS Viscosity @ 210F 77.7
cSt Vicosity @ 100C 14.95
Flashpoint 425F
Fuel % Antifreeze % 0.0
Water % 0.0
Insolubles % 0.3
TBN 5.9

DNewton has proven points regarding high dollar synthetic vs. Dino oil in the Duramax engines. This most recent UOA is another to back up what he's already said. Looks as though after this batch of Schaeffer's gets to 3K I'll run another UOA. If the copper returns, Delo will be the choice for this engine, and at a significant less cost to boot. Feed back is welcome as to why the Delo produced drastically lower wear metals.
 
It could possibly be due to something with the #132 that was added to the first 2 batches of Schaffer's. I guess that sometimes more money doesn't always equal better results.
 
Update on the Copper associated with the use of Schaffers. This last UOA was the 7000 15W-40 used in the same way as the test sample dated 3/35/2010.

Time on oil: 5,561
Aluminum 2
Chromium 0
Iron 14
Copper 5
Lead 3
Tin 1
Moly 313
Nickel 0
Manganese 0
Silver 0
Titanium 0
Potassium 1
Boron 67
Silicon 7
Sodium 8
Calcium 1308
Magnesium 872
Phosphorus 1184
Zinc 1313
Barium 0
SUS Viscosity @ 210F 76.0
cSt Viscosity @100C 14.50
Flashpoint 430F
Fuel % Antifreeze % 0
Water % 0
Insolubles% 0.3
TBN 6.9

It looks as though the CU vales dropped finally.
 
Looks very good.

You said "used in the same way" so can we presume that the #132 was also used again?

So, let's review your experiement.
You used Schaeffers, got high Cu.
You swithced to Delo for a cycle or two, Cu came down.
You switched back to Schaeffers, and Cu is still down.

Conclusion: your engine experienced some type of event (likely a particle streak) that caused the Cu spike. I cannot assure you of this being true, but without a teardown of the engine, all we have to go on is UOA data and logical process elimination. It is also possible that the Cu spike was a combination of two events; but we'll probably never know.

That bottom line is that your engine is apparently healthy, and the lubes have not adversely affected the engine.

Motor on!
 
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I'm agreeing with dnewton3. Wondering if the 3 injectors being closed for a number of miles caused an event and/or weakness, thus the spike.
"That bottom line is that your engine is apparently healthy, and the lubes have not adversely affected the engine."
 
First UOA in this thread was a mixture of Schaeffers 9000 and 7000. His last run was 7000. So still don't know if 9000 was contributing to Cu spike.
 
Actually, there wasn't any #132 used in the past sample. Sorry for the incomplete info. I agree, having the injectors go out could've caused an issue temporarily. I was glad to see the American made oil product has turned out to be a success.
 
Well, I don't know what's in the #132; could be a direct or indirect relationship to the Cu spike; it would tend to say not, but who know's for sure.

To me, it would not matter. The current load scenario has shown good results. I'd stick with that. Looks as though everything has settled down.
 
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