Few questions about my Blackstone report

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This is the second report that I have done for my truck. Still running the same oil etc. I dont want to get into the debate of not needed Synthetic ( and T6 as we know really isn't anyway )

What Im concerned about it the Iron, Lead and somewhat the Tin and Aluminum. Any idea on why? Should I be worried? Truck barely has NO miles on it, so maybe its still breaking in? I dont know... Any help is appreciated fellas.

 
It would seem you have wear in the cylinder walls and pistons.

The silicon is a little higher than I would like to see it.

There are manufacture guidelines of when to dump the oil based upon iron, soot, TBN and now fuel.

I like to see oxidation and nitration that Polaris labs provide.

I am running T6 a lot longer in my Cummins diesel.
 
That 6.0 is still breaking in! That's some low miles for a 6.uhoh! Theres nothing alarming in this UOA.
 
Im going to run another 7-7500 OCI and see where it puts me at... Could the lead be from the bearing in the turbo, I think its brass.. I put an 03 turbo on it for the little better flow up at the top of the RPM range. I dont know the mileage on the turbo prior to me installing it.


Originally Posted By: Donald
It would seem you have wear in the cylinder walls and pistons.

The silicon is a little higher than I would like to see it.

There are manufacture guidelines of when to dump the oil based upon iron, soot, TBN and now fuel.

I like to see oxidation and nitration that Polaris labs provide.

I am running T6 a lot longer in my Cummins diesel.


So, normal you think? The silicon is below the "averages" though..


Originally Posted By: volk06
That 6.0 is still breaking in! That's some low miles for a 6.uhoh! Theres nothing alarming in this UOA.


Normal you think then?
 
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hahaha And? T6 I know you dont recommend. But Bypass, Ive seen you mention it a few years back and 7k OCI is backed up with UOA... so I don't get where you're going with this.

I will run the 10w30 as long as its okay in near 100deg days here in MD. But I want to run T6 until the numbers look better so I can have a constant variable here ( which is the oil ), I dont want to switch the oil now, I want to see that lead number go down.
 
I must be nuts. I think that's an outstanding report. The iron is LOW. I'm used to seeing uoa's from bmw and vw diesels, and 36 ppm iron is LOW, LOW, LOW - - especially when it's from an engine with about three times the area of swept wear faces as the VW and BMW diesels. And your concerned because the ppm lead is up by two ppm? I must not know how to interpret a uoa.
 
If you check out other power stroke 6.0 UOAs you will see the levels I'm showing here are above average. Even against the averages Blackstone posts on the report.I'm here to question and learn...
 
Your truck is done "breaking in"; that happened a long time ago. OCIs will flush out residual from machining and break-in; usually 3-4 OCIs is enough to accomplish this, if the OCI duration is 3-5k miles each. With the mileage on this truck, you're way past that. If you tow a low, that can drive up the Fe a bit as well.

The Cu and Pb are not alarming, but cautionary. Never look at one UOA and think you have an entire scope of the issue, unless it's something like intrusion from coolant. Particle streaks are not uncommon, and this might just be such. If the Cu and Pb drop at the next OCI, then I'd not worry. If they escalate, you have an issue afoot. The Fe and Al fine. The Si is commendably low, indicating your air filtration is working (leave it alone).

Stick with the T6 for now; hold your inputs as consistent as possible.

You could get a Fumoto valve and "live sample" at 7k miles, and not have to dump oil.

Interestingly, bypass filtration may likely affect the results here, indicating that the PPM counts are very narrow in range. Spectral analysis will see particles up to about 5um"ish". Most bypass systems (you don't mention which you have) are very effective at 3um on up. So that filter is probably removing at least some of the wear particle evidence. I.E. - you may have a bit more wear than is showing up. However, bypass filtration only "samples" approximately 10% of the total flow, so it's anyone guess as to how much of the "evidence" is being removed. This topic has been debated to the end of time; no one really has a solid understanding and it's all hypothetical. Don't sweat it; I only bring it up as a matter of being acknowleged, not a point of contention.

Stick to your current M.O. for now; don't rock the boat by changing inputs. But once you get a handle on it, for goodness sake extend your OCIs or ditch the expensive products.
 
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I can attribute your elevated (slight) wear numbers to the residual additive in your sump, ditch the oil additive idea that its doing you good.

Quite honestly while you have a few numbers elevated, nothing is out of line, FE tracks with miles.

The cold winter plus your driving habits could have also attributed to your current numbers that concern you, just hold your current course and re-check at your next interval, compare results and go from there.
 
Thanks guys. I'm going to run another 7000mi. I seen where people had to change oil to make the Fe go down... Why is this? I could do a live sample as I have the valve. Maybe I'll do on at 5k and 7k?
 
If the Si is low then the wear from ingestion of silica is not a big issue. The only wear is likely to be Fe from cylinder wear; very normal and expected. High Si ingestion will mess with metals big time; first gets run through the cylinders and then ends up in the oil (a double whammy!).

Cu and Pb and Cr all tend to be residual and very low. Once you get through the initial shift after an OCI, those metals practically go to zero in terms of wear. But the Fe will shed a few particles every 1k miles. So Fe "tracking with miles" means the Fe will continue to go up, whereas the others tend to lay dormant after the normalization after each OCI.

If you ran a fresh load of oil, and took a UOA at 5k miles, you'd have x PPM of each metal. If you ran that load to 10k miles and UOAd again, the Fe will go up but the others likely would stagnate or see very little shift. Bump up to 15k miles and Fe goes up a bit more, and the others see little if any change. Often, the shift in Pb and Cu and such is so minimal that it is viewed in tenths of PPM on a per 1k miles basis.

Wear rates are never linear; they change with the OCI duration. They actaully are higher at the onset, drop dramatically over 15k miles or so, and then at some point begin to escalate again. This is exhibited in all the metals, but to varying degrees.


Read my normalcy article, and buy the SAE study I reference. Those two sources will explain and describe it in detail.
 
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