is it worth sampling my Motul break-in oil?

[MrWideTires]

I have a 2015 Subaru STI with a newly forged built motor, I ran 250 miles on Motul's 10w40 break in oil, then changed, 500 miles with that oil again, changed again.. and now I'm almost done with 1000 miles on a new batch of Motul break in oil.
I will be doing an oil change in 2 weeks, to Redline 0w40 and then we're putting it on the dyno and going all out.

(This break-in was a recommendation from my builder and tuner, since it's a forged internals motor with a big turbo)

is it even worth doing a UOA on the Motul?
Is it even gonna show anything about how the motor is doing yet? Or would it just be sh*ts and giggles?

 

[ZZman]

It would show us how stout that oil is. Other than than that we already know the wear metals and such will be wacky.

 

[JLTD]

Agree it'd be a waste at only 500 miles on a brand new engine. Now after a couple of full runs on the Redline, THEN you could establish a baseline.

 

[CT8]

Do a uoa so we can look at the uoa and post ,,it is a waste to do a uoa during break in unless there is a suspected problem. An early oil change is good.

 

[Langanobob]

There are different schools of thought on engine break-in periods and some people believe that break-in is for all practical purposes complete after say 50 to 100 miles. For the sake of curiosity and science UOA's of your break-in oil might give us some insight into the break-in process. My guess is that the changes after the first 250 mile change will be pretty darn clean. I say go ahead and do the analysis.

 

[dave1251]

Originally Posted by Langanobob
There are different schools of thought on engine break-in periods and some people believe that break-in is for all practical purposes complete after say 50 to 100 miles. For the sake of curiosity and science UOA's of your break-in oil might give us some insight into the break-in process. My guess is that the changes after the first 250 mile change will be pretty darn clean. I say go ahead and do the analysis.



It's not clean. Break in material shows up up to 30K miles on some engines. 20K is around we see normal UOA trends. Right now we would waste the OP's money.

 

[claluja]

I just sent factory fill in a new 3.6L in to oil analyzers today after 500 miles break-in. My vote is do it. Obviously not for baseline purposes.

 

[Artem]

Originally Posted by Langanobob
There are different schools of thought on engine break-in periods and some people believe that break-in is for all practical purposes complete after say 50 to 100 miles. For the sake of curiosity and science UOA's of your break-in oil might give us some insight into the break-in process. My guess is that the changes after the first 250 mile change will be pretty darn clean. I say go ahead and do the analysis.



I'm gonna agree here. The actual "wear in" of critical engine parts is achieved during the first couple thousand of engine revolutions. Heat cycling the engine also helps (one can start a new engine and drive 10,000 miles without ever turning it off even once, for example.
Since the OP has done several flushes of the initial wear in metals / contaminants that may have gotten into the engine during the build, sampling the condition of the now relatively clean oil and engine would show if some metals are elevated or not.

Then the OP can continue to monitor the wear rates as the engine ages and gets more miles of abuse. Haha.

You guys are confusing your average minivan engine, that will go 300,000 miles of cruising and the fully build RACE CAR engine with a big turbo. That engine isn't gonna reach 100k before it may need a refresh or further upgrades, so waiting for the OP to rack up 20, 30k before even checking on the condition of the engine is LAUGHABLE. That will take YEARS. The OP needs to check on the health of the built engine NOW and then monitor as the miles rack on.

Don't confuse apples to bananas. Big difference here.

If I had spent a few thousand building an engine, I'd easily spend $25 on a UOA report to see how it's all doing "AT BIRTH". This is more important in this situation vs your average Honda Civic engine.

 

[dave1251]

Originally Posted by Artem
Originally Posted by Langanobob
There are different schools of thought on engine break-in periods and some people believe that break-in is for all practical purposes complete after say 50 to 100 miles. For the sake of curiosity and science UOA's of your break-in oil might give us some insight into the break-in process. My guess is that the changes after the first 250 mile change will be pretty darn clean. I say go ahead and do the analysis.



I'm gonna agree here. The actual "wear in" of critical engine parts is achieved during the first couple thousand of engine revolutions. Heat cycling the engine also helps (one can start a new engine and drive 10,000 miles without ever turning it off even once, for example.
Since the OP has done several flushes of the initial wear in metals / contaminants that may have gotten into the engine during the build, sampling the condition of the now relatively clean oil and engine would show if some metals are elevated or not.

Then the OP can continue to monitor the wear rates as the engine ages and gets more miles of abuse. Haha.

You guys are confusing your average minivan engine, that will go 300,000 miles of cruising and the fully build RACE CAR engine with a big turbo. That engine isn't gonna reach 100k before it may need a refresh or further upgrades, so waiting for the OP to rack up 20, 30k before even checking on the condition of the engine is LAUGHABLE. That will take YEARS. The OP needs to check on the health of the built engine NOW and then monitor as the miles rack on.

Don't confuse apples to bananas. Big difference here.

If I had spent a few thousand building an engine, I'd easily spend $25 on a UOA report to see how it's all doing "AT BIRTH". This is more important in this situation vs your average Honda Civic engine.



Your laughable if you believe you are going to obtain any data on a engine with less than 2K with a $25 UOA. At best it will show a head gasket leak. Other than that it will show 60-100PPM of copper and 20-50PPM of iron a bit aluminium and 100-200PPM of silicone. It's laughable to spend thousands of dollars on a build and then expect a UOA to provide anything but minimal wear data.

 

[Artem]

And your point is...?

Yea, metals "might" still be elevated but you can watch them come down over the next few OCIs and settle into what will be considered "normal" for this particular engine.

Then when metals start to creep back up due to actual wear, the OP will know what's considered NOT NORMAL.