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5.3L Oil Analysis - First Change

ic3man5

By ic3man5
in Engines & Drivetrain

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Last C5 Enthusiast

Last C5

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I agree 100%.

 

What lab do you prefer to use?

Prefer might be a little strong, but I the last lab I used before Blackstone was Oil Analyzers.

As I remember they cost a little bit more than Blackstone, but they gave you a trending report and their info seemed to match what we saw in the crackcase. This is not a resounding recommendation, just what I did.

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ic3man5 Enthusiast

ic3man5

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I'm going to be the Grinch here, but I'd say don't put too much stock in what Blackstone has to say.

 

I'm the third engine that I know of that Blackstone gave a clean bill of health and then it self destructed within hours.

My last test from Blackstone said the engine was fine, but when I opened up the filter from that same oil change the filter was full of metal. An autopsy of the engine showed it was toast.

Blackstone's excuse for all these engines(three different owners) was that metal in the filters was too big for them to see. My machinist says that is bunk. If big pieces are coming off then microscopic pieces are also coming off. Granted these were all Corvette LS engines, but the LS architecture is not that much different from the LT.

 

Cut your filters and see what you really have.

 

That sucks, what filter are you running by the way? Maybe its just an amazing filter :jester:

 

Here is my speculation: Maybe its possible UOAs aren't that great when the engines blow up in a really short time and I'd be curious if parts of the oil showed high PPM metal concentrations and others didn't at all? How many hours/miles on those engines before they blew up?

Last C5 Enthusiast

Last C5

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That sucks, what filter are you running by the way? Maybe its just an amazing filter :jester:

 

Here is my speculation: Maybe its possible UOAs aren't that great when the engines blow up in a really short time and I'd be curious if parts of the oil showed high PPM metal concentrations and others didn't at all? How many hours/miles on those engines before they blew up?

 

I was running K&N filters, but I don't know what filters the other LS engines were running.

 

You have excellent point on the amount of hours. Most of these engines were run probably less than 6 hours between oil changes and before they either detonated or developed severe knocking. Those were 6 hours of full out track use and should be equal to quite a bit of street use, but maybe I am being to harsh with the UOAs and there ability to pickup on the abnormalities of oil after such a short time.

ic3man5 Enthusiast

ic3man5

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I was running K&N filters, but I don't know what filters the other LS engines were running.

 

You have excellent point on the amount of hours. Most of these engines were run probably less than 6 hours between oil changes and before they either detonated or developed severe knocking. Those were 6 hours of full out track use and should be equal to quite a bit of street use, but maybe I am being to harsh with the UOAs and there ability to pickup on the abnormalities of oil after such a short time.

 

I want to lean on UOAs can only pick up changes with long term small wear. Hell even my UOA doesn't really mean anything to me until I keep on getting more samples (Only reason I know some of them are high is because they are compared against other averages). This lab recommends taking the sample in the middle of the drain after a complete engine warm up so I bet its easy for sections of the oil to have different levels of contaminates in it. I bet in your case sampling from the bottom of the pan after its been sitting there for a while would be ideal. (I'm just guessing on all this so take it with a grain of salt).

 

BTW sounds like you have an awesome job/hobby running/blowing up engines!

Last C5 Enthusiast

Last C5

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BTW sounds like you have an awesome job/hobby running/blowing up engines!

Hobby and it is fun until something breaks and then it's considerably less than awesome.

I think I'll go to school on your idea of different results from different sections of the oil and get a

sample from the very bottom and from the mid section next time. Send them both in and see what the difference is if any. Thanks!

Spurly Enthusiast

Spurly

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You'd be surprised how 'dirty' new oil can be, both hydraulic and engine oil. We run a PM service on all our equipment at work (upwards of 10,000 separate pieces of heavy equipment) and we filter everything down to the microns. I can't remember the exact micron readings we filter to but its significant. But since we started this process we've seen huge decreases in both hydraulics and engine failures. If a small, cost effective, home set up was available I'd probably use it on my motorcycles and truck regularly. But the oil analysis is kind of interesting to see how your engine is wearing, I might give this a try at some point.

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