Little experiment with BLACK oil....

[CSM]

I love this place. Always learning.

[AH64ID]

No, but with analysis you can use oil until it wears out without guessing. When I do UOA on my truck the soot is always the first thing that determines my oil's life. Modern media in filters is excellent, if you buy the correct filters, and some filters are good for 25K miles. The Donaldson ELF7349 I use is one such filter, and combined with a bypass you can get long life, if the oil holds up. The synthetic oil I use is holding up as far as TBN, additives, etc and my contaminates are very low, other than soot. So that's the basis for my rant on soot accumulation.

[Wild and Free]

From my failure analysis class and talking to the oil lab tech one of the most important additives is zinc Phosphate and there is no test available that measures the amount left in oil. filtering with the best media doesn't help when your additives there is no test for determining what is left are depleted from excessive filtration and normal use depletion.You post up a ton of filter info but you leave out the most important info, it is not your fault it is because a lot of the filter manufactures do not like to share this and that is "Sediment Index" which is how much a filter will hold before it is plugged. This is far more important than UOM micron rating. What good does a good filter media do when it is plugged after 100 miles of use and you are bypassing everything and do not know it.

[rancherman]

"Too good a filter"LOL< reminds me of my FIL when he'd say: Don't buy those dang Brand X filters.... the dumb things just plug up! (ya had to know the guy to appreciate that statement...)Good discussion here!

[angus]

Just some unscientific personal thoughts here.. but any type of combustion engine will turn oil black. I`m sure everyone has noticed that the color of oil tends to change much slower in a new engine than one that is completely worn out.As the miles, hours add up the rings & valve guides begin to lose their ability to seal combustion contaminants out of the crankcase even though there is no noticable lose in performance, and the engine may still be far from worn out.I read an article years ago from Torco, which is a brand of high end sythetic oil that is ran in alot of Top fuel dragsters & Funny cars. The most important aspect of synthetic oil is what they call shear viscosity. Which is the oils ability to protect surfaces under extreme pressures, such as the rod & crank bearings in a 5000+ hp nitromethane engine.There is a point where the pressure on a mated surface can become so great that petroleum based oil simply vaporizes, and you have metal on metal.Personally I don`t think any of us come anywhere near that point unless maybe we do some sled pulling on weekends??

[AH64ID]

From my failure analysis class and talking to the oil lab tech one of the most important additives is zinc Phosphate and there is no test available that measures the amount left in oil. filtering with the best media doesn't help when your additives there is no test for determining what is left are depleted from excessive filtration and normal use depletion. You post up a ton of filter info but you leave out the most important info, it is not your fault it is because a lot of the filter manufactures do not like to share this and that is "Sediment Index" which is how much a filter will hold before it is plugged. This is far more important than UOM micron rating. What good does a good filter media do when it is plugged after 100 miles of use and you are bypassing everything and do not know it.

I always though that the Phosphorous reading covered that, is that wrong? http://www.eoilreports.com//testPopUps/phosphorus.htm Yes the amount of crap a filter can hold is huge. I touch on it sometime when referring to a filter as normal life, or extended life. That's why I like the Amsoil/Donaldson filter, it offers the best full flow rating, and holds a LOT of contaminates.

Just some unscientific personal thoughts here.. but any type of combustion engine will turn oil black. I`m sure everyone has noticed that the color of oil tends to change much slower in a new engine than one that is completely worn out. As the miles, hours add up the rings begin to lose their ability to seal combustion contaminants out of the crankcase even though there is no noticable lose in performance, and the engine may still be far from worn out.

I think it's two fold, one the engine starts to wear but also the choice of oil/filters make a difference. Our 4Runner has had Amsoil synthetic in it since we bought it with 25K miles on it, and it just hit 105K. It has also always had a bypass. The oil is maybe a hair darker at the change now that it was at 25K miles, but it stays honey colored for the entire year it's ran.

[angus]

I always though that the Phosphorous reading covered that, is that wrong? http://www.eoilreports.com//testPopUps/phosphorus.htm Yes the amount of crap a filter can hold is huge. I touch on it sometime when referring to a filter as normal life, or extended life. That's why I like the Amsoil/Donaldson filter, it offers the best full flow rating, and holds a LOT of contaminates. I think it's two fold, one the engine starts to wear but also the choice of oil/filters make a difference. Our 4Runner has had Amsoil synthetic in it since we bought it with 25K miles on it, and it just hit 105K. It has also always had a bypass. The oil is maybe a hair darker at the change now that it was at 25K miles, but it stays honey colored for the entire year it's ran.

I hate to admit this, but the Japanese have had a leg up on us for years when it comes to cylinder heads. The American engines have certainly made great improvements over the years, but at one time it was`nt uncommon to see the valve guides completly worn out of an American engine in 100,000 miles. I totally agree oil/filter quality, and good maintenence can make all the difference. One of the things that intrigues me about adding two stoke oil to the fuel is its ability to lubricate the exhaust valves & guides, which is probably the prime source of crankcase contamination as an engine wears

[Wild and Free]

I always though that the Phosphorous reading covered that, is that wrong? http://www.eoilreports.com//testPopUps/phosphorus.htm

Good catch I had to rethink what I typed here, You are correct that the samples test the level of Phosphorus and zinc as individual oil wear additives "Or ZDDP". But zinc phosphate is a different thing that is not an oil additive but a wear material. We are getting into scientific stuff and I may not be even close to correct here, need to talk to a lab guy again to be totally positive here but I will give it a try from what I have learned. Where I was wrong was in saying theses didn't show up on samples when what I should have said was that Zinc Phosphate was a wear material that can't be detected and this wear metal is used in the plating and coating process of many internal engine parts like rings, pistons and bearings. when the zinc and phosphorus levels deplete the internal parts start to wear and Zinc phosphate would be one of the first to show up when wear occurs before you see other metals. It gets confusing because phosphorus is always a wear additive but when it comes to zinc it is both a wear additive and is also a wear item in the oil as it is used as an alloy in brass not usually found in engines though but pretty much every other component on equipment and galvanized metal like filter canisters. Next week I will make some calls to try and get a better answer, like I said we are getting pretty scientific now as we are talking combined component chains and chemical reactions and stuff that goes over my head..

[AH64ID]

I sent off a sample to be tested two weeks ago and am very happy with the results. I only have 5700 miles on the sample, but my new tune has some different timing/rail pressure and I wanted to see how that was effecting soot in the oil (thank you EPA for the piston bowl design). Oil looks great. Between the new tune and a good cleaning of the lube system for this test everything is much lower than normal for the miles. The only things that are higher than normal are moly, boron, and magnesium. All of which is leftover from the Delo I used for the test. I expect them to be gone by next change, as the HDD doesn't use them.