Blackstone Oil Analysis

Would appreciate your opinions on my oil analysis. From my reading and interpretation, there are some good things and some bad.....Glad there is no water/antifreeze. Car is new to me, so trying to be proactive. High concentrations of lead and copper. Normal bearing wear?

It doesn't look very good. My car has recently had high copper and lead. I have been doing oil analysis for 30K miles/10 years and my copper has always been just a few more PPM than others. Recently it went up and so did lead, which it never shown. These are materials that are used to tin the metal to prepare it for the Babbitt. So most likely a bearing is wearing through all the Babbitt and is now at the copper and lead levels of the bearing. It could be the rod or mains or the thrust bearing. Here's a couple other threads including my most recent: https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...-analysis.html https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...king-good.html I'm going to drive it from Chicago to FL later this week. I'll sample again after 3K miles. Don't loose sleep over it, just drive it. You won't be able to fix it unless you tear the engine apart. Here's a picture of a bearing that explains what I just talked aobut: https://www.fluidlife.com/blog-deter...il-case-study/

Not good. My suspicion is it is time for a rebuild.

What oil is this ? How has the car been used ? That oil has no Moly and very low viscosity...( 0w-40 Mobil 1 ? ) I have seen high copper and lead like that for the people who do a lot of stop and go driving and keep the clutch pushed in for long periods of time...or that drive all the time with thier left foot riding on the clutch pedal....it wears the thrust bearing which is made of the same materials as the main and rod bearings... If you think this might be your issue, try driving this next interval and only using the clutch when absolutely necessary and see if the wear metals drop...

Thanks for input gents. I literally just bought the car 1 month ago. The oil that came out that was sent in is unknown. I think it might have been mobil 5/30, but not sure. I think I will drive it until the next oil change interval and take another sample and send in to see what is up. Would you recommend a moly additive in the mean time?

I don't think you have to wait for the scheduled oil change interval to check your oil again. I think you need at least 1000 miles, but depends. Curious to know for my informal poll, how many previous owners of your 996?

I wouldn't get overly concerned about the lead PPM at 4 just yet. That bump could be as simple as a fuel additive having been used during the last oil change interval. The copper is something that could be concerning. Even still, this is now your baseline. What trends you see moving forward are really what you will want to pay attention to. If the lead/copper PPMs trend downward, great. In the meantime, Ceratec from Liqui Moly is a great oil additive. Check your oil level first before adding to make sure you can take the whole bottle. If not, even half a bottle will be beneficial.

Oil could have been quite old I like the idea of a 500 mile change on the fresh oil and retest before spending money on leakdown and borescoring tests

Leaving oil in for only 500 miles really doesn't do much, I would suggest a minimum of 1500-2000 miles. You are going to get a more accurate picture then. $0.02

Good advice!! Thanks guys, will heed all of this. I was thinking that I now have a baseline to monitor from as well. I will also report back for others to learn from.

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Good way to look at it. You now have a baseline. I wouldn't panic over any if it. Best advice I can give you is find the best oil with the right formula vs having to add any additives. Yeah and change it 2x a year and test it before you change it. As was mentioned, you need to have 1k miles or more on it to make the test relevant. However, if you are tracking the car, you may want to test it afterwards regardless of miles. Take a look at the DI40 vs DT40 thread here on Rennlist. It contains a boatload of info on oil testing, types of oil and will fill in the missing pieces to alot of your questions. Very informative thread.

Everyone has a different experience and different circumstances. Some people in forum (and who commented here) love to find parallels and say their reports are the same. I wouldn�t expect too much insight from here other than high copper and lead together indicate bearing wear. Definitely reduce your intervals and find a great mechanic.