My oil analysis and rod bearings changed

[XMetal]

Originally Posted by RobMCoupe

I changed gas to Union 76, Mobile, and Valero from Chevron. I used Chevron exclusively and see if there are any changes with sodium. I am due for an oil change once rain stop here in NorCal.

Originally Posted by RobMCoupe

I'm not sure about coolant leak is the caused. I noticed it went down a bit after replacing radiator. At this time, I am checking if it is fuel additives by switching fuel brand.

Originally Posted by RobMCoupe

My Blackstone report for sodium is a bit lower with one fill up of Chevron gas. I will use one specific brand near my house exclusively and check sodium level on next analysis.

Rob,
I think you might be onto something! Up until 2 years ago, where you see my sodium peaked, I was using Chevron on 90%+ of my fill ups. Then I saw your posts and decided to give Shell and try. Been using mostly Shell (95%+ of my fills) in the last 2 years and saw 2 straight years of sodium declined! Coincident?

[pyshin]

rod bearings just done at 60,600 miles

[XMetal]

Wow - only 6k more miles than when I got mine done and yours looked a lot worse! But looks like we have pretty much the same wear pattern, with the topside of #1 and #2 being the worst. Glad you had it taken care of. Hopefully, the replacement bearings have a better life than those! Which replacement bearings did you ended up going with?

[pyshin]

Originally Posted by XMetal

Wow - only 6k more miles than when I got mine done and yours looked a lot worse! But looks like we have pretty much the same wear pattern, with the topside of #1 and #2 being the worst. Glad you had it taken care of. Hopefully, the replacement bearings have a better life than those! Which replacement bearings did you ended up going with?

Went with ACL; took a while to get an appt but I'm glad I got them done. Will probably do it again at 100k then make it a scheduled 50k line item moving forward from that.

[Coi]

Did anyone ever find a source or a solution for the high sodium? I just got my first Blackstone report and my sodium is at 143. I haven't used any additives and that oil was BMW M TwinPower Turbo 10W60. Oil did have a little more mileage than it should but nothing egregious.

Will be changing oil again soon and used Liquimoly 10W60 last time so will see if that makes a difference.

(I also have slightly elevated lead at 13 but low copper at 2 so will keep getting reports and do road bearings if one of those shoots up. Until then will keep using the whole tach.)

[XMetal]

I haven't seen anyone ever finding a source or a solution for the high sodium. But if you read above, mine and Rob sort of fixed itself as we switched over to the strict Shell gas diet. I'll get an oil change in a few months and will see if the trend continues with the strict Shell diet. So that's 2 data points.

The issue with the Blackstone reports is that you won't see elevated copper even as your bearings wear into copper for some reason. If you see my reports, all of them have copper readings below average and you can see that I'm already into copper on a few bearings.

[grannyknot]

Originally Posted by pyshin

Went with ACL; took a while to get an appt but I'm glad I got them done. Will probably do it again at 100k then make it a scheduled 50k line item moving forward from that.

Do you know if they installed the standard thickness bearings or the ones with extra oil clearance?
Thanks

[pyshin]

Originally Posted by grannyknot

Do you know if they installed the standard thickness bearings or the ones with extra oil clearance?
Thanks

Standard size, the S54 expert that performed the service did not mention the other option so I didn't even consider it.

[Coi]

Originally Posted by XMetal

I haven't seen anyone ever finding a source or a solution for the high sodium. But if you read above, mine and Rob sort of fixed itself as we switched over to the strict Shell gas diet. I'll get an oil change in a few months and will see if the trend continues with the strict Shell diet. So that's 2 data points.

The issue with the Blackstone reports is that you won't see elevated copper even as your bearings wear into copper for some reason. If you see my reports, all of them have copper readings below average and you can see that I'm already into copper on a few bearings.

Oh well I guess that means I'll probably have get rod bearings done relatively soon then. I'll be changing the oil again probably within the next month so I'll have at least one more data point to work with soon. Either way I don't think this report shows that I'm in imminent danger of spinning a bearing. I was looking at E92 M3 forums and people do see elevated copper on their reports but you're totally right that it's not as common on S54, especially Z4M.

As for the sodium to be honest I mostly use Arco gas and have never had any issues. Maybe the sodium is from there? It's still "Top-tier", whatever that means, unlike the gas from some random station. Maybe this thinking is misguided but there are so few refineries in my area that there's very little chance their gas is actually any different than what's getting delivered to Shell or Chevron. I've heard Costco gas is the best 91 in California from a couple shops that tune cars, but I think that might have more to do with combustion than additive package.

Maybe it could be a summer/winter gas blend thing? My high-sodium test was in January and it looks like your highest values were in January too. Would need to collect a lot more data from other cars to determine if this is the case though.

[XMetal]

At the end of the day, do what you think it's best for your situation. Everyone has their own opinion about when rod bearings should or shouldn't be done, but they're not the one who has to write a check if and when your engine is blown. All the data out there doesn't mean much because it's NOT data from your particular engine. Mine was changed at 55k. Could I've gone another 10k? Probably. Would I want to take that risk? You already know the answer since it's been swapped out.

Note that only the early E92 M3 uses bearings made up of the same materials as our S54. The later E92 M3 no longer have lead in their bearings, so I don't know what they would look for in the oil analysis of those engines.

Like you, I was also skeptical that gas from different brands would make any difference, but I believe in my oil analysis results. So, take that with a grain of salt. My M54 X5 has been drinking mostly Costco gas for the past 50k miles or so without any issue...so I think since I don't do any oil analysis on it. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss?

[XMetal]

Another oil analysis update:

Since I haven't driven the car much, I've decided to extend the oil service interval by 6 months...so this change interval is approx. 1.5 years. This was on Liqui Moly GT 10W60. Wear are still looking good after approx. 12K miles on the new WPC treated OE rod bearings. Sodium continues to trend downward, so I'm still at a lost as of what may have caused the initial spike?

[grannyknot]

Originally Posted by XMetal

Another oil analysis update:

Since I haven't driven the car much, I've decided to extend the oil service interval by 6 months...so this change interval is approx. 1.5 years. This was on Liqui Moly GT 10W60.

I'm switching from Castrol to LiquiMoly when the rebuild is finished, how many miles did you put on the car in that year and a half?
Those are good numbers.

[XMetal]

Originally Posted by grannyknot

I'm switching from Castrol to LiquiMoly when the rebuild is finished, how many miles did you put on the car in that year and a half?
Those are good numbers.

3,211 miles as shown on the analysis. I've been mainly using Castrol. This is only the 2nd time on Liquid Moly. Was gonna give Motul a try next, but grabbed a case of Castrol a few months back when I saw it on sale for 1/2 price. So this run got Castrol.

[XMetal]

Not sure if anyone is still interested in these reports anymore, but since I had the oil analyzed, I figured I would post it here for the sake of completeness.

This is also an extended interval oil/filter change (1.5 years) running on Castrol Edge Supercar 10w60. Iron is trending down slightly - not sure if this is due to the lower mileage in the analysis or as a result of using Ceratec? I did use Ceratec once before the rod bearing change and once after, which do coincide with the iron downward trend timeline

[Aloyouis2]

Originally Posted by XMetal

Not sure if anyone is still interested in these reports anymore, but since I had the oil analyzed, I figured I would post it here for the sake of completeness.

This is also an extended interval oil/filter change (1.5 years) running on Castrol Edge Supercar 10w60. Iron is trending down slightly - not sure if this is due to the lower mileage in the analysis or as a result of using Ceratec? I did use Ceratec once before the rod bearing change and once after, which do coincide with the iron downward trend timeline

It was an interesting thread to read even for a 3.0si owner.

Thank you for all your work on it so far.

[maupineda]

I also run ceratec. I noticed the K and Zn values of your oil are mild, not sure I like that.

I did not see a jump in boron or moly, which is typical when adding ceratec. Are all samples listed on the report with Ceratec?

Again, I have high fade in this additive and in other samples it bumps up boron, moly and calcium as it has it as a detergent according to VOA which does not show on your UOA.

[XMetal]

Originally Posted by maupineda

I also run ceratec. I noticed the K and Zn values of your oil are mild, not sure I like that.

I did not see a jump in boron or moly, which is typical when adding ceratec. Are all samples listed on the report with Ceratec?

Again, I have high fade in this additive and in other samples it bumps up boron, moly and calcium as it has it as a detergent according to VOA which does not show on your UOA.

I don't think I want any K (Potassium) in my oil as it's not used as an anti-wear agent in motor oil. I think you meant Phosphorus? I'm not too concern (not yet) about the mild Zinc and Phosphorus values as this is typical of Castrol Edge Supercar formulation. If I ever want more Zinc and Phosphorus, I can either add ZDDP or go with Redline. But this report does show a slight drop in Zinc and Phosphorus values, so I will be keeping an eye out for that - thank you for noting that.

I only ran Ceratec on the 1/14/2018 and 2/1/20 reports as it claimed to protect for 30K miles. I know that Boron/Moly goes away with the oil change after the use of Ceratec, but there's supposed to be a "magic" chemical portion that remains for 30K There's no additive in this report - just straight Castrol Edge Supercar 10W60. I do like Ceratec as that's the only one that appeared to make any difference in terms of wear reduction. With that said, I don't like to run additives if I don't have to.

[maupineda]

Just realized I crossed my cables, I meant to say phosphorous. For the S54 I want high zn and p

[XMetal]

Originally Posted by maupineda

Just realized I crossed my cables, I meant to say phosphorous. For the S54 I want high zn and p

For me, too much Zn isn't too ideal either as I have all my cats. If any of that Zinc makes it through into combustion, it won't be too good for those cats. I believed that was the main reason that the Castrol formulation scaled back their Zinc content in order to meet the API SN rating. As long as my metal wear are low, I'm fine with those additive package.