Perhaps things changed for the MY06 (although I can't imagine why)...however previous years have had virgin oil analysis (VOA) performed on the factory-fill oil and then compared to various off the shelf oils. There were significant differences...if memory serves it was high in Mb and Ca (which makes sense as moly is a filler which would help smooth our fiber reinforced cyl wall...and I believe calcium is used as an oxidation inhibitor since new rings allow greater blow-by which allows sulfuric acid to form in oil). As I recall it was confirmed by a few members with contacts at the factory that Honda does use a break-in oil.

And Honda also put out this bulletin:

See bullet 5

And from their website:

http://www.ahm-ownerlink.com/Maintenance/m...qs.asp#oilfirst

As far as switching to synth before 7,500 miles...is there a pdf you can point to that shows the recommendation has changed for 06+? Again, I'm not sure I see why that would have changed...as far as I know there is no difference between the 06 block & head compared to other AP2s.

 

Honda has since inferred that there is no special factory fill oil. Honda tends to use a large amount of assembly lube on new motors, and the "additives" can be traced right back to the assembly lube.

The synth thing was different, and not applicable to AP2s.

My opinion (and the opinion of a lot of people on bitog/our UTH forum) is that factory fill oil is regular oil, just mixed with a large amount of assembly lube. I've seen similar UOA's on 50 mile motors that we just finished building.

The press release Radio referred to earlier supports that also.

I left my factory oil in for 5,660 but that's just because I was following to maint minder system to see if I felt it was accurate. The next oil change I changed at 3251 and did a UOA, some assembly lube trace was still found, that's almost 9,000 miles on the motor.

As for the 7,500 thing, Honda only listed that in older owners manuals, it's not listed at all in the newer manuals.

Anyone can do what they want, and believe what they want, but I've never seen a Honda UOA that showed anything special. I'm not an oil expert either. I've drained my other hondas with "special factory fill" oil almost immediately and put in different (but non-synth) oil, and I've never once had any failures. Yes, the S2K is different, but I see no evidence to support special factory fill oil here, at least not on 06s which is the subject of this thread.

 

Interesting...can you give more detail on how they inferred this?

Another 06 owner posted this from their owner's manual:

2006 owner's manual

→ Break-in Period: Do not change the oil until the scheduled maintenance time *the engine oil from Honda factory isn't a cheap oil, it contain a material to help your engine break-in

Is this accurate?

You are certainly welcome to your opinion...but there is documentation from Honda that seems to contradict that opinion. But perhaps from your experience you have some info beyond what Honda publishes...when you say that you've seen UOAs of 50 mile motors that you finished building, am I correct in assuming you mean that you've compared the UOA of a motor you've built and run in with off the shelf oil for 50 miles to the UOA of S2k factory-fill? How many miles did the S2k factory-fill have at UOA?

 

Dave, i am with you. We have obviously read several of the same discussions and documents.

negcamber, i didn't start this thread to become an UTH discussion. I intentionaly posted this in the florida forum as a "fun" post and to avoid and poke fun at the flames i would have received in UTH.

Honda does mention the magical break in oil on the S, but as Dave mentions several UOA's have been done only to find regular oil with a high moly content. high moly points to assembly lube.

Dave, my oil minder was 50% @ 2670 miles, so i bet mine would have ended up @ 0% very close to your 5660 miles.

i stayed with Dino oil, 3 qts of Valvoline Maxlife 75,000 10w30, 2+ qts of regular Valvoline 10w30 and 8 oz of Valvoline Syn Power oil additive. i have no intention of switching to Synthetic until 7500-10,000 miles.

also Dave, thanks for the "how to" post. i will finish my radio project this weekend.

and to the RadioZero comment, I am a Sirius Stern fan.