As many here know I am an oil fanatic. Many have commented on whether there even is a "break-in" oil. My friends in Japan have told me that the oil is a high detergent, high molybdenum oil for reasons I have previously explained. For some time now I have been working with Ryan and Jim at Blackstone Laboratories, a firm specializing in oil analysis, to to quantify Honda S2000 break in oil. Well the results are in and as expected the Molybdenum is extremely high. For those who are not chemists I added the element for each chemical constituent of the samples. Data is listed in Parts per million:

Robert: Thanks for the E-mail. The average wear for the Honda S2000 is below.

Al: 8 (Aluminum)
Cr: 1 (Chromium)
Fe: 15 (Iron)
Cu: 13 (Copper)
Pb: 3 (Lead)
Sn: 1 (Silicon)
Mo: 267 (Molybdenum)
Ni: 1 (Nickel)
Mn: 3 (Manganese)

Molybdenum is fairly high because we have seen a lot of break-in samples, and Honda uses quite a bit of Molybdenum in it break-in oil. We also maintain an average for the oil use interval, which is 4,479 miles. Our averages are based on samples we run, and not from numbers that our supplied by Honda. They may or may not match up with numbers from other laboratories, because of the differences in spectrometers and standards. We are the only lab that uses averages to compare samples to and they are very helpful in finding problems, especially on the first few samples (before wear trends have been established).

Let me know if you need anything else.

Sincerely,
Ryan Stark
Blackstone Laboratories

P.S. Thanks to all of yu out there that have sent in samples (about 30 to date). As Ryan says there's is an ongoing service which will allow you to see engine, transmission and LSD problems early on.

Utah

 

It would be interesting to see how much of that is from wear and how much is in the original oil...

Or even, how much Molybdenum the engine ended up "absorbing".

 

Unfortunately it is not possible to discern between the two. I should not however that the company stores your results on file so when you send in your 2,3,4,etc. sample your report prints out all vehicle history. This will allow you to detect wear patterns early. The program also comments on any abnormal movement in numbers and suggests things to check. Really pretty cool.

Uath

 

I would think that most of what you see except for the moly is wear and tear.. and not too much different than other engines. Initial wear from the cylinder walls, rings, bearing, etc. wind up in the oil.

Since moly is a solid lubricant I would guess none of it gets 'absorbed'.

 

What program?

 

Utah S2K ............ Has Blackstone lab ever checked any common oils for Molybdenum content? I seem to remember something about Red Line synthetic having a higher content than Mobil 1. Do you have any info on this ?

 

is there any value in having more after the break in??

 

My 2200 miles old S2000 has used up 2 X's on the dip stick worth of break-in oil. Where can I get this break-in oil or equivalent? My Honda dealer doesn't have any and suggest that I just use a non-synthetic high quality oil like Quaker State or Penzoil.

 

just add some regular old 10W-30. The additives are still there, just in a higher concentration. All you have to do is top off to bring everything back to the original concentration. If you added more break-in oil, you'd end up increasing the concentration of the additives, which at some point is really bad for your engine wear.

 

Lead is perhaps the other item that is present in the unusued oil. I've been trying to think of what component might contain lead. I agree that everything else is probably wear-related.

The other question is whether the "break-in oil" is the source of the moly or it's because of an assembly lube (like Anti-Sieze) used in building the engine. Certainly you or I would use such an assembly lube on the crank, wristpins, cams, wet gears, etc. Assembly lube is basically a heavy grease loaded with moly.