Changed my oil tonight... 5500 miles on amsoil signature series 10w30. Car is an 06 with 95,032 miles. Ive always used an oem filter with amsoil 10/30 signature series since I bought the car at 59miles....

Background: the collection pan I used is communal (about 10 cars use the same drain pan) I did wipe it out before draining my oil though.

I have NEVER seen a shaving or a sparkle in my oil before....this pan after emptying the oil from it.... Has several shiny flecks of copper/silver metal. I'm sending the oil off to Blackstone for analysis (collected from the drain valve, not the pan)

When I get the results back would you say to change filters to a different brand possibly or change oil weight to a 5w30 or 0/30 ?

Stock s2k w/k&n intake, test pipe, hks exhaust, lightweight flywheel and tuned currently on flashpro (toda tune) -working with gernby on a real tune. Also Wondering if the shavings could be a result of running all of the different calibrations during tuning????

Sorry for being long winded. I try to provide the absolute best for my s and don't want to deal with a blown engine.

 

few questions for you

does the car burn oil?

do you track or autox the car?

what kind of tires are you on?

did you pull the vtec solenoid (sometimes the flakes make their way up to the screen)?

how large are the "flecks"?

because of flashpro, how high do you rev the car to?

prior misshifts?

 

Also I shift at 5k except when its cold or warming up I shift between 3.5 and 4.5k

 

If that spec is as small as you say it is I wouldnt start worrying till after the analysis. The specs must be pretty decently sized for the screen in the vtec solenoid to trap them so you might not even find any there. AP2s have the upgraded retainers paired with the 8k redline that they can normally withstand one whole gear misshift so you're clear there. ALso, your tires arent sticky enough to cause sustained oil starvation in a turn and the fuel cut is pretty much stock. If you were revving north of 8.5-9k Id start worrying as F22s tend to spin rod bearings if beat on repeatedly at that high of an rpm. I would continue running 10w-30 with the oem filter, If there really was a problem switching to a different weight oil/oil filter will not fix the real problem.

 

Thanks for the reassurance... I'll report back with the findings from Blackstone in a week or so. I think I overanalyze any possible problem with my car. I adjusted the valves at 90k and they were all very overtightened with the exception of two exhaust valves. I may end up going back on stock tune until I finish the gernby tune as that would be my main variable between oil change to oil change

 

Send me an email and I'll send you a copy of the oil analysis I had done two weeks ago. All the metals were below expected.

May be interesting to compare mine to yours.

Any way to post a PDF?

-- Chuck

 

Your oil and filter would not be related to the metal in the pan. Keep running the same oil and filter as they work as good as any.

Definitely get the used oil sample analyzed and check for high lead, copper, aluminum, and iron numbers. If the numbers look good I wouldn't worry about it.

Most failures result from low oil levels , if you kept up on your oil you should be safe for the most part. You don't tend to find much metal draining out of the oil pan, it tends to get suck in the bottom of the pan if it is of any significant size, and you only really see it if the pan is dropped. Sometimes small shavings get trapped at the vtec solenoid screen, pulling it off to check is easy enough and worth a look, if you get shavings at the vtec solenoid screen then you likely have an issue.

 

Did you cut open your filter and examine the media?

 

I did not cut open the filter. Haven't ever done that so I'm sure I would have messed it up.

 

It's not difficult, but dont' use a hacksaw since that will obviously generate metal shavings. Gotta use those big metal clip thingies that I can't think of the name of lol. Something snips? Meh