Oil Analysis
 

Finally got my oil analysis back. Lead was high. They said this level could be normal for a freshly built motor but could also mean abnormal bearing wear.
They also said "That usually means there's lead from fuel blow by... and is probably harmless". I didn't think we had lead in fuel these days? Maybe there is still some? I'll need to send in another sample at my next oil change. Anyway here's the report:

https://i.imgur.com/NHVNuCYh.jpg

What brand and weight oil was tested . I hope to have an analysis to share next week on some Penn Grade .

Driven GP-1 15w40

Here’s the problem with oil analysis; it requires multiple tests to establish a trend. They are correct; slightly elevated lead results COULD be nothing more normal break-in IF lead was still used in engine bearings. Modern bearing are faced with babbitt which is predominantly tin and antimony. If I were you I would pull another test when the engine has at least one thousand more miles on it along with an oil filter inspection.

Yeah, I know it's a red flag and I'll need to follow up. I can do whatever interval check is needed. I inspected the filter at 500 miles and I didn't see anything that looked bad (to me). I'll have to post pics next time.

So if the bearings are not faced with lead then that that would mean it's coming from deeper layers of the bearing (assuming that's still got lead) or somewhere else?

They mentioned fuel as a source. I buy my gas in bulk and it's 92 octane non-ethanol gas. I add Sta-bil and Lucas fuel treatment. I guess those could contain some lead.

They also mentioned blow by. My cold cranking compression was 175 psi +/- 2 psi. So I doubt I have excessive blow by.

On a bearing lead would have been the outer protective layer, after that layer you'll see high concentrations of copper which you dont have in your analysis.

Thing is I don't think they use lead anymore as the outer layer of a bearing that I'm aware of and tin is low too which I think is used as a replacement for the lead so I tend to think that's coming from somewhere else.

Being a new engine id do just as Hoosier recommended and go another 1000 miles and check again and compare.

Is the oil slightly out of spec for a 40wt or am I reading it wrong ? Looks like a 30wt on the high side . Surely it didn’t shear down in just 2500 miles .

A lot of oils show close to 10w loss in shear by the end of the oil change. That test came back as almost a thick 10w30. The wider the weights are between the cold and hot index is, the more it tends to shear. All oils I can think of show shear with use, some worse than others. I would call GP1 kind of average on that, the GP1 20w50 does better on shear than 15w40. I run GP1 in my cars. The majority of people never realize oils shear because they never have their used oil tested. Doesn’t mean the oil is necessarily bad, for example Mobile 1 5w40 usually drops to a 0w30 before 2000K miles, but it tests good monitoring wear.

The sample looks like it came back very well. I agree with Larry, the lead was not coming from the bearings. I doubt it came from anything wear related at all. That was likely leaching from the additives your adding to the fuel. I would say you have a good starting place to monitor your next UOA. I think I would go a full interval on the next oil change.

That's what I was thinking. That if the lead was coming from a bad bearing there would be other abnormalities as well.

I don't really know anything about shear but can that depend on how the car it driven? For example if someone just puts around and the motor never sees any WOT vs someone who gives the motor WOT at least a couple times every time they drive? And if that's the case should I consider going to a 20w50?

Unless the engine has trouble maintaining oil pressure toward the end of the oil change, or the UOA was indicating that a thicker oil would help on wear, there would be no reason to change to the thicker oil. Heat is the top cause for extra shear, harder driving equals more heat. More heat cycles from longer oil change intervals would be another area that cause extra shear. Some oils shear more than others. It isn’t a problem until the UAO comes back and says it was showing extra wear from your UOA trends.

Makes sense. Thanks!

I had Blackstone do a UOA on a fresh engine with about 2K miles on it and it had a higher level of lead also, around 50 IIRC. Copper and tin were low and everything else looked good so they pretty much told me the same thing as thy told OP.
Was running Valvoline VR-1 conventional with no additives and always ran unleaded gas.

I guess they have to say something about it. :)

I would not be at all worried about it. Lead will leach easily. It can get up to a couple hundred ppm just by a small scratch in a bearing. It takes almost nothing to raise it to 100ppm from fuel, a lead fuel can make the number a couple thousand ppm, and can read high for a long time after it isn’t even used anymore. The tin and copper are the problem metals, lead will usually go up when they go up.

https://www.speednik.com/wp-content/...1_19-21-19.png

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https://external-content.duckduckgo....00d&ipo=images

If you have lead in the oil analysis, you might want to verify that you have tri-metal bearings. If you have bi-metal, it's unlikely that there's any lead in them.

I find this post interesting, because I have the same issue I planned to ask about on here. My newly rebuilt 400 had oil change at 500 miles and filter looked good. Now, changed oil at 2500 miles and sent a sample in for analysis and they also said lead was critically high. I run premium unleaded because it's the only non-ethanol I can get. I run no additives with Driven GP-1 10w-30.

There is nothing you can do except monitor it, probably should move the next oil change up sooner and check it again. The other metals number don’t appear to match the lead levels, I would not be that concerned about the higher PB in this one either, I would keep driving it. The high lead (PB) numbers are probably from a scratch in a bearing, I think the higher Silicon number may be from a bearing scratch too. I recall King bearings use some silicon. Probably should look and make sure it doesn’t have any dirt leaks also though, like the test suggested.

It doesn’t sound like the high PB level came from fuel, actually none of the PB from any of these oil samples likely came from the fuel, I look it up and I don’t think Sta-bil or Lucus fuel treatment have PB in them, and normal fuel shouldn’t have any. I doubt these engines run oil coolers either, likely not leaching PB from solder somewhere.

Lead was taken out of babbitt years ago. We used to have to re-babbitt Model T and Model A connecting rods; the original composition was lead faced. The replacement babbitt was tin and antimony.

It would be interesting to send in a sample of the oil you use right out of bottle!
Maybe something is going screwy at the testing center?

In general, silicon is from poor air filtering--dust/dirt/sand. I'm not saying there can't be exceptions, but that's the first place I'd be investigating.

ESPECIALLY if you've got an oiled-gauze air filter that still looks nice and clean, or a modified air filter housing that doesn't seal to the air filter element properly.