I think I may have figured out the anomaly on the wear items. Hot Shot's Secret FR3 Friction Reducer.
Increase fuel economy, reduce oil temperature, engine wear and more with Hot Shot's FR3 friction reducer oil additive. It has a 5 year shelf life.
www.hotshotsecret.com
When I went with the HSS Gray Diamond Euro 5w30 I didn't quite fully realize that it already contained their FR3 friction reducer. I later read somewhere (that I no longer appear to be able to find,) that you maybe want to let your motor finish breaking in for 10k miles before using FR3, but if that were such a reason or even still an issue, I would think it would be stated more clearly somewhere. I can't find it anymore. I know my motor was not fully broken in at 2k miles when I dumped the factory Castrol C1 fill for this new oil, and a friction reducer additive would go a long way to best explain why the reduction in wear metals I subsequently observed.
I wanted to move to a 5w40 for reasons I discussed earlier, but I didn't like the ACEA C3 5w40 product that HSS offered, (Noack was too high at 10.3%) so I went back to the MOTUL brand and their Gen2 version of their ACEA C3 5w40, X-clean 8100, as I thought that was a solid product. It shouldn't be any surprise in retrospect that the break-in metals (Cu and Fe) went back up as they continued to wear in with the motor, (as Blackstone alluded to), when I switched to an oil without such a friction modifier.
So I think that may be the best explanation for the inversion of the break-in metals trend, but that doesn't necessarily explain the shearing. Shearing is just not acceptable. While still higher than the 30w viscosity numbers, that is part of the reason I went to a 40w viscosity. So, what I am going to do is cut in half my normal (desired) 8k OCI and dump my current fill at 4k miles, and perform a UOA then. I have one remaining oil change worth of the MOTUL but I'm not sure I want to continue to run it in my motor if it is going to shear in just 8k miles. So the dilemma is what to use at my next oil change while I wait for an updated UOA on the current fill?
I've decided to try TRiAX's VX 5w-40 and will see how that looks. If the second UOA on the MOTUL oil pans out I may consider using the last of it up or if it looks like it's on it's way to shearing again at just 8k miles, I will probably do one more oil change with the TRiAX and wait for the UOA on it.
I think the jury is still out on TRiAX but I like what they are saying and they are local (sorry, France) in the Dallas, Texas area. I had the specs for the previous version of the product, Euro Ultra VX 5w40 and liked those, but I'm waiting on a reply on the specs of the current formula. I can't imagine they are anything but equal if not better than the previous version.
TRIAX EURO VX 5W-40 Full Synthetic. Fast delivery. Free shipping for minimum orders 50 lei.
www.triaxlubricants.com