Red Line 5W-30, BMW 335i, 5000 miles OCI

[JimKo]

Greetings everyone--

Thanks for looking at this UOA. I would appreciate any comments or suggestions knowing the nature of this oil beater, hot running BMW twin turbo, DI, N54 engine. I'm thinking on using RL 10W-40 on the next round, not because of this UOA but on the recommendation of Mike Miller, a known BMW expert.

This 335i has the Performance Power Kit which adds some more horsepower but more importantly, a second coolant radiator in the left front fender. It also has an oil cooler at the right fender and the oil thermostat opens the oil flow to the cooler at 230 degrees. The normal oil temperature is around 240-250 degrees. The car is also mildly tuned with COBB tuning software which makes about 350-360 hp.

The first oil change on this car was at 1200 miles. I changed the oil with GC 0W-30 and run it for 4100 miles and took a sample (posted here as well). Then I switched to Red Line 5w-30 and the car has had a steady diet of RL 5w-30 ever since. My OCIs has been at 5000 miles on Red Line plus 1000 miles on the dealer oil (BMW 5w-30) after a dealer oil change. So I'd take it to the dealer, perform the warranty mandated oil change, run the oil for about 1000 miles and change it with Red Line. I'd do two Red Line oil changes and one dealer change per year.

The car is my daily driver with plenty of "fun drives".

Blackstone Report

Thanks,
Jim

 

[simple_gifts]

linky no worky. Perhaps you are still working on it....

 

[Artem]

Yea fix the link, i wanna see the report.

 

[JHZR2]

+1

Or post it up as a jpeg.

 

[SrDriver]

Not working.

 

[dparm]

What's the factory OCI?

 

[Steve S]

10w-40 Redline would work well so give it a try and let us know how it works.

 

[JimKo]

Sorry guys, the link worked fine for me. I posted it on another site, let's see if that works for you. Never mind, ltslimjim took care of it in the next post.

 

[ltslimjim]

used this link: http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee73/dkotanto/oil.jpg

 

[JimKo]

^^^
Thank you.

 

[Unleashedbeast]

 

[JimKo]

Originally Posted By: dparm
What's the factory OCI?


It is condition based. There is an oil sensor that measures the oil quality based on metal particle conductivity and the way the vehicle is driven. Typically, 18K miles OCIs is the norm on these

 

[ltslimjim]

^You have to wonder how much sheering is allowed by the oil sensor and if it's 'accurate' at determining if the vehicle is beginning to get 'gunk' building somewhere(from a design flaw not anticipated; for example purposes, only to become an issue over time perhaps relative to these sensor based OCI determination?), but can "it" see if the TBN gets too low, but conditions appear okay? Of course it can't read TBN, but more like engine acidity levels etc? It's all an effort to find a sensor with the best educated guess, while it's fine to scrutinize and try to learn the strengths of such a device and perhaps the potential for weaknesses.

 

[m6pwr]

The N54 is really a fantastic engine, but it does stress the oil. I had an '09 Z4 with the Dinan Stage II performance software. The car was an absolute rocket. I was on my way to trying an ester base oil when I sold it (NOT because of any concerns about the oil). FWIW I had tried GC and then the new Pennzoil Ultra Euro 5w40.

The concern with the N54 (as with all gasoline direct injection engines) is intake tract deposits. I believe it starts with fuel dilution (a fairly well established phenomenon in GDI engines). The efficiency of the closed crankcase ventilation system also plays a big part, and the tendency of a particular oil to volatilize and form deposits also comes into play. All this has been discussed at some length on BITOG over the past couple of years.

My input with regard to your UOA (if you want to track fuel dilution) would be to use another analysis lab. I've used Blackstone for years, doing regular UOAs on 5 different BMWs (all naturally aspirated, port injected) and have always been satisfied with their service. But the thing you need to know is that Blackstone does not actually test or measure for fuel dilution. They use a rather optimistic method to test flash point (open cup) and then use some sort of formula to estimate fuel dilution based on the flash point results. So what you get is a rarther optimistic estimate of fuel dilution. When I had the N54 I did UOAs with DysonRaw ($$). I was seeing around 1% fuel dilution at 3k mi. OCIs. Out of curiosity I submitted a sample to Blackstone from the same oil change. Their report showed fuel dilution as nil:
The funny thing I've seen with a lot of the N54 UOAs on BITOG is that no matter how tortured the oil may be, the wear metals part of the report always seem pretty good and, in the case of Blackstone, they always give a pretty good overall judgment on the UOA. The trouble is that UOAs do practically nothing to measure intake deposits (for that you need a borescope). Fortunately, the BMW N54 seems to do pretty well over the long haul. Some high mileage N54s are starting to show up on the BMW forums and there are only a few reports of deposit problems.

 

[JimKo]

^
Good info. I'll try DysonRaw next time. I'm hoping the low evaporation characteristics of the RL oils help with intake deposits and the ester base helps with the fuel dilution. So far the car runs great, no issues that indicate carbon deposits, etc.

 

[Merkava_4]

I'm predicting that the aluminum, iron, and copper numbers would go down by moving to xxW-40 with that engine.

 

[wlyszkow]

Sometimes with 10W-40 copper/lead may increase - just give the engine some time to warm up before going WOT ;-)
For short trips I'd try strong 5W-40 first or 10W-40 but with e.g Lubegard bio-tech or BG MOA for smoother starts to avoid increased bearings wear.

 

[CATERHAM]

Nice report.

If you have adequate oil pressure with the RL 5W-30 when the oil gets as hot as it ever gets (and I'm sure you do) , it would not make any sense to go with a much heavier oil like RL 10W-40 which with it's HTHS vis of 4.7cP is heavier than most 50wts.

Keep in mind that RL 5W-30 due to it's lack of VII's and lower VI
(166) is somewhat heavier than even an oil like M1 0W-40 particularly with some miles on the oil. If you had more than adequate OP with GC and the BMW 5W-30 (both HTHS 3.5cP oils) then you could run a 50/50 mix of RL 0W-30 and RL 0W-40 and benefit from the high VI.
In fact you could likely run straight RL 0W-30, an oil that is more shear stable that BMW 5W-30.

In fine tuning you oil selection to your application remember the lubrication axiom; "as thin as possible, as thick as necessary".

 

[buster]

Yeah you can go one grade lower with RL in a lot of engines.

 

[wlyszkow]

I'd check it at ~3k mi to see eventual difference of wear ratios - Al and Cu are going quite high IMO. Take a look at these UOAs:
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2350563&nt=4&page=1
TBN is quite low for 5k mi... and insolubles quite high - next time I'd check TAN also to see when it eventually becomes overly acidic.