Mobil 1 0w20 AFE / Civic (K24Z7) 3k OCI

[wi11iam]

Just purchased the car new (2015 civic si) and decided to have a UOA done. Factory fill was drained at 1,000 miles and replaced with mobil 1 0w20 AFE. Besides the obvious break-in metals appearing, what do you guys think of the viscosity? Specifically the viscosity @100 c going down to 6.83 when it is rated at 8.7 new.

Any fellow Si owners have some experience around what oil works best for the k24z7?

My driving style is usually highway miles (commute ~45 miles/day for work), however I do manage to do atleast a few redline pulls every day. I decided to change to Mobil 1 Ow30 AFE after draining this oil so we'll see how that looks. Will start extending my OCIs as well now that the car is broken-in more.

Link below to the UOA (if someone can figure out a way to get it to appear without linking that'd be awesome)
http://i.imgur.com/PIXWyXf.png?1

 

[CarbonSteel]

 

[zpinch]

Asmoil Signature Series 0w30 or 5w30

 

[wemay]

Looks great. Stick with it and thanks for sharing.

 

[Doog]

Too early in the life of the engine to get any real accurate reading. You should probably have left the Honda FF in for at least 5000 miles since they juice all FF with anti-wear additives for a good break in.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: Doog
Too early in the life of the engine to get any real accurate reading. You should probably have left the Honda FF in for at least 5000 miles since they juice all FF with anti-wear additives for a good break in.

Agree.

Honda is probably the only company strongly recommends leaving FF in for full OCI, because of break-in additives especially the higher than normal moly in FF.

 

[285south]

Or better yet drain the FF after two tanks of gas used to get all the factory debris out and fill with new Genuine Honda Motor Oil and then leave that in until 5K and then pick your favorite oil.

 

[Indydriver]

See the 240 moly? That's not from the M1. That's from the slowly dissolving moly
Honda uses on their piston skirts-they like high moly during breakin. That's why they preach keeping the FF in until the MM gets to 10%.

Why change from factory recommended viscosity? Your metals look great. We had 250+ CU shedding off our Accord V6 during breakin. Stick with 0W-20 and start stretching your OCIs to the MM. As the commentary from BLackstone suggests, you're wasting perfectly good oil. I'm now taking our V6 Honda to 0% on its MM (~8000) and 10,000 on our Toyota V6 (recommended interval), and it's working great (I use TGMO in both).

 

[badtlc]

I usually don't care about shearing but
Not my car, but I'd recommend going up to 0W30.

 

[wi11iam]

Thanks everyone. I wish I knew about the added value of the Honda FF before draining it out... Oh well, we will see how the engine wears as time progresses. Is the Honda FF the same as buying off the shelf HGMO?

Originally Posted By: badtlc
I usually don't care about shearing but
Not my car, but I'd recommend going up to 0W30.


I agree, I had a feeling that 0w20 might be a little to thin and switched to 0w30 afe going forward.

 

[cptbarkey]

It was a mistake to dump the Honda factory fill, but I've made worse mistakes in the past myself.

 

[wi11iam]

Originally Posted By: cptbarkey
It was a mistake to dump the Honda factory fill, but I've made worse mistakes in the past myself.


How exactly does the factory fill "help" with the break-in? Wouldn't fresh oil be better since you're getting rid of a lot of the break-in metals faster?

 

[147_Grain]

Benefits of getting the extra metal particles out of the factory fill out way the extra moly in the break-in oil.

Fresh clean oil (with far less microscopic metal flakes) is better than running break-in fluid for a normal OCI.

 

[tig1]

I wouldn't switch to a 0-30 until a second UOA was done. UOAs in general are not all that reliable, and often show differences from on lab to another.

 

[Indydriver]

Originally Posted By: 147_Grain
Benefits of getting the extra metal particles out of the factory fill out way the extra moly in the break-in oil.

Fresh clean oil (with far less microscopic metal flakes) is better than running break-in fluid for a normal OCI.

The manufacturers do not agree with you. Not a single one calls for an early oil change. They obviously do not care about the metallic contamination of the first OCI. They apparently believe that the oil filter will stop anything big enough to cause harm. My latest Toyota V6 called for its first oil change at 10,000 miles.

Regarding the Honda FF, who knows what bulk oil they use in the factory. I doubt that it's anything special. That's not where the moly comes from.

 

[HKPolice]

One theory about leaving the break in oil is that the extra metal particles will actually wear down the microscopic peaks of the components faster, sorta like polishing the inside of the engine to a mirror finish.

Personally I wouldn't leave it in for the full cycle, I'd pull it out after ~5k miles or when the OLM hits ~50% because factory fill always gets sheared faster probably due to the extra wear metals. This could also explain why M1 0w20 sheared so fast. I bet it won't be an issue after the first 2-3 changes.

 

[Artem]

Moly comes from assembly lube and nothing more. Manufacturers use whatever bulk oil is cheapest that meets their specs. It ain't nothing special.

The reason why they don't RECOMMEND you dump the FF early is in order to save the resources. The new oil in a new engine can definitely do it's job just fine and the oil filter should catch particles big enough. It's the finer stuff that worries me, personally, which is why I dumped the FF after 1,000 miles in my last 3 new cars. UOA from those engines was spectacular after 100k+ even with extended OCIs! My results were lower then average which was running thousands less miles per OCI.

As much as the super fine metallic filled oil is good for scrubbing down all the major engine surfaces clean and "polishing" things up, I feel after 1,000 miles of use (1-2 months of every day engine use for most people) that 90% of engine break-in is finished. The rest will naturally happen during the next 5-10k miles of use.

I feel that the metallic juice flowing around, scraping the engine bits for 10,000 miles, wearing things down and loosening up bearings and stuff isn't really a good thing. I prefer a nice and tight engine with as little wear as possible. Isn't this why we use the best oil and filters? We want to remove the slightest of particles yet allow sandpaper like oil to scrape up a brand new engine for 10,000 miles?! I'll pass.

I'm also one of those who dumps transmission fluid early to get rid of metallic shavings in there too. I've done it with all my cars. Smoothest shifting transmissions every after 150k of ABUSIVE driving.

 

[Indydriver]

Originally Posted By: Artem
Moly comes from assembly lube and nothing more.

This simply isn't true in Honda's case. They publicly stated that they added "moly impregnated" piston skirts to all engines in 2011. The OP's UOA shows it in action very clearly.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Indydriver
Originally Posted By: Artem
Moly comes from assembly lube and nothing more.

This simply isn't true in Honda's case. They publicly stated that they added "moly impregnated" piston skirts to all engines in 2011. The OP's UOA shows it in action very clearly.


Coated skirts aren't new BTW. They are designed to quiet or prevent piston slap and aide in reducing friction.

These are an aftermarket example of the Modular pistons:
http://www.jegs.com/p/Mahle/Mahle-Ford-Modular-PowerPak-Piston-Ring-Kits/3048744/10002/-1

Quote:
Mahle's Grafal skirt coating reduces piston noise, drag, scuffing, friction, and cylinder bore wear


This is a stock Modular piston:

You'll notice the coated skirts. This is apparently Teflon on this particular piston design.

Here are some aftermarket ones for a GM LSx engine:
http://intense-racing.com/PROD/PKC-xxx.html

They have Moly coated skirts for the same reason: Scuff resistance.

 

[KCJeep]

All the numbers are lower than I'd expect for an engine that new. These AFE oils impress and I admit that being rather turned off by Mobil most of the time. Too thin for my taste though the 0w30 suggestion would ring true for me as well.

I wonder what invisible additive they are using to offset the very low ZDDP in the AFE oils?