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Never updated this thread. Potassium ended up being coolant. I should have heeded the warnings but I thought it was benign. Head gasket failed on a short trip to dunkin donuts one morning. Was dissappointed as I knew this could be a 300k+ motor. Ran fantastic and even put up good wear numbers...

Castrol Edge seems to keep my copper non-existent. Give it a shot.

I think you're right. I tinkered with the choke linkage. Cleaned and lubed everything and adjusted the choke cable to pull more. Not 100% fixed but I've been able to cold start a few times without the fluid. Gave me trouble on just one start. So had to be the choke.

Would that cause issues with cold starts?

Been using engine starting fluid to start it cold. Will start fine on its own when warmed up. I’m thinking might be something to do with the choke. Everything is moving on externally but will need to open the carb to verify.

i did notice that pulling the choke doesn’t change how the motor runs, even when hot. I’m wondering if it’s even working. I see the linkage moving but if I pull the choke while the engine is hot it doesn’t run any different which is not how my other small engines run.

I have a Kawasaki 600v on a stand-behind zero turn mower. It runs great but is tough to start without starting fluid. I bought used recently so I don't know the history of how long it's been doing this. One quick shot of starting fluid and it fires right up. What could be causing this, clogged jets?

Agreed, just wanted a small bump in visc to offset dilution induced thinning. Seemed to have worked for that purpose. A lot of guys on here run straight 0w40 with good results.

Yes, overall the Castrol seems to do better with the copper for me and others I've seen on BITOG. Even with slight dilution/lower viscosity, it holds up well on the wear numbers. I'm not interested in longer runs. The only reason I went so long on the last two was there were a lot of highway...

Great report for a TGDI, even for a NA port injected this would be a good report.

I might in the summer. It currently has Mobil 1 EPHM 5w30 in now. We'll see how that does for a FL winter run. Hoping the 5w can handle the blistering cold 60 degree FL morning starts. Might get a block warmer to be safe. 😜

Good looking out. But the filter is new, silicon is lingering from a warranty oil pan replacement. It's been steadily going down each OCI. Not causing excessive wear. Look how high it is on the run that had single digit iron. Was in multiple times towards the end of the extended warranty for a...

This OCI was with 5qt of Castrol Edge EP 5w30 and 1qt of Castrol Edge 0w40. My goal with the mix was to beef up the viscosity just a bit since this motor is known to thin down oils with dilution and high heat. Looks like it worked compared to my last run of Castrol 5w30 (First UOA).

Very true. I think it's just the curiosity. Valvoline UOA is posted on another thread. I rushed the Amsoil change and forgot to grab a sample, what a fail. Valvoline EP didn't impress me in this application. Small sample size, I know. Here come the statistics police. But you know what I mean.

You mind sharing that link for that guage?

Get it looked at ASAP!!!! I just replaced my motor last week in a 2014 Mazda6 GT for a blown head gasket. I maintained that thing meticulously. I didn't get a temp warning or anything. Just blew the head gasket. Engine was over-heating and didn't even tell me. There is a flaw here of some sort...

So this run did not have the 0W40, that's what's in there now and I'll sample that in a few weeks from now. This is 100% Valvoline EP 5w30, so not as much fuel or shearing.

You are absolutely right. Labor hours are about equal when I was looking into it, so you do save on cost of the engine (if you can find a mechanic that would want to do the job, like you said, they don't want to anymore). In my case, about $2k for one with approx 100k miles. But I would have...

You are correct, not a common issue with these motors at all. Just a freak incident and bad luck. My frustration is more with the failure of the temperature monitoring system and the flawed design of excluding a temp gauge from the instrument panel. Without a temp gauge, you're only safety net...

I thought about that early on but I know the engine doesn't mine thinner oil and the shearing doesn't seem to affect wear metals in any way. I think the phaser issue is a design flaw and the extra oil pressure and pre-oilers that people are using to offset the issue is more of a band-aid fix...