craig,
blackstoned is VERY easy to use. they mail you the sample kit for free.
i look at voa's and compare them to uoa's (when i can) to see of the content is in a valid range.
i once sent 2 samples of the same uoa off. 1 to the stoners and 1 to SWI. they were nearly the same. at that point in time.
as with all measurements, if there is not continual validation of the equipment, then all of the data is wrong.
some people nitpick over 5-10 PARTS PER MILLION. when they fail to realize the background scatter can be off by 2-5 to begin with!
bzzzzzzzt FAIL!
i look at my uoa's for a metal that is not in the motor and see what its background scatter is. then use that as a rough basis for the "stoner" factor.
in 2001 i got into doing UOA's for 1 simple reason: i had just bought a YZ250F that spun at 12,500 rpm with pretty small titanium valves. and i wanted to know if they were wearing before they went booom! because when they go boom, it gets spendy. well, it turns out Yamaha proved to be the single industry leader on so many levels with this motor. took the other brands 3 more years before they could come up with horrible designs that somewhat ran (if for only brief periods of time compareably).
to this day, i have had 1 uoa come back with Ti in it. i instantly checked the valves. yep, they were out of spec. pulled the head and they valves were worn out. that uoa may have saved me the cost of all my uoa's combind.
in the end, you have to realize what the $20 or $22.50 is buying you from bstoned.
blackstoned is VERY easy to use. they mail you the sample kit for free.
i look at voa's and compare them to uoa's (when i can) to see of the content is in a valid range.
i once sent 2 samples of the same uoa off. 1 to the stoners and 1 to SWI. they were nearly the same. at that point in time.
as with all measurements, if there is not continual validation of the equipment, then all of the data is wrong.
some people nitpick over 5-10 PARTS PER MILLION. when they fail to realize the background scatter can be off by 2-5 to begin with!
bzzzzzzzt FAIL!
i look at my uoa's for a metal that is not in the motor and see what its background scatter is. then use that as a rough basis for the "stoner" factor.
in 2001 i got into doing UOA's for 1 simple reason: i had just bought a YZ250F that spun at 12,500 rpm with pretty small titanium valves. and i wanted to know if they were wearing before they went booom! because when they go boom, it gets spendy. well, it turns out Yamaha proved to be the single industry leader on so many levels with this motor. took the other brands 3 more years before they could come up with horrible designs that somewhat ran (if for only brief periods of time compareably).
to this day, i have had 1 uoa come back with Ti in it. i instantly checked the valves. yep, they were out of spec. pulled the head and they valves were worn out. that uoa may have saved me the cost of all my uoa's combind.
in the end, you have to realize what the $20 or $22.50 is buying you from bstoned.