Perhaps you could list the new age alternative anti wear compounds that do not show up in a Blackstone UOA??
Titanium was used in a few oils by Castrol, BUT it was used more for a marketing advantage, as they added so little the experts in my local oil lab thought it was some kind of joke. There is no real ecomonic alternative to the use of Zinc based anti wear additives, although using a group Synthoil base, MOS2 or more Boron compounds does help. [/quote]
First let me preface this by saying I am not an oil expert, but an oil enthusiast that is interested in oil related subjects.
I am in the same camp as Alarmguy in thinking that there are additives that may not show up in an analysis due to the fact that they are not being checked for. It is simply my opinion and I have no way of proving or disproving that they are there. To me it is like the wind, I can't see it but I believe it is there because of reactions the wind causes. If I could prove that these additives were there or available, I would probably be working at an oil company or analysis lab. I don't think anyone has shown me they don't exist, so we can all believe what we want. I think everyone here is really just looking to find what oil may be best for their application from what they can find in different analysis results. Some oils with high zinc do great, some do just ok. I am more interested in the base oil than the additives. Obviously I want the right additives, but the base oil is 70% of what I am adding to the bike. It interests me that while the labs can list the additives, people on this board have to speculate what the base oil is or how it was derived. As far as I have seen, there is some speculation when oil analysis are posted here as to what group the base oil is. I would guess that there is some way to tell if a base oil was derived from gas to liquid technology or from another source. I know they are different, but it doesn't show up in the analysis we see, but I know there must be SOME difference, good, bad or indifferent. I am just saying that because I don't see something, I don't dismiss it being there.
In the case of this bike, it has 2 contradictory oil related needs. It is a flat tappet bike (zinc has proven to be good) and a catalytic converter (phosphorus not supposed to be good). I chose my primary oil (Valvoline Racing 20W50) based on what I thought was best for my application. I am sure the Advantec would be fine, I just have more criteria about the Valvoline. The Valvoline doesn't look super special on paper, but from most of the reports here, it has SOMETHING that works well in most bikes, so I use it. The bike is a 2007, so pretty much any oil I use today will outperform what came in it from the factory. Most bikes today have catalytic converters and overhead cams, so the question of whether more zinc is better will be less of an issue. I think that is why you see lower zinc and phosphorus number in this Advantec. It is geared to the modern BMW bikes.