Honda Civic EXT 1.5t UOA

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Mobil 1 0w30. Custom tuned for the duration of this run . With a trip from CT to Florida and back thrown in. 4500 miles on oil, with about 9600 on the car now. It is a 2017 Honda Civic Ex-t 6MT with the (thus far) wonderful 1.5 litre turbo.

Only other mod is Mishimoto catch-can which had maybe 3 tablespoons of oil in it at the time of the change.
I didn't detect any smell of fuel , nor did i have to add any oil. If anything, it may have over so slightly increased as it was just above the (top) orange hash-mark on the dipstick, though not. Some fuel may have made its way into the oil, as per the norm on DI engines , though it doesn't appear to be much.

In case this doesn't post properly, here is the text. Sheared pretty good, but again, wear metals are fine! I am enjoying the heck out of my EXT!
I may run another report at some point with 0w20 just for comparison. I suspect the wear numbers will still be just fine on that as well.

"Wear metals look great in this sample from your civic. Universal averages show typical wear levels for this engine type after about 7400 miles on the oil. This oil was run a bit shorter, so that probably helped, but considering how young your engine is, we thought there might be some lingering wear-in stuff that would have drove metals up, and there wasn't. Not that that's a problem, its just a pleasant surprise. The viscosity was a bit thin and a trace of fuel showed up, but those findings are harmless. It looks like this engine is off to a great start so far! Nice report."

Aluminum 9
Chromium 0
Iron 9
Copper 3
Lead 0
Tin 0
Molybendium 99
Nickel 0
Manganese 1
Silver 0
Titanium 0
Potassium 2
Boron 46
Silicon 20
Sodium 4
Calcium 976
Magnesium 664
Phosphorus 571
ZInc 642
Barium 0
SUS visc @210F 49.5
cSt @100C 7.11
Flashpoint 380
Fuel TR
Antifreeze 0
Water 0
Insolubles 0.2

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxXNwJOYjq3eSHNULWVOSmlwaWs
 
Looks great! I'd definitely like to see a comparison uoa with 0W20. Is 0W20 the factory spec?
 
If you wander around this forum you'll find that Blackstone's fuel dilution figures have no credibility: its methodology is cheap and flawed and grossly underestimates fuel dilution in virtually all cases.

Don't want to rain on your parade, but you actually have considerable fuel dilution, as is typical for this Honda engine. The clue is the oil's viscosity: new Mobil1 0w-30 has a 100C viscosity of about 10.7 cSt. Your sample at 7.1 has been diluted to a 20-weight and nearly to a 16 weight. Oil can shear a little in 4,500 miles, but most of your viscosity decrease is almost surely fuel.

As this seems to be a characteristic of this engine (and most modern Hondas), there's not a lot you can do except change the oil frequently. Moving to a 30-weight, as you have done, makes sense too except for possible warranty complications. If you look through the Used Oil Analysis section of this forum you will see other owners of 1.5T Civics have similar experience.
 
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As long as the wear metals look good, some dilution wouldn't concern me at this oci, it's a T-GDi and that is what they do. Nice report.
 
Originally Posted By: Danh
If you wander around this forum you'll find that Blackstone's fuel dilution figures have no credibility: its methodology is cheap and flawed and grossly underestimates fuel dilution in virtually all cases.

Don't want to rain on your parade, but you actually have considerable fuel dilution, as is typical for this Honda engine. The clue is the oil's viscosity: new Mobil1 0w-30 has a 100C viscosity of about 10.7 cSt. Your sample at 7.1 has been diluted to a 20-weight and nearly to a 16 weight. Oil can shear a little in 4,500 miles, but most of your viscosity decrease is almost surely fuel.

As this seems to be a characteristic of this engine (and most modern Hondas), there's not a lot you can do except change the oil frequently. Moving to a 30-weight, as you have done, makes sense too except for possible warranty complications. If you look through the Used Oil Analysis section of this forum you will see other owners of 1.5T Civics have similar experience.


IF the fuel dilution is considerable, as you describe, it seems like the only detriment is viscosity. Though , correct me if I am wrong, the AFE 0w30 is on the light side for a 30 weight anyway to begin with.
Though I do wish honda made the sump a bit larger so that any dilution present would be less pronounced. 3.7qts seems miniscule, but then again, so is this engine
smile.gif
 
Originally Posted By: tdijose
Originally Posted By: Danh
If you wander around this forum you'll find that Blackstone's fuel dilution figures have no credibility: its methodology is cheap and flawed and grossly underestimates fuel dilution in virtually all cases.

Don't want to rain on your parade, but you actually have considerable fuel dilution, as is typical for this Honda engine. The clue is the oil's viscosity: new Mobil1 0w-30 has a 100C viscosity of about 10.7 cSt. Your sample at 7.1 has been diluted to a 20-weight and nearly to a 16 weight. Oil can shear a little in 4,500 miles, but most of your viscosity decrease is almost surely fuel.

As this seems to be a characteristic of this engine (and most modern Hondas), there's not a lot you can do except change the oil frequently. Moving to a 30-weight, as you have done, makes sense too except for possible warranty complications. If you look through the Used Oil Analysis section of this forum you will see other owners of 1.5T Civics have similar experience.


IF the fuel dilution is considerable, as you describe, it seems like the only detriment is viscosity. Though , correct me if I am wrong, the AFE 0w30 is on the light side for a 30 weight anyway to begin with.
Though I do wish honda made the sump a bit larger so that any dilution present would be less pronounced. 3.7qts seems miniscule, but then again, so is this engine.





Mobil1 products, including AFE 0w-30 are actually on the heavier side of the viscosity spectrum. 0w-30 is 10.9 cSt at 100C (my 10.7 was a typo), Mobil1 5w-30 is 11.0 and Pennzoil Platinum is 9.8.

Wear metals look fine though poster danielLD who seems to have lots of exprience in this area, notes that fuel dilution doesn't seem to harm new engine but can contribute to piston ring corrosion as time goes on.

So who knows? It seems to be the new normal.
 
Originally Posted By: Danh


Mobil1 products, including AFE 0w-30 are actually on the heavier side of the viscosity spectrum. 0w-30 is 10.9 cSt at 100C (my 10.7 was a typo), Mobil1 5w-30 is 11.0 and Pennzoil Platinum is 9.8.

Wear metals look fine though poster danielLD who seems to have lots of exprience in this area, notes that fuel dilution doesn't seem to harm new engine but can contribute to piston ring corrosion as time goes on.

So who knows? It seems to be the new normal.


M1 5W30 AP is 11.7 cSt @ 100C, but has an HTHS lower than vanilla M1 5W30 for some reason (3.0 to 3.1). 5W30 ESP is way up at 12.1 and has an impressive 3.58 HTHS, but XOM customer service apparently doesn't want US gas engine customers using it.
 
380 for the flash is very low as is 7.1cst, especially for 4,500 miles.

Here is one problem with fuel dilution. It takes a while for it to begin to corrode and wear the internals. and if you have poor ring seal(what causes fuel dilution) then you will build deposits on the rings over time and sludge in the engine.

If you sell your car before 100,000, you likely won't have significant issues, other than some power and fuel economy loss. The studies I did, showed that reducing fuel dilution by even 1% paid for itself in the increase of MPG's.

We've been conditioned to accept fuel dilution because the OEMs don't know how to stop it and they won't recommend quality oils. Just imagine if people were told they need to buy Amsoil by Honda, there would be 15 federal injunctions by 9am.

OEMs overfuel our engines for emissions purposes. The hotter an engine runs the cleaner the burn/emissions. In order to safely run an engine hot, we need to overfuel it as the fuel will keep it cool. Combined with lower quality oils and filtration, you get excessive fuel dilution. The OEMs just accept this as a cost of meeting EPA standards.

You don't have to accept their reluctance to fix the issue and do it yourself. Just as an example, my 2015 RC-F. I did many UOA on it and as proof of concept, used different oils, filters, fuels, additives, etc. When M1 was used strictly by itself, at 5,000 miles, it was at 3.5%FD and wear was at 15ppm iron. When I switched to strictly RLI, wear dropped to 10ppm at 5,000 miles at 2.75%FD. When I took the RLI and then played with my combos, I got down to 5ppm at 5,000 miles at 1.25%FD. Fuel economy also went up at each UOA by a minimal amount, but measurable enough to easily justify the cost of everything. And this is a fresh engine, not an engine with 75,000 miles. And this is an engine with 10quarts.

I will have the 10,000 mile UOA coming here pretty soon to post, as I'm testing it next week. Regardless, if you control the Fuel Dilution, you will control and bring your wear to a minimum.

What about deposits and why should it matter to me? Because deposits form easily on these direct injection engines. They're gumming up at 100,000 miles and need all sorts of walnut blast, intake cleanings, etc. BMW recommends Walnut blasts on their cars at 60,000 at a cost of $1200! Something that could be prevented with a little bottle of fuel system cleaner and some good oil and fuel. Not to mention, the fuel costs incurred due to the engine not running at max efficiency.
 
Seems like following the MM would not be the best idea as it would have me changing out the oil well past the 7500 mile mark. Since I'm running a tune, I planned on 5k oil changes. Should mitigate dilution, no?

@danielLD, Thanks for the info. Question, is the RLI you are referring to BioSyn?
 
Originally Posted By: parshisa
Do you have an exact recipe for fighting fuel dilution?


No, that's the issue, you need to know why it's diluting. Every dilution is different. It's why I always respond with the need more testing data. Those additional data points provide us the info to determine if dilution is tune related, or poor ring seal, etc.
 
Originally Posted By: tdijose
Seems like following the MM would not be the best idea as it would have me changing out the oil well past the 7500 mile mark. Since I'm running a tune, I planned on 5k oil changes. Should mitigate dilution, no?

@danielLD, Thanks for the info. Question, is the RLI you are referring to BioSyn?


Yes, BioSyn but only their HDMO formulas.

It doesn't mitigate dilution, but rather just removes it by matter of changing the oil. changing the oil more often is only masking the issue not addressing it.

In theory if you're running a tune, you should be able to go further with the oil change intervals.
 
It's been a common theme with these engines. Not only in the Civic but the CRV as well. I would motor on and it will likely be fine. For all we know at this point the engine is durable enough to withstand the added stress.
 
Originally Posted By: SatinSilver
It's been a common theme with these engines. Not only in the Civic but the CRV as well. I would motor on and it will likely be fine. For all we know at this point the engine is durable enough to withstand the added stress.


And that's where we go wrong. We accept failure because we don't know how to address it properly. I deal with so many failures every day, it's frustrating to know they could have all been easily avoided. If you flip your cars at 100,000 miles, you'll never deal with the repair, but the next guy will. Techs across the nation are complaining of the same thing, gunked up direct injection engines at 100,000 miles.

I've explained above why it is a common theme and why you shouldn't accept it even if you own it for less than 100,000 miles. Just like VW said we should accept dirty diesel. There's a lot of things, we as consumers, get screwed over on by the OEMs. When the director of a major CAT dealer once asked me, why would CAT exaggerate the need for parts from their own UOA? Because they make more money when stuff breaks than they did when they sold it to you. Dealerships and an entire industry, rely on your car breaking down. Or as Jiffy Lube's CEO was once quoted as saying, if America knew their old should last longer, we'd be out of business.

On these newer engines, it is even more crucial. On an older port injected naturally aspirated engine, it's not as big an issue. These new engines make their economy and power from timing advancements. When the deposits begin to form, the engine has to pull back the advancements it so desperately relies on. It is why it is more important than ever today, especially anything turbo charged.
 
I think I'd do a UOA at about 3500 miles, and see where that viscosity is at. That's a pretty big drop. Of course, it looks like it is in the 20 grade range, but that is partially gasoline, also.
 
Originally Posted By: danielLD
380 for the flash is very low as is 7.1cst, especially for 4,500 miles.

Here is one problem with fuel dilution. It takes a while for it to begin to corrode and wear the internals. and if you have poor ring seal(what causes fuel dilution) then you will build deposits on the rings over time and sludge in the engine.

If you sell your car before 100,000, you likely won't have significant issues, other than some power and fuel economy loss. The studies I did, showed that reducing fuel dilution by even 1% paid for itself in the increase of MPG's.

We've been conditioned to accept fuel dilution because the OEMs don't know how to stop it and they won't recommend quality oils. Just imagine if people were told they need to buy Amsoil by Honda, there would be 15 federal injunctions by 9am.

OEMs overfuel our engines for emissions purposes. The hotter an engine runs the cleaner the burn/emissions. In order to safely run an engine hot, we need to overfuel it as the fuel will keep it cool. Combined with lower quality oils and filtration, you get excessive fuel dilution. The OEMs just accept this as a cost of meeting EPA standards.

You don't have to accept their reluctance to fix the issue and do it yourself. Just as an example, my 2015 RC-F. I did many UOA on it and as proof of concept, used different oils, filters, fuels, additives, etc. When M1 was used strictly by itself, at 5,000 miles, it was at 3.5%FD and wear was at 15ppm iron. When I switched to strictly RLI, wear dropped to 10ppm at 5,000 miles at 2.75%FD. When I took the RLI and then played with my combos, I got down to 5ppm at 5,000 miles at 1.25%FD. Fuel economy also went up at each UOA by a minimal amount, but measurable enough to easily justify the cost of everything. And this is a fresh engine, not an engine with 75,000 miles. And this is an engine with 10quarts.

I will have the 10,000 mile UOA coming here pretty soon to post, as I'm testing it next week. Regardless, if you control the Fuel Dilution, you will control and bring your wear to a minimum.

What about deposits and why should it matter to me? Because deposits form easily on these direct injection engines. They're gumming up at 100,000 miles and need all sorts of walnut blast, intake cleanings, etc. BMW recommends Walnut blasts on their cars at 60,000 at a cost of $1200! Something that could be prevented with a little bottle of fuel system cleaner and some good oil and fuel. Not to mention, the fuel costs incurred due to the engine not running at max efficiency.


I think saying "poor ring seal" is implying bad design, or rings not worn in properly. I think what it it really is, on these engines. is high cylinder pressure(turbo), blowing a lot of fuel(LSPI prevention) in the chamber past the rings.
 
That is a lot of fuel dilution, as VII shearing wouldn't account for going from 10.9 to 7.1 kv100 like that.
Time to use M1 0w40 with that much dilution going on. Then you can leave it in for 6,000 miles.
 
Dexos1 Gen2 oils are currently being released to market as we speak. Its release comes over a year before GF-6 anticipated release because of issues like LSPI and premature chain wear issues in various applications which Gen2 addresses. Now that I've seen "Gen2" below the Dexo1 logo on some oils at Walmart, i won't run anything else in our T-GDi Santa Fe.
 
no Poor ring seal does not imply bad design.

One thing I notice is in general people think of oil as a lubricant. However, they miss the fact entirely that it is also a coolant and a seal in engines. The quality of oil you use will dramatically affect that seal, has little to nothing to do with design.

oil_film, I have no idea how you calculate things that have been proven to not be possible, please enlighten.

Blowing extra fuel has nothing to with LSPI. As I've stated, it is for emissions purposes and warranty purposes. A turbo can blow more fuel past the rings, but that again is an oil issue. Not engine design or fueling.
 
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