Corvette UA0 with Redline 5w30: High Lead

Originally Posted by Dirty_Howie
Where do you think the iron would be coming from in this aluminum block engine?

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DH


Cylinder walls, rings, valve train (cam lobes, lifters and followers), cam chain. All steel (Fe) parts rubbing on each other.
 
Well as long as iron stays in normal range I will hope for the best. I also have magnetic drain plugs. I get very little deposits on these now. I used to get large amounts with previous motor. So I use the plugs and Blackstone to give myself some piece of mind.

Thanks for your input
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DH
 
First of all, don't try any Diesel oil. I'm not sure what is the thing with recommendations to use Diesel oil in non-Diesel engines. Second of all, for the sake of experiment, do us all a favor and try one run of RedLine 5w30 again. All those theories about it leeching metal from engine parts sounds too far fetched
 
Originally Posted by vivaUkraine
First of all, don't try any Diesel oil. I'm not sure what is the thing with recommendations to use Diesel oil in non-Diesel engines. Second of all, for the sake of experiment, do us all a favor and try one run of RedLine 5w30 again. All those theories about it leeching metal from engine parts sounds too far fetched

If the "diesel oil" in question is dual rated then there is no reason not to use it if the PCMO rating it carries is suitable for the vehicle. Even if it does not carry a gasoline rating, what is going to happen?
 
I have a suggestion. Since the oil temp never gets high enough to need a higher grade let's try a normal old passenger oil.

Quaker State Ultimate Durability is cheap and seems to work well in other LS based engines. Try a run in 5W-30 and see what happens. Consider it your baseline oil and see if you can improve on it (I will be highly surprised if you can under your running conditions).

I run 0W-20 at the strip in the same engine I run 15W-50 at the track. When you consider a 110F difference in oil temp it will make sense.
 
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Seems like the "Old Geezer" had some fun in this Vette then sold it off haha.

Every Car is different, but I used RL 5w30 in my 2006 Lancer Evo. I did so because I was pushing double the OEM HP numbers and wanted something that can take the heat so to speak. Pushing 400whp out of a 2.0 Turbo 4 needs an oil like this.

I tracked my Evo almost every weekend and noticed on average my oil temps were 20c lower overall using RL vs M1 10/30 EP.

I ran this oil for 60k miles in this Evo. 55k of the miles the car was modified make 400whp and it was a daily driver. So I know this oil is good stuff.

What seems to be the issue here isn't the oil, but since you are using the oil and are doing UOA's you are seeing an issue that was there BEFORE you bought the car.

Maybe drain the oil, filter, refill with RL again, and re test in 3k miles. See what it reveals. Maybe after a couple of oil changes things will balance out, if not? There is a problem.
 
Originally Posted by Jeffs2006EvoIX
Seems like the "Old Geezer" had some fun in this Vette then sold it off haha.

Every Car is different, but I used RL 5w30 in my 2006 Lancer Evo. I did so because I was pushing double the OEM HP numbers and wanted something that can take the heat so to speak. Pushing 400whp out of a 2.0 Turbo 4 needs an oil like this.

I tracked my Evo almost every weekend and noticed on average my oil temps were 20c lower overall using RL vs M1 10/30 EP.

I ran this oil for 60k miles in this Evo. 55k of the miles the car was modified make 400whp and it was a daily driver. So I know this oil is good stuff.

What seems to be the issue here isn't the oil, but since you are using the oil and are doing UOA's you are seeing an issue that was there BEFORE you bought the car.

Maybe drain the oil, filter, refill with RL again, and re test in 3k miles. See what it reveals. Maybe after a couple of oil changes things will balance out, if not? There is a problem.



RL is formulated for maximizing combustion byproducts and holding them in suspension. The high POE content can interact with the oxides on the surfaces of some metals, which can be misinterpreted as wear. Some of what we see with Red Line, especially initially, is a spike in wear metals due to cleaning. I don't think the higher numbers are from corrosion.

In some engines you see no spike in wear metals at all. For example using Red Line in a Toyota or Subaru you'll never see higher Pb numbers.

It's a great choice for an engine like you described.

I don't think Red Line is always very good for long drain intervals though. I've seen Tbn down to 0 before. It really depends on the engine.
 
Thanks for posting my Blackstone here for me !!
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I'm not inclined to change the oil for the Iron where which seems stable and within normal range.
Where do you think the iron would be coming from in this aluminum block engine?

cheers3.gif

DH

Mobil 1 FS 0W-40 is an amazingly good oil. I run it in my RAM 1500 with the 5.7 HEMI. The higher iron comes from the lifters and cam I would imagine. I've seen similar numbers on HEMI UOAs. I do 5000 mile OCIs so I will do an UOA when I change the oil next time and post the results here. You got an awesome ride, enjoy it and don't think too much about the Iron. I bet that by the time you get to around 100k miles your Iron will drop to around 10ppm or less. God Bless!

[Edit]
I just remembered that I saw an UOA with Redline oil from a Honda S2000 that also showed high levels of Led. Considering that the Honda engine has a completely different construction than the LS7, that was pretty weird. I don't know where the led is coming from, but I'll stick to Mobil 1 and Castrol EDGE for my engines.
 
Redline does appear to cause some chemical leaching of soft metals. It's something that has been noticed in other RL analysis.

I have no opinion on the iron spike at this time. I would not be overly concerned as long as it's an isolated I instance. You see that from time to time and the reason people constantly parrot "The Trend". If you get a spike in one sample yet the next sample returns to the norms it doesn't usually represent a major issue. Look for an escalating trend.

I have a buddy with a 427 Vert (Same engine) that usually runs Rotella T6 5W-40 Synthetic. His analysis all look pretty boring but it's primarily a parade queen (I hope he isn't reading this) I think. As long as they get the required viscosity I haven't noticed the the LS-7 being particularly picky. As long as they don't eat valves they seem to be pretty durable.
 
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