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I do appreciate seeing the virgin metal content on the full test in addition to the additives. It explains quite a bit eliminating the need for concerns. Case in point would be my Test 3 with Millers and the high tin content in the virgin Millers creating a high tin content in my test. Turns out it's caused by the oil, not the engine.
Love these tests. Next week I test my daughter's Subaru. They run a specially formulated "Subaru 0w20" oil in the car as the standard.
0w20? Looking forward to seeing what's in the oil. Good thing we change it 2x a year. Subaru will not provide advice on using any other oil. Crazy.
100% agree, you need the virgin sample of the oil you are running because it is required in order to be able to benchmark your UOA results. Yes, your Millers tin is a perfect example. You can see it starts out at 20ppm in the virgin sample but quickly drops to 8ppm in the 300 mile sample and then to 1 ppm in the 2400 sample.
Lake knows what is is talking about which is a very rare thing in this industry (or maybe in general). If I re-ring my engine I am thinking about using his gapless rings as the concept makes a lot of sense to me.
With the aggressive push to meet required imposed emission standards OEMs have gone to super thin oils (among various other changes like most new cars are turbocharged etc to boost fuel economy). Many of the newer engines are going to 30 grade, 20 grade, and I have even seen thinner like 16 grade hot viscosity. That is pretty wild. Even on my 2014 Audi Q5 2.0T you can run 30 grade or 40 grade and there is a DI30 (and DI20 as well for the Subaru) but I run DI40. On Subaru not giving advice on oil, this is what scared me into sticking with dealer oil changes until my CPO expired. It doesn't work so well on the 996 and 997s but on some of the newer cars the oil filter is on top of the engine and they are designed to be used with an extractor (won't get caught up in the oil baffle or otherwise) once you are "allowed" to do your own oil changes. I use one on my Audi and now can do oil changes in literally 5 mins of actual work (the other 15 minutes I am off doing something else while it extracts) so I don't even have to spend time dropping it off at the dealer or waiting an hour for them to do it when it only takes 10 minutes to do even drain-and-fill.
100% agree, you need the virgin sample of the oil you are running because it is required in order to be able to benchmark your UOA results. Yes, your Millers tin is a perfect example. You can see it starts out at 20ppm in the virgin sample but quickly drops to 8ppm in the 300 mile sample and then to 1 ppm in the 2400 sample.
Lake knows what is is talking about which is a very rare thing in this industry (or maybe in general). If I re-ring my engine I am thinking about using his gapless rings as the concept makes a lot of sense to me.
With the aggressive push to meet required imposed emission standards OEMs have gone to super thin oils (among various other changes like most new cars are turbocharged etc to boost fuel economy). Many of the newer engines are going to 30 grade, 20 grade, and I have even seen thinner like 16 grade hot viscosity. That is pretty wild. Even on my 2014 Audi Q5 2.0T you can run 30 grade or 40 grade and there is a DI30 (and DI20 as well for the Subaru) but I run DI40. On Subaru not giving advice on oil, this is what scared me into sticking with dealer oil changes until my CPO expired. It doesn't work so well on the 996 and 997s but on some of the newer cars the oil filter is on top of the engine and they are designed to be used with an extractor (won't get caught up in the oil baffle or otherwise) once you are "allowed" to do your own oil changes. I use one on my Audi and now can do oil changes in literally 5 mins of actual work (the other 15 minutes I am off doing something else while it extracts) so I don't even have to spend time dropping it off at the dealer or waiting an hour for them to do it when it only takes 10 minutes to do even drain-and-fill.
the thin oil trend is wild.
I too am using an extractor on my wife's VW Alltrack and drain to fill time is amazing. The Alltrack has been dealer maintained and have been using and I am still using the dealer Castrol. I assume the DI40 has been treating you well for the Audi, might make the switch to DI40 for the Alltrack and DT40 for the 996 and maybe the B7 S4. We'll see after I do some virgin analysis.
Agree. I am using a little hand pump extractor, not a pneumatic, pretty much as basic as you can get, costs $60, and it works fantastic -- gets all 5 quarts out effortlessly.
Driven DI40 has been great in my Audi and it is my favorite oil for street use. In some sense it really is the perfect oil for these newer engines because of the lower Calcium level and almost no Sodium for LSPI since they are all turbocharged, has soot protection for direct injection, HTHS protection which is important for your rings, low volatility to prevent intake buildup, and a bunch of other benefits. While my personal situation is only one data point and I don't extrapolate too much out of it I can say that at 120K miles I don't have an oil consumption problem and my timing chain isn't stretching, which is very rare.
And my UOAs look great. Here is my UOA on my 2014 Audi Q5 2.0T with DI40 just for reference. This was taken at 100K miles (5/3/22 sample) and you can see my previous sample at 85K (4/12/21 sample) which is the first time I switched to DI40, I was using 5K OCIs in between. These tests were taken a year apart at the exact same time of year and the exact same time/mileage to control for winter blend fuel and environmental factors. You can see my fuel dilution dropped significantly which is due to DI40 inherently holding less fuel in suspension. The reason why the oxidation level is so high in the 4/12/21 sample is because my indy misunderstood me and put an oil in it with ester after he did some work which I then took out but I didn't use a flush oil so there is some cross contamination. The 100K sample is fully clean......
I thought I heard Lake or Charles talk about this in the video but I’ve scrubbed through it and couldn’t find it. Wondering if you all have advice about fuel and if there is are levels of preference to abide by. Example… 93 e0 top tier > 93 e0 non top tier > 91 e10/15 top tier > 91 e10/15 non top tier with octane booster etc. is there something you all follow?
I thought I heard Lake or Charles talk about this in the video but I’ve scrubbed through it and couldn’t find it. Wondering if you all have advice about fuel and if there is are levels of preference to abide by. Example… 93 e0 top tier > 93 e0 non top tier > 91 e10/15 top tier > 91 e10/15 non top tier with octane booster etc. is there something you all follow?
I'll summarize.
If you have access to REC90, you don't need any additives. Just beware of phase separation when switching from E10 to REC90. The REC90 can't hold any water in suspension, unlike the E10. So don't switch back and forth between REC90 and E10. If you can't get REC90 all the time, you are better off sticking to E10 and using an additive in the fuel.
For those of us without access to ethanol free fuels, run a top tier fuel. In my case, there are no top tier gas stations anywhere on my route between home and the shop (60 mi drive), so I run a bottle of injector defender every other tank of gas. If you use a top tier fuel, running one bottle every 2500-3000 miles is recommended.
I know many of you have other Porsches - if it's older than a Boxster or 996, you need to run injector defender (or carb defender) to protect the fuel system from the ethanol enriched fuels. Porsche put out a bulletin many years ago stating the 993 and earlier models are not compatible with anything greater than E5.
Lastly, if your tank of E10 isn't going to be used up in a month, you need to add a stabilizer (i.e. injector defender) as these fuels can go bad very quickly, unlike REC90 which is stable to up to a year easily (I'd still use a stabilizer).
If you have access to REC90, you don't need any additives. Just beware of phase separation when switching from E10 to REC90. The REC90 can't hold any water in suspension, unlike the E10. So don't switch back and forth between REC90 and E10. If you can't get REC90 all the time, you are better off sticking to E10 and using an additive in the fuel.
For those of us without access to ethanol free fuels, run a top tier fuel. In my case, there are no top tier gas stations anywhere on my route between home and the shop (60 mi drive), so I run a bottle of injector defender every other tank of gas. If you use a top tier fuel, running one bottle every 2500-3000 miles is recommended.
I know many of you have other Porsches - if it's older than a Boxster or 996, you need to run injector defender (or carb defender) to protect the fuel system from the ethanol enriched fuels. Porsche put out a bulletin many years ago stating the 993 and earlier models are not compatible with anything greater than E5.
Lastly, if your tank of E10 isn't going to be used up in a month, you need to add a stabilizer (i.e. injector defender) as these fuels can go bad very quickly, unlike REC90 which is stable to up to a year easily (I'd still use a stabilizer).
sounds like even though I have 93 ethanol free, not REC90 and not top tier, around, I’m still better off with top tier along with Defender right?
sounds like even though I have 93 ethanol free, not REC90 and not top tier, around, I’m still better off with top tier along with Defender right?
REC90 is 90 octane ethanol free, so if you have ethanol free 93 octane, that's even better. Typically ethanol free fuels are top treated like a top tier fuel, however it's not a bad idea to run a bottle of carb or injector defender every 2500-3000 miles regardless. More often won't hurt anything but your wallet.
The Cummins Valvoline Restore oil has been discontinued. It was also a really good oil to use if an engine was poorly serviced and needed a good cleanup without resorting to use an engine flush product. The Restore oil was designed to de-carbon pistons and clean ring grooves to restore proper ring function. It was a unique product for sure.
Originally Posted by plpete84
Charles - I learned about it from Lake as he recommended a short drain interval since my engine might have seen some questionable OCIs. All my wear metals look great, very low fuel dilution and overall great several UOA but she's still burning some oil at around 1l per 600mi. I wouldn't say it's been discontinued as I was able to get 3 gallons of it few weeks ago. It's something you'll need to order from a Cummins center so it's definitely not easily available and requires some leg work and calls to purchase. I spent about 20ish minutes on the phone ordering it. Actually, Valvoline should be releasing gen2 of the oil soon so they may be trying to completely get rid of gen1 before rolling it out. https://partner.valvolineglobal.com/...-blue-restore/
Interested in these comments and the use of Cummins Valvoline Restore. Many GDI engines for example can get carbon in the rings so I am curious if you have experience with this product (I do not) -- normally I would be skeptical about a product like this but since Lake has experience with it and says it works it has piqued my attention.
What are the steps to use Cummins Valvoline Restore? What is your experience using it? -- did it free up badly stuck rings or were they just a little gummed up? Was the engine GDI or port injected? Reading here it sounds like you run it for one OCI (presumably a pretty short one). Can you use it with any engine? Are there any caveats? https://sharena21.springcm.com/Publi...5-48df3793b338
Interested in these comments and the use of Cummins Valvoline Restore. Many GDI engines for example can get carbon in the rings so I am curious if you have experience with this product (I do not) -- normally I would be skeptical about a product like this but since Lake has experience with it and says it works it has piqued my attention.
What are the steps to use Cummins Valvoline Restore? What is your experience using it? -- did it free up badly stuck rings or were they just a little gummed up? Was the engine GDI or port injected? Reading here it sounds like you run it for one OCI (presumably a pretty short one). Can you use it with any engine? Are there any caveats? https://sharena21.springcm.com/Publi...5-48df3793b338
We've tried it a few times where customers did not break in their engines properly or they had fuel injector issues that led to high oil consumption. After a few thousands miles of running the Cummins Restore oil, consumption was greatly reduced and crankcase manometer vacuum readings were improved.
TYVM for the information, Charles, so interesting. I had sent Lake a brief note to ask his take and he also recommended it, said similar to what you advise. His advice was not to use it for GDI carbon build up in the ring grooves until oil consumption gets to 1 quart / 1,000 miles, and at that point run the Cummins one time for a 3K OCI and immediately switch back to DI40. He stressed that it's important to maintain your oil chemistry and not be switching things around without a good reason, which I already was in 110% agreement with (common mistake I see some making is trying different oils every OCI and then judging which one is better using oil consumption as the metric). I asked him if he knows what the difference is in the Gen 2 reformulated product and he kindly responded "In regards to the new formula, I’ve not used it, but I do now what the Premium Blue Gen 2 additive package is. As such, I’m sure this is the same base oils as the original but with a new additive package." My oil consumption is nowhere near this rate especially since I switched to very short 2-3K OCIs but if it ever was I would definitely take Lake's advice and try it for an OCI. Also the change of consumption is indicative as an engine that burned a quart every 1,000 since new this same advice wouldn't necessarily apply to.
When you say the manometer readings improved I suppose this is because of improved ring seal after the rings got more freed up. How much did the vacuum reading improve out of curiosity? Couple " H2O? Sorry for all the questions, you guys just have too much good information/experience, you can cut me off at any time .....
TYVM for the information, Charles, so interesting. I had sent Lake a brief note to ask his take and he also recommended it, said similar to what you advise. His advice was not to use it for GDI carbon build up in the ring grooves until oil consumption gets to 1 quart / 1,000 miles, and at that point run the Cummins one time for a 3K OCI and immediately switch back to DI40. He stressed that it's important to maintain your oil chemistry and not be switching things around without a good reason, which I already was in 110% agreement with (common mistake I see some making is trying different oils every OCI and then judging which one is better using oil consumption as the metric). I asked him if he knows what the difference is in the Gen 2 reformulated product and he kindly responded "In regards to the new formula, I’ve not used it, but I do now what the Premium Blue Gen 2 additive package is. As such, I’m sure this is the same base oils as the original but with a new additive package." My oil consumption is nowhere near this rate especially since I switched to very short 2-3K OCIs but if it ever was I would definitely take Lake's advice and try it for an OCI. Also the change of consumption is indicative as an engine that burned a quart every 1,000 since new this same advice wouldn't necessarily apply to.
When you say the manometer readings improved I suppose this is because of improved ring seal after the rings got more freed up. How much did the vacuum reading improve out of curiosity? Couple " H2O? Sorry for all the questions, you guys just have too much good information/experience, you can cut me off at any time .....
If my memory serves me, it was about a 10-15% increase in manometer readings.
08-02-2023, 08:32 AM
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