Ahsai - any update to this ?

I've driven almost 3k miles since my last Oil change so I should send in an UOA soon. Other than a corroded altenator/starter cable, everthing else seems fine.

Ahsai,

A thought/question/observation:
I have a C2 cab with 55k miles. Pretty close to your mileage. My UOA shows normal ranges for copper & iron with Motul 5-40. I change at 5k or 6 month intervals and always before winter sets in.
That is when the car drops from 3-4 days use to maybe as little as 1day in 2-3 weeks, depending on salty roads.

Looking back at some of the comments from Macster & others, about acids suspended in the oil, if you are running 5k or 3k oil changes that stretch to a year in the crankcase maybe the acid suspended in the oil is getting too long to work on your internal bits?

Hi Frank, happy 4th! Thanks for the thought and I think that's possible. I DD my car and do about 7k miles a year. The TBN of my 1yr old oil was still very good though according to Blackstone.

Anyway, will wait for the next UOA and go from there. Maybe all it needs is a more freq oil change like you said. Thanks for your thoughts again.

Btw, thanks for your alternator thread and info. I needed to replace the alternator cable so I just replaced my regulator with an equivalent from Pelican and it's working fine.

So .. What are you going to do if the bearings where bad ? Sell the car ? Rebuild engine and keep for another 50k ? If the car is worth say $30k why not sell and invest the extra 20k in a 997 for piece of mind ?

The engine is still running strong and no symptoms like before. But IF i end up selling my car for whatever reason, the 9A1 platform will be my #1 choice like you said. A 997.2 GTS will be ideal in terms of spec and what I like but they are still out of my price range. A 997.2 Carrera S will be great and within budget maybe in a few yrs...

991 is not very DIY friendly and it has too much complicated stuff. 997.2 is ideal because it'll be very similar to the 996 in terms of maintenance and repair sans the IMSB issue and all the other real or perceived engine weaknesses in the 996.

I looked at the UOA that you posted. TBN of 6 should have good margin of protection left. As I understand TBN 3 is *"Danger Will Rogers" territory.

Curious do you typically use one type of petrol?
Some fuel brands have more sulfur which beats up on the oil's alkalinity by forming higher levels of sulfuric acid as a byproduct of burning. Still TBN of 6 indicates the oil should still be protecting things.
Just trying to make some connections where there may be none.

After much scientific research by my wife we use Shell. This is because we get a 10% discount on a fill-up when we spend more than $100 on groceries in our local Stop & Shop super market...:roflmao:

*Ref to Campy 60's Lost in Space program.

Yes, I always use Chevron since there's one close to my house. However, there's not much gas detected in my oil samples if memory serves.

Latest UOA here. I was anxiously waiting.

Both copper and iron have improved. Oil had 4212 miles and 8 months on it (previous two tests were ~5k/1yr between tests). The only thing changed sinc last report were new coolant and the low temp thermostat.

So seems like shorter oil change interval and lower miles will keep it happy. Maybe the low temp thermostat helps a bit too :)

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Good news !

Indeed! I'm gonna try 6 month oil change interval next time because I highly suspect time plays a big roll here.

Don't add another variable by changing to a different brand oil or filter. Stick with OEM, use the same oil, and get a syringe and some small dia pipe, run your engine to get it warm and thoroughly mix the oil and take the sample from the dipstick tube. The syringe and pipe will only cost you a couple of $ use a clean one every sample and you have a consistent method for sample.
I'd carry on running the engine, in my experience of motorcycle rod bearing going, if they pick up they go pretty fast, if your engines running fine then leave it and just do 2 or 3 k oil samples

Agree about not adding other variables. That's why I didn't change anything other than shortening the interval to 4k/8 months and that seems to work as seen in the latest report. The low temp thermo was added as a maintenance item when I changed the water pump.

Btw, not a good idea to use a tube to extract oil. One guy did that and the the tip of the rubber tube got nipped by the struture inside the oil pan. He ended up dropping the oil pan to retrieve the piece.

Latest report with metal numbers continue to improve (9 months and 4k miles on oil). It's interesting to note for this report, I had done A LOT of 0-60 runs at redline yet the metal numbers are not higher. As you can see from all the reports, 4k/9 months oil change interval seems to be good for my engine.

Everything is the same for all these reports except this one and the last one were after the water pump/coolant/low temp thermostat change. Not suggesting anything. Could be just a coincidence. I'm happy anyway :burnout:

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