2009 C2S 184K miles

Has anyone had a "bad" oil report and then did anything about it? Or took some sort of action? Wha happen?

Just curious. I do an oil analysis ever so often (5K changes) and get good reports... oh and I have a magnetic plug too. I gotta believe everyone who does an analysis wonders what they would do should the numbers come up "bad". What would you do? Has anyone actually did anything?

Why do I do the analysis? Entertainment. Can't give you any other reason. My car is a hobby of mine and this is just part of the game.

Jake noted that he was building a database to identify trends... he noted (IIRC) that the real value is in the trend for a given car. Any enlightenment available on this?

Peace
Bruce in Philly (now Atlanta)

 

Lake Speed Jr. from Speediagnostix actually reached out to me after my last UOA on my 09 4s and suggested using a specific type fuel injector cleaner to help with fuel dilution levels.

 

...and Jake had previously suggested I get away from Mobil1 used in my 996 after I posted some UOA results on the forum.

 

Cool.... and what did you actually do, and did you perform another analysis? Results?

I guess the broad assumption that your engine will now last longer. Was it heading to a premature failure? Comments?

Peace
Bruce in Philly (now Atlanta)

 

Non Porsche but still relevant. I had an oil report that showed high silicon which indicated poor air filtration. I had previously installed a K&N type air filter on the car and on further investigation I found that the filter had folded up on itself and collapsed into the airbox, and was providing essentially no filtration. I tossed the K&N, installed an OEM-type filter and the next report showed much reduced silicon levels.

 

I ended up switching the oil I was using because the brand I was using showed no MolyB in it and my iron & copper wear numbers were a bit higher than I would like to see although the wear trending was relatively consistent over the last 30k miles or so and despite essentially no oil burn between 3500- 4500 mile OCI. I will see if any effect/change on the upcoming oil changes. So, they do tell you a story upon which you can take action if inclined to do so, and like you said for entertainment purposes and as others noted, for the TBN(?) / dilution analysis .

 

I've done 11 oil changes on my 03 4s since acquiring it in March 2019 and after posting the first 2 results (Mobil1) on the 996 forum which showed poor viscosity and oxidation levels Jake suggested switching to Driven 5w-40. All subsequent UOA have shown better levels on those 2 measures. Driven's Moly levels are also 7-8x higher than Mobil1 results. As for my 997 4.0, since the initial break-in period Jake suggested running LiquiMoly 5w-40. I've now received 5 LiquiMoly UOA and after the 4th one showed continued poor fuel dilution results Lake suggested running "an injector cleaner based on PolyEtherAmine". I found an STP injector cleaner than met that suggestion and added a bottle. Just had a UOA performed (11/2/22) post STP and 4725 miles. Fuel dilution had decreased but still elevated and Lake suggested continued use of a PEA based additive until FD level drops below 2%. I added another bottle of STP and will wait until next UOA to see the results.

 

@Optionman1 - Lake recommended I use an PEA based fuel system additive, albeit for a different use case and recommended Red Line SI-1. Did a quick bit of reading and it looks to have the highest concertation of PEA out of all the options out there so might be worth considering if the STP stuff doesn't help.

To answer the original question, I suppose the ideal scenario is where you don't have to take action because all numbers and trends look good. I find it interesting because I'm a nerd and I think it's a useful piece of data if you like to keep good records of the car. My records consist of receipts, repair timeline, photos and UOA. Heck, I even kept the boarding pass from when I flew out to get the car. Should you ever want to sell it I think it's a huge value add. I've noticed my fuel contamination slowly creep up and while still in the green I thought it was a matter of time as the car ages. When I replaced my AOS I took an opportunity to also do the injectors and the next UOA showed a decrease. This confirmed that replacing the injectors was a smart move and money well spent.

 

I looked up Red Line SI-1 but dont see where it says anything about PEA based, maybe i'm just missing it. STP has it right on the bottle.

 

Yeah, they have it a bit hidden but provides some detail on this datasheet - https://www.redlineoil.com/content/f...ner%20MSDS.pdf
30% to 50% PEA. Use it, don't use it - just another option for you.

 

I just do the UOA's for the self flagellation purposes. I need something to keep me up at night with all the "what ifs"? I must be a masochist somewhere deep inside the dark crevices of my mind. Having a 6 speed didn't provide enough of that, so I bought a PDK too.

 

Not exactly answering your question, but even if many have the opinion that a 10W-60 is too thick for these machines, it can be stated that the right bank of the MK1 models suffer from significantly increased temperature, especially when the car is driven hard and reaches higher oil-temperatures for longer periods. This is because cylinders 6 and 5 in particular require a high HTHS viscosity. Therefore, I drive this oil and have for almost 40,000km excellent analysis values, except for copper, which can not come with absolute certainty from the bearings and becomes less with each change. It was btw an explicit recommendation of the company that rebuilded my engine.

 

Just curious but I know Jake mandates new injectors in his rebuilds so presumably your 4.0 had to have come back from him with brand new injectors. So I am curious why they think cleaning the injectors is the answer. PEA is the best cleaner you can get for injectors but brand new OE injectors should not need to be cleaned, they are as clean as they will ever get new OE out of the box.

 

Initially I was using it to find a good oil that produced good results, but now that I've found the best lubricant line, I continue to do them to see if anything terrible has happened, but also to determine what the mileage change interval for a specific car should be. For example, my wife's 997 needs the oil changed every 4,000 miles as the reports get worse quickly after that interval. My supercharged 997 needs it changed every 3,000 miles or I can see the impact the longer run interval has on acidity and viscosity. I also use it to check silicon levels and determine when I need to clean and reoil my air filters.

If I got a report that showed really high aluminum, I would get in line with Jake for a rebuild while I continued to drive the car until my turn came up.

 

To be clear, though Jake has seen the first few UOA on the new engine (and expressed no concerns) it was Lake who recently suggested running injector cleaner. Jake wasn’t involved in the discussion.

I have zero mechanical knowledge when it comes to engines but I assumed the fuel dilution levels were more likely due to the new engine’s rings not being fully settled in yet, or whatever the proper term is.

Either way the injectors have over 20k miles on them, cleaning additive can’t hurt.