Just receive it this morning...I will scanned it tonight and here is some data.

Background : oil changed @ 3003 miles...mostly high way driving. Oil used, cheap castrol GTX.


Result:
Highs: Lead - 15ppm, normal - 13ppm
Calcium - 2170ppm, normal - 1470ppm (too much milk)
phophorus - 804ppm, normal - 757ppm
Zinc - 991ppm, normal - 891 ppm


their comment : everyting is good except lead, not a present problem yet, but should be monitored later.


TBN - 6.5, limit.... 2


conclusion : seems like my engine has a lot of mineral. Lead is a little bit high but 2 ppm over is pretty much nothing, where as 1ppm Pb is equal to 1000 folds of dilution of .1% lead solution

so....
0.1% lead = .4g of lead in 250ml of water.

1ppm of lead = 0.0004 g of lead in 250 ml of water. relativily a small amount of lead.

alright guys, thanks for reading my chemistry lesson.

The calcium, phosphorus and zinc are part of the additive package in the oil, so their being high is a good thing.

[Thankful to God that I get to respond to a non-CL/TL/blah blah blah post in this forum]

maxi-overdose,

Would you mind e-mailing me and attaching the full analysis results from the scanned image or going into more detail on their full comments etc?

In addition, e-mail me if you would like to be a part of the spreadsheet results, along with details on the history of your car (when purchased, oil history, how you drive, city/highway mix, miles per year, etc.)

Castrol GTX is probably the best dino oil to use on the VQ engines.....especially with a relatively "strong" 6.5 TBN value. That stuff would probably be good for 6,000 miles.....


Thanks,

Bill

[/Thankful to God that I get to respond to a non-CL/TL/blah blah blah post in this forum]

hey bill...that's what I am going to do tonight..they e-mail me the PDF and I have to print out and scanned it. I am already on Alex' oil project list. hope we can have it done soon.


and to iwannabmw or bill or anyone : how does calcium/zinc/etc provide help to the engine?

thx

so castrol is good dino oil? this is contary to a lot of what i've been hearing. I will take you guys's's's's opinions as expert though cause i haven't the patience for poring through oil analysis technobabble.

Can anyone recommend a good dino oil for a guy who drives his car hard/relatively short trips high rpm, also road races (very hard on car) and drags once in a while.

I'm more concerned with high load protection than long term durability, cause I change my oil fairly often.

Also, when is my car broken in enough for synthetic?

Thanks oil gurus.

I'm not a chemist, so I really don't know why they do, but I do know that zinc only comes into play when there is metal on metal contact, which is something you don't want to happen anyway. The calcium is more of a dispersant, which prevents sludge and dirt from grouping together. Rather, the deposits are held in suspension to be carried away and removed by the oil filter.

I'm sure there are other people on this board who know more details about the process, I'm still learning too

You're car is probably broken in enough now. It's possible to complete the break in process entirely with synthetic, just look at the C5 vette, Porsche, BMW and Mercedes. I usually recommend people wait until the first regularly scheduled oil change and switch over then.

If you roadrace, I wouldn't use dino oil at all unless it was changed recently before the event and then right after. After looking at my analysis comparing Mobil 1 and Amsoil for the same interval under similar conditions, included road courses, I think the Mobil was starting to show signs of being "tired".

I had 3200 miles at my first oil change, put in valvoline dino 5-30w and went to a track event, put on roughly 60 track miles and 400 highway miles. this was last weekend, I plan to change the oil in a few days at about 3800 miles at which point I think I will change to synthetic per your recommendation. thanks

it doesnt necessary mean that GTX is a good oil. just based on my driving habit (I do high rpm and I am heavy footed) and my drive distance is about 70 miles per day, from stop and go to 80mph. 80% highway and 20% local...but the high way is so packed....anyways, it seems suitable for my type of driving and environment.

I changed my oil very often...always between 2500 to 3000....this time that the test based on has the longest duration sicne I want to see how well can the GTX hold up.


and thx, iwannabmw.