Engines are useful. So keeping them running well is of high importance to me. As a scientist I like to measure how things are operating over time rather than waiting for bad noises. A couple ways you can test the operating condition of your engine is to measure the vacuum or checking the compression levels. A third way is to have the oil analyzed. I chose BlackStone Labs to do my analysis. You send them a sample and they send back a detailed report of its contents and a technical analysis of what that means. And all this for only $20.00!

Test Results
  145768
(Feb 2006)		 142875
(Sep 2005)		 139616
(Jan 2005)		 136210
(Apr 2004)		 132121
(May 2003)		 129077
(Dec 2002)		 126174
(Sep 2002)		 Normal
Aluminum 4 4 3 8 4 4 4 5
Chromium 2 2 1 2 1 1 3 1
Iron 14 22 17 62 12 12 10 14
Copper 3 4 3 8 2 2 2 18
Lead 4 5 3 15 2 2 1 9
Tin 1 1 0 1 0

1

 2 2
Molybdenum 83 75 62 77 90 57 46 48
Nickel 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Manganese 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 2
Silver 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Titanium 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Potassium 8 6 6 16 40 18 6 1
Boron 89 101 114 138 141 107 95 43
Silicon 7 8 8 20 9 13 13 16
Sodium 9 7 9 22 37 16 13 41
Calcium 2925 2841 2891 3271 3364 2692 1988 1435
Magnesium 17 16 16 32 35 67 325 493
Phosphorus 751 729 648 741 857 664 670 800
Zinc 857 845 708 884 997 762 839 950
Barium 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0
Sus Viscosity 210ºF 58.0 60.7 62.8 59.4 60.8 60.0 59-68
Flash-point(ºF) 415 390 410 405 405 375 >365
Fuel(%) <0.5 <0.5 <0.5 <0.5 <0.5 <0.5 <2.0
Antifreeze(%) 0.0 0.0 ? ? 0.0 0.0 0.0
Water(%) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 <0.05
Insolubles(%) 0.3 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.2 0.3 <0.6
There is a lot of columns on that table. They have a nice "what does this mean" page.

Oil Report Blog

  • Jan 2005:Yea, finally a report that I won't panic until the next one over. Things are finally looking good in my engine, which is good timing as I got the manual tranny in and the new suspension goes in very soon. After that its down pipe and crazy driver time!
  • Apr 2004:Ack lots of bearing wear indicators this time. They suggested coolant was getting into the oil. And in fact I found coolant was leaking out of the plugs on the top of the head then back in through the spark plugs. That is fixed now, hopefully not too much damage done, will find out next test.
  • May 2003:Again the levels of potassium and sodium are present and now in greater numbers. I have a had a bit of waterfall noise for a couple 1000 miles but antifreeze hasn't dropped and nothing else. There are some other elevated levels but I added a half of quart of fresh make-up oil close to changing time. I guess watch those on future reports, bleed the system of air then try a pressure and or compression test.
  • Dec 2002:My second report those went away but now potassium and sodium, in antifreeze, were present so I will now be watching those.
  • Sep 2002:For my first report I had a small concern on my report about rings, but I did a compression test and they were all fine.