Oil Analysis: JDM ITR engine, Motul X-Lite 0w30, 9,756mi
 

My Car: 1996 Acura Integra SE, 1997 B18C JDM ITR motor (totally stock inside) with somewhere around 105,000 miles on the engine at the time of the change.

The Oil: Motul X-Lite 0w30 running through a NAPA Gold oil filter. This oil was run for 9,756 miles and ~6.6 months, during which time 4.2 quarts of make-up oil was used.

Relevant mods: Amsoil EaA air filter on a no-name short ram intake, magnetic oil drain plug.

Other: The PCV inlet (for the line connecting the valve cover to the intake) on the intake arm is, like all aftermarket intakes for these cars, not slash cut...it just goes in at a right angle on the arm. After doing this oil change, I also modified that as such (where the bottom of the inlet is pointing towards the throttle body) in an effort to hopefully help crankcase pressures and reduce oil consumption. We'll see if it did anything at the next change.

On to the results! The column with a sample date of 8/25/08 is GC (Castrol Syntec 0w30) and 2/9/08 is Motul X-Cess 5w40, both on the same engine.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../X-LiteUOA.jpg

Yeah, I may have burned a decent amount of oil (it's a VTEC engine that sees VTEC a good bit...so of course it's going to burn oil), but this stuff still performed fantastically. My gas mileage was great throughout this OCI (Oil Change Interval) as was the smoothness of the engine and the consistency of how the oil burned.

I am currently running another fill of Motul X-Lite 0w30 and plan on taking it out to somewhere in the 10,500-11,000 mile range with complete confidence. If anyone's looking for PROPER oil for their car, I couldn't recommend this stuff better. The fact that I got similar or lower levels of wear metals as before with running the oil over 2k miles longer really says something.

Take THAT all you people insisting on 3-4k mile oil change intervals even on synthetic oils ;)

For those of you looking for a little bit more technical info, check out my post over on the Bob Is The Oil Guy forums, where you can also find links to my UOAs (Used Oil Analyses) for the last couple of changes I've run (Castrol Syntec 0w30, Motul X-Cess 5w40, and Amsoil TSO 0w30).

Re: Oil Analysis: JDM ITR engine, Motul X-Lite 0w30, 9,756mi
 

Nice. unfortunately there seem to be mainly two camps on this site. 1. kids who could care less about oil. 2. Stubborn old men who will still insist on 3k oil changes. I use whatever syn is on sale and my oci's are 6k's of hard drivin.

Re: Oil Analysis: JDM ITR engine, Motul X-Lite 0w30, 9,756mi
 

Have you ever had an oil analysis done? That could tell you if what you're using is actually doing well. It likely is, because the majority of synthetics out there nowadays are pretty good, but it's always good to check, also so you can see if the engine itself is more or less healthy internally.

Re: Oil Analysis: JDM ITR engine, Motul X-Lite 0w30, 9,756mi
 

How much does an Oil analysis cost ? This is interesting info. I run mineral based oil with an OIC of 1500 to 2K (turboed stock=blow by kills the oil whether its syn or not) but Am about to rebuild my dd and have been thinking about oil choice.

Re: Oil Analysis: JDM ITR engine, Motul X-Lite 0w30, 9,756mi
 

$23 or so for the analysis, check out blackstone laboratories and do some reading at www.bobistheoilguy.com. This is terrific, nothing like 11,000 mile OCI's! A TBN test is a good idea too, it tells you how much longer you could use your oil.

Re: Oil Analysis: JDM ITR engine, Motul X-Lite 0w30, 9,756mi
 

I have only used synthetic for the last 10 years on all my cars. I change it about every 10k and have never had a problem. Synthetic oil *is* that much better than conventional oil.

Re: Oil Analysis: JDM ITR engine, Motul X-Lite 0w30, 9,756mi
 

nice zinc count!!

Re: Oil Analysis: JDM ITR engine, Motul X-Lite 0w30, 9,756mi
 

finally some hard data to back up what i've been telling people. Good call on proper oil/viscosity man.

Re: Oil Analysis: JDM ITR engine, Motul X-Lite 0w30, 9,756mi
 

THANK YOU!


Thanks! hah that, along with calcium and phosphorous are part of the additive package in the oil...which explains why they're higher than the "normal" (whatever that is).


Yeah a good 0w30 is seriously the way to go.

heh want some more hard data?

My engine running:
- Castrol Syntec 0w30 ("German Castrol")
- Motul X-Cess 5w40 (less stellar, but still good)

aaaand tons of other UOAs (Used Oil Analyses)

Re: Oil Analysis: JDM ITR engine, Motul X-Lite 0w30, 9,756mi
 

that zinc amount seems to be a good number compared to the other metals.. exactly how did it increase though?..

and what are the measurements for these numbers? this is interesting

Re: Oil Analysis: JDM ITR engine, Motul X-Lite 0w30, 9,756mi
 

Check my post right before yours. The increased zinc is a result of this oil's additive package containing more of it than previous oils.

These numbers are in parts per million (PPM). So for every million parts of oil, my sample showed 9 parts iron...so 9/1,000,000ths of the oil sample was pure iron.