I just did my first oil change and sent a sample of the factory fill off for analysis. The oil was run 2037 miles and I changed it because I was finally down about 1 quart and didn't want to dilute the factory oil before the analysis. My car was delivered with the oil overfilled and it took about 1000-1200 miles before it was down to the full mark on the dipstick.

The analysis was done by Blackstone Labs, cost was 20$ plus the postage to send the sample. There are many other labs available to choose from, so this is not an ad for Blackstone. No affiliation....blah, blah, blah.

Test results were as follows:

Aluminum, 9 ppm
Chromium, 5 ppm
Iron, 30 ppm
Copper, 19 ppm
Lead, 3 ppm
Tin, 2 ppm
Molybdenum, 551 ppm
Nickel, 0 ppm
Manganese, 1 ppm
Silver, 0 ppm
Titanium, 0 ppm
Potassium, 9 ppm
Boron, 130 ppm
Silicon, 49 ppm
Sodium, 8 ppm
Calcium, 1750
Magnesium, 4 ppm
Phosphorus, 745 ppm
Zinc, 817 ppm
Barium, 1 ppm

SUS Viscosity @ 210 F, 48.7 - low end of 20 weight range
Flashpoint °F, 335 - should be greater than 355
Fuel %, 1.5 - should be less than 1.0
Antifreeze %, 0.0 - should be 0
Water %, 0.0 - should be less than 0.1
Insolubles %, 0.2 - should be less than 0.6

Blackstone flagged the aluminum, chromium, iron, copper, silicon, flashpoint and fuel as out of range but typical for an engine being broken in.

The aluminum, chromium, iron, and copper are all wear metals. Persistent high readings would mean abnormal wear. The copper can also leach out of the oil coolers if they have copper cores.

Silicon can come from sealers or from dust passing the air filter.

The high fuel level is a result of blowby and is probably also responsible for the low flashpoint. It will be interesting to see if this comes down in the future or proves to be the nature of the beast.

I was curious to see if Mazda really was filling the car with 20 weight oil. Looks that way. The molybdenum level is very high and is part of the extreme-pressure/anti-wear (EP/AW) additive package. This seems to be typical of the factory fill for various Japanese cars. The boron is also part of the EP/AW package.

The zinc and phosphorus are from ZDDP (another EP/AW additive) and the level is consistent with the phosphorus limits for this weight SL or GF-3 oil.

The calcium is also part of the additive package.

I plan to keep up with the tests to get a trend established so that I have a baseline for making decisions about brand, viscosity, etc. in the future. I only drive the car about 800 miles a month, so data will be slow coming from me.

For what it is worth, I re-filled with 5W-20 Pennzoil. Most of the 5W-20 oils that meet the Ford spec are going to be better than average oils. I don't want to start some kind of flame war about which brand is best, what viscosity is correct, or whether synthetic oil is OK. Guess I'm just hoping a few other owners will also be **** about their oil and help grow the database.

Besides, if you weren't spending 20 bucks on an oil analysis you'd probably just be stuffing it in some stripper's g-string
:D

yrotory

 

Very nice! Thanks for doing the work and sharing.

My theory on the fuel is that the RX-8 runs very rich and dilutes the oil.

My other theory is that with Maurice's fuel map mod our engines will last longer because there will be less fuel to wash lubrication and of course less oil dilution.

Vince

 

Nice job! I'll be especially interested in this part:

 

Note : Silicon is an anti-foaming agent, usually the treat rate is 5-15 ppm if I remember correctly

Silicon is also in gas for the same reason, probably accounting for more of what your oil has in it

 

yrotary,

Thanks for the post. I am curious, do you send your make, model and mileage along with the oil sample to Blackstone ?

Any other info on Blackstone will be appreciated.

 

Fuel dilution of the oil has been an issue in rotaries for a while now. I will be curious to see if this does improve as the car is broken in, or if will follow the trend of past rotaries.

By the way, one of the reasons I'm using Royal Purple in my FD is that it retains its lubrication properties better than non-synthetic oil in the face of fuel dilution. For what its worth! :D

jds

 

RenesisPower,

Blackstone's web site is http://www.blackstone-labs.com

They will send a free sample kit. It comes with a form that requests information about the vehicle, the oil used and how long it was used.

There is a comments section, and next time I will point out that this is a rotary engine. They called the engine a "4-cyl." and mentioned unseated rings as the cause of the fuel dilution . Gives me the idea that they may not be too familiar with the car.

yrotory

 

Here are my results from Wear Check International who operate in Asia/Australia/Europe/N.A. etc. They have slightly different measures in three sections. I took my 8 to the 1st change recommended in manual (5K mi.'s/8K kms.) and all looks good:
WEAR: "All component wear rates are normal"
Aluminum 2.4
Chromium 7.5
Iron 70
Copper 29
Lead 1.3
Tin 0
Nickel 0
Silver 0
Titanium 0
CONTAMINATION: "There is no indication of any contamination in the components"
Potassium 0
Silicon 49
Sodium 5.9
Soot ---
Fuel pct. 1.0
Glycol <.02
Water <.1
Sulfation 56
Nitration 33
OIL CONDITION: "The condition of the oil is acceptable for the time in service. The viscosity index is 217"
Molybdenum 519
Boron 137
Sodium 5.9
Calcium 1734
Magnesium 8.4
Phosphorus 624
Zinc 883
Barium 1.8
Sulphur 1850
Oxidation 42
Viscosity @ 40 deg. C 28.5
Viscosity @ 100 deg. C 6.9

I am not recommending keeping to manual oil changes and intend to change at 4K kms (half way point) at my own expense.

Any comments appreciated. I support yrotory's effort at tracking
(charting) and exchanging info. in some way. I also think it a very good baseline for any serious owner.

 

gord,

Thanks for posting an additional data point. Looks like our results are similar.

Seems as though your factory fill was also 20 weight oil. Is Mazda recommending 5W-20 oil in Oz too?

yrotory

 

yrotory; I was in Saudi Arabia when I joined Forum and returned in July
to Ontario, (north of Toronto), Canada--same Mazda recommendations up here. Good Luck, & hope we get others.

 

Hear's a report from my yellow RX-8 at 1250 miles.

Vince

 

can someone translate this!

 

very interesting....

 

1st oil analysis aren't something to make a judgement on(unless coolant shows up).

If you add up all the "wear metals" and total the PPM, thats a helluva lot of crap to be injecting as a lubricant(hint apex seal/housing wear). The 7.5k recommended oil change interval will have 3-4k miles worth of driving with dirty oil being injected into the engine.
These engines will end up slowly loosing compression. Oil change interval is the difference between the engine go 300k miles or 50k miles before wearing out.

The UOAs will prove that more frequent maintenance intervals are needed. Fuel dilution is bad and can only be prevented by changing the oil more frequently.


If you had a choice of running oil with 0-20 ppm of scratchy wear metals vs 40-100ppm, which would you choose?

 

I received my results back from Blackstone and will add my break-in values to the mix. I'll probably use a mazda dealership for the 5k oil change and won't have a sample to test then, but will probably change at 7500 and have that tested.

This was after 1600mi on the factory fill.

Aluminum, 5 ppm
Chromium, 5 ppm
Iron, 30 ppm
Copper, 16 ppm
Lead, 2 ppm
Tin, 3 ppm
Molybdenum, 570 ppm
Nickel, 0 ppm
Manganese, 0 ppm
Silver, 0 ppm
Titanium, 0 ppm
Potassium, 6 ppm
Boron, 128 ppm
Silicon, 54 ppm
Sodium, 8 ppm
Calcium, 1915
Magnesium, 5 ppm
Phosphorus, 736 ppm
Zinc, 934 ppm
Barium, 2 ppm

SUS Viscosity @ 210 F, 50.3
Flashpoint °F, 370
Fuel %, < 0.5
Antifreeze %, 0.0
Water %, 0.0
Insolubles %, 0.5