Blackstone findings .. looking for advice

Looking for advice!

Just had my latest oil report from Blackstone, my metals are trending like the image below.

Note that this last sample was actually from the filter, simply got distracted by hangar visitors and missed my chance to grab some from draining.

170 hours on the engine, not sure why that's not on there. Also, there could have been more oil usage since last check, it says 1.5 but it's probably more like 2-3, but certainly lower than previously.

They commented: "No one thing is terribly out of line, but this is certainly a departure from the way things were going, so it's worth watching. Any high temps? Oil use is down a bit, so maybe metals are just less diluted."

No high oil temps, things seem to be running quite normally.

Being fairly new at what numbers are normal and what to be concerned with I figured I'd get some advice from you good folks

well, had a quick look at your numbers. Lead (and alu) is the only one that really increased... using any additives?
Rest looks ok to me, though, as usual (doing quite a few of those number crunching analysis right now...), the engine is not being flown enough. 50hrs/year is THE absolute minimum.

Guys, go out and fly, gas’s never been that cheap

DeeCee 57 said:

well, had a quick look at your numbers. Lead (and alu) is the only one that really increased... using any additives?

Click to expand...

Yep, Camguard.

Seems like I fly all the time, at least once usually twice per week. Problem is it's usually about an hour around the area. I'm heading into heavy IFR practice mode that should get the virtual hobbs turning.

Also, at what levels are these numbers considered a problem? I've been searching, not coming up with much.

Thanks for the advice!

Seems to me the filter would tend to concentrate any particulates, so if you got your sample from there, you might see higher concentrations of that stuff than if you took a plain 'ol oil sample.

pretty normal

I am in the oil business and use oil analysis to extend drain intervals all the time. The numbers for limits are in a range and change for the unit your are measuring ex. engine, gear box or trany. Example engine: Iron 100ppm, copper 40ppm and silicon (dirt) 20ppm. There are usually several areas on the report. 1. wear metals ex. iron ,alum, copper ,tin etc. In this case iron would be cylinders and copper would be bearings. 2. additive package ex. calcium, magn, phosphorus and zinc. This would change with different oil used. 3. contaminates
ex. silicon - dirt mainly.Blacksone and other just list them all in one column and it makes it seem like they are all wear metals, could be a little confusing to a first timer. Also lead is from 100 low lead (ya). With oil analysis you don't excite about one , your look for trends. Your looks good. You are still setting your trends. Blackstone is nice as they use their data base of your engine to compare to. Since the 390 is still relative new, compared to say the 360 your model numbers are of a smaller sample. Here is ex. what you would find if you had not flown for an extended period like 6 to 8 weeks.Elevated iron and you would not be worried because that is from the cylinders sitting perfectly normal. You will love your IFR rating.

Awesome info folks, thank you!

Delete this data point. Worthless.

bkervaski said:

Awesome info folks, thank you!

Click to expand...

Forget about this sample. The filter sample completely botched the results. (not a personal comment, just related to a representative sample) The oil must come from the drain stream after a few seconds to clear the stream.

Or it could come from a well maintained tap into the oil manifold.

You are lucky it looks this good, pitch these results!!!

BillL said:

Forget about this sample. The filter sample completely botched the results. (not a personal comment, just related to a representative sample) The oil must come from the drain stream after a few seconds to clear the stream.

Or it could come from a well maintained tap into the oil manifold.

You are lucky it looks this good, pitch these results!!!

Click to expand...

Bill beat me to it. Taking a sample from the filter is bound to give results that are out of wack with the rest of the samples.

Seeing your iron (Fe) up in the 30's makes me feel better. Mine ran around 12-16 ppm for 500 hrs, then crept up to a little over 30. Had me worried, but seems to have settled in there now. I'm still watching it closely.

My opinion, stop wasting money on something that does nothing but cause anxiety
You want to help your engine, change the oil more often.

Walt said:

My opinion, stop wasting money on something that does nothing but cause anxiety
You want to help your engine, change the oil more often.

Click to expand...

Exactly. I stopped this sampling 2 years ago. My wife loves me even more for it.

Start sampling if/when you have a reason to.

Your oil filter tells you all you need to know. I've sent oil samples of engines with known bad problems just to humor myself and they did not detect anything. In that case oil filter was full of shavings. Cylinder ring chunks fell on the floor when I pulled the problem cylinder.

These air pumps make small amounts of metal all the time.

Bill, oil analysis is one of the many tools you can use to monitor the health of that engine of yours.
Would not start fretting on the account of parameters based on a single analysis, especially when all other inspections are in the green.

Oil analysis is more a trend monitor than a definite decision tool.

rocketbob said:

Your oil filter tells you all you need to know. I've sent oil samples of engines with known bad problems just to humor myself and they did not detect anything. In that case oil filter was full of shavings. Cylinder ring chunks fell on the floor when I pulled the problem cylinder.

These air pumps make small amounts of metal all the time.

Click to expand...

Exactly,,,Had the same issue. I sent off the sample before I had time to check out the filter.

When the report came back with all parameters in range you can probably imagine my shock when I opened the filter and it contained almost a teaspoon full of steel slivers.

birddog486 said:

...sent off the sample...When the report came back with all parameters in range...I opened the filter and it contained almost a teaspoon full of steel slivers.

Click to expand...

+1!

Same thing happened to me. Oil analysis report was perfect at the exact same time I was getting a lot of metal out of the oil filter due to a spalling lifter. Engine subsequently required a tear down.

BillL said:

Forget about this sample. The filter sample completely botched the results. (not a personal comment, just related to a representative sample) The oil must come from the drain stream after a few seconds to clear the stream.

Or it could come from a well maintained tap into the oil manifold.

You are lucky it looks this good, pitch these results!!!

Click to expand...

Absolutely correct! You sample from the filter is contaminated. A few years back our mechanics did exactly the same thing on a Navajo. Both samples came back off the scale! Resample was normal.

Thanks, guys.

I'll continue doing the analysis, it's cheap, and the trends are useful and the folks at Blackstone are great.

But now I'll temper that with caution and start checking the oil filter periodically.

scrollF4 said:

Start sampling if/when you have a reason to.

Click to expand...

The trouble with that strategy is that you won't have any trend or history to compare it to. $100 a year seems to me a reasonable amount to spend to get some additional data of your engine, this is one less hamburger

But I do second Walt's suggestion of more frequent oil change. We need to remind ourselves that not only there is Tac time recommendation for oil change but also a calendar time as well which is 4 months.