I have had my oil analyzed at every change and every midpoint between changes. Part of it is because I care very, very much about the health of the engine, but the other part is because I'm a stats geek and I want to get as many points of information as I can to help determine how the oil I use is doing its job.

 

For what it’s worth, whenever I switch to a new oil or coolant, for the first test cycle I always send in a virgin sample along with the used sample so I have a baseline to work from. Money well spent if the desire is to really understand how well the liquids are performing in addition to monitoring the health of the engine.

John

 

Thanks for posting this!

 

I wouldn't even know how or where to go to get oil analyzed.

 

All the information was literally posted above.

 

Basically you get a small container from Blackstone to hold oil. When the oil is draining you catch about 5 ounces of it. Put it in a bag, and in another container. You mail that to Blackstone with payment and wait for a report in a week or so.

Blackstone will mail you a free kit, call them or fill out the online form.
Their website has some good info on it.

 

I've been working with Titan Labs in CO. Purchase kits upfront for $13.50 each and mail the sample in. They will either e-mail your results to you or snail them to you, whatever you prefer. If they suspect a bad issue, they will call. I had them call me on a coolant issue we had in the airplane that had gotten WAY out of hand and their chem engineers worked with me to resolve it. Great company to work with.

John

 

I know from diesels coolant can lead to more difficulties than oil as long as you have a good change schedule. coolant on an aircraft engine? what are you running Packard Merlins, Allisons, RR Merlins?

 

I'm looking to see what he's talking about, I'm avionics for a reason I guess lol.

 

Packard Merlin 1650-7 with 500 top end. Coolant pump went galvanic on us and the electrolysis killed 17 gallons of coolant within 20 operational hours before we pieced the puzzle together. It sent aluminum and bronze through the system and tore out the coolant pump seal. Took me a full summers worth of flying (110 hours), two pump seals and numerous system flushes to finally get the entire system clean and healthy again…what a fiasco~~~ Since then I've switched to propylene glycol for safety reasons. Both propylene glycol and ethylene glycol work fine when the systems are good, clean and healthy. In the event of an inflight cooling system failure that fills the cockpit with vapor, the propylene is much less toxic to the pilot which is a good thing if you care about your friends

Putting a fresh 1650-7 (top to bottom) in it this weekend.

John

 

Yes I need to do a before and after sample. I'm glad several people are interested in the results though. Very curious to see how motorcraft 5w50 compares when I get that assessed later this year. And I have a set of castrol that will go in next. This summer should put a good 1500 track miles on various oil for some more good data. And good fun

 

Would be interested to see castrol results. That will be my next oil as I got a batch for a great price. If you have yours analyzed please post

 

Yes I was happy to see the results. I've always been a fan of M1 and it's good to see it actually performs well

 

I'm going to base it on track miles. I figure 100 track miles is probably 1000-1500 miles of street driving so I'll have fewer total miles on the next change if I'm able to get out more this year. And since I'm on motorcraft now I'm nervous about shearing quickly based on others results. Will probably have it changed and analyzed after about 500 track miles

 

Looks pretty good. Good to see your metal contents dropped a lot. Hard pulls on ramps and such put very little wear on the oil. It's constant high rpms and heat that starts to break it down. Thanks for posting though. The viscosity difference is very clear looking at your oil vs 5w50 I use, but makes me consider using lighter oil in the off season

 

Wow that sound like a major PITA, some on edge flying hours for sure. Sounds like you,re a mustang pilot. I was a Canadian commercial multi-engine land and sea pilot too long ago. The most interesting bird I had a go at was a Stearman. A friend of mine flew air tankers TBM's, A26, DC6 and few others. I got to hang around some of those machines - flew some forest fire spotting duties in those days - really enjoyed that.

Hope the new engine works out well.

 

To be honest with you I’ve never done oil analysis on any of the cars I’ve owned. I started out using what I believed then was the best quality oil on the market based on racing experience and the opinions and experiences of long time engine builders. I figured if it was good enough for the engines we were running it was good enough for my passenger vehicles. I used that brand and type of oil in a lighter viscosity in my ’86 F-150 from the start. I still have that truck and it now has 168k hard miles on it…no knocks and extremely low oil consumption. Same scenario for the ’03 Taurus which now has 182k miles on it and is going strong. All that said, with the better quality engines today it probably has less to do with type of oil verses frequency of change. There are lots of high mileage cars out there running strong that have never had high end oil in them…but have had very good scheduled MX. The oil I chose for the Mustang was based on my own personal historical data. At this point don’t see much point in having its oil analyzed unless I suspect an issue. The P-51 I take care of is another story for both oil and coolant. The engine alone costs more than most people’s homes and the radiator costs about 75% as much as the Mustangs we’re driving. The real trump card is, if there is an inflight failure, you don’t just pull off to the side of the road.

Nope, I’m not a pilot and never really had the desire to become one. I like the mechanical and technical parts of machines. I started out in auto racing at a young age, added snowmobiles, road race Karts, mortorcycles and in a moment of stupidity even a **** race boat along the way and finally added warbirds into the mix when I was about 23. I’ve been restoring and maintaining warbirds as a hobby for 27 years now on top of everything else. Life is good!

I have extremely high expectations for the new engine. I knew it was going to cost the organization part of the soft anatomy to have Jack Roush’s shop build it but I insisted on it for quality and safety. In my opinion they’re building the best pieces in the industry right now.

John

 

Yes the car mustangs are a lot less costly to run and maintain.


Sounds like a great job you have John.


When I get the chance I like to go to some museums in Europe and look at some of the old warbirds - my wife says for goodness sakes you've been looking at engines for over 4 hours now - can't we go shopping?

 

Oh ya...when all the expenses are totaled up the P-51 is around $900 per hour to operate. The fresh engine cost just under $250,000.

Not a job just a hobby. I've had offers from restoration shops to come work for them but none pay a decent living wage or they're located in BFE with nothing else to do for hundreds of miles but form parts and pound rivets...there's more to life than that! As long as I have a decent paying day job the airplanes will remain a volunteer hobby or side gig.

Racing is another story...that blood is really starting to boil again...this time Trans-Am has my attention.

Most gals don't understand the disease some of us guys are hopelessly infected with. There is no changing it and no cure...thankfully!

John

 

I will be sending in a sample around 5k so that I can see if I should change or can continue.