DanW
Well-Known Member
Well, the good news is that I did my second oil change tonight at about 3250 miles since the first change. I swapped out the Mobil 1 EP 0w20 for Mobil 1 AP 0w20. I also discovered that the Pentastar is going to twist any and all oil filters, no way around it. The Fram Ultra Guard's pleats are backed by metal mesh. There are no filters I've seen that are stronger. Only a Mobil 1 filter has similar construction. It still twisted a bit. (I'll post a photo tomorrow night.) The pleats were not compromised, though and had no tears or apparent stress. It still looked better than the original Mopar filter did at 2,000 miles.
Anyway, I made one big mistake. I forgot to get a sample of the outgoing oil for analyisis, from the middle of the drain stream. After cursing myself a bit, I sampled the trickle from the end of the draining process. That's not recommended, but what the heck. I'm going to send it in anyway. It may not be ideal or even recommended, but it will at least tell me how the viscosity held up, which should be just fine after only 3,000 miles on a 15,000 mile rated oil.
I'll be running the M1 AP oil until mid October, when I'll change it out before going to Moab. It won't need it, but I like the idea of fresh oil when I'm going to be doing lots of crawling.
I'm going to ask Blackstone what they think of sending this end of stream (trickle) sample. Unless they give me good reason to think it is worthless, then I'll go ahead and send it and post the results when I get them. I'm expecting wear metals to still be a bit high, although lower than the factory oil. These engines take a few oil changes to get the break-in done and the by products of it out of the system. I expect the viscosity to be still solidly a 20 weight, with no shearing. Fuel dilution will be extremely low, as is typical in the Pentastar, and also because I don't often take short trips where the engine doesn't get fully warmed up. Silicones should start trending downward, too. I won't get a TBN number because it makes no sense after only 3k miles on the 15k rated oil. There will be plenty of TBN left.
The 3.6 seemed to agree with the M1 EP. It didn't have any ticks or noise, such as from the valves. It was smooth throughout the run. First impression with the new AP oil is the same. We shall see.
Oh, I also put another Fram Ultra Guard in there. I'd love to see the rest of you post pics of your oil filters along with how many miles on them. I'm just curious as to how much these Pentastars abuse them.
Anyway, I made one big mistake. I forgot to get a sample of the outgoing oil for analyisis, from the middle of the drain stream. After cursing myself a bit, I sampled the trickle from the end of the draining process. That's not recommended, but what the heck. I'm going to send it in anyway. It may not be ideal or even recommended, but it will at least tell me how the viscosity held up, which should be just fine after only 3,000 miles on a 15,000 mile rated oil.
I'll be running the M1 AP oil until mid October, when I'll change it out before going to Moab. It won't need it, but I like the idea of fresh oil when I'm going to be doing lots of crawling.
I'm going to ask Blackstone what they think of sending this end of stream (trickle) sample. Unless they give me good reason to think it is worthless, then I'll go ahead and send it and post the results when I get them. I'm expecting wear metals to still be a bit high, although lower than the factory oil. These engines take a few oil changes to get the break-in done and the by products of it out of the system. I expect the viscosity to be still solidly a 20 weight, with no shearing. Fuel dilution will be extremely low, as is typical in the Pentastar, and also because I don't often take short trips where the engine doesn't get fully warmed up. Silicones should start trending downward, too. I won't get a TBN number because it makes no sense after only 3k miles on the 15k rated oil. There will be plenty of TBN left.
The 3.6 seemed to agree with the M1 EP. It didn't have any ticks or noise, such as from the valves. It was smooth throughout the run. First impression with the new AP oil is the same. We shall see.
Oh, I also put another Fram Ultra Guard in there. I'd love to see the rest of you post pics of your oil filters along with how many miles on them. I'm just curious as to how much these Pentastars abuse them.
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