Quote:
Originally Posted by mchell
Anyone use Blackstone?
Useful or not?
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Yes, several times with various vehicles over the years. And in fact, a couple of times with my 1965 GTO. I had the engine completely gone through in 2015 to include rings and bearings, balancing, timing chain and gears, oil pump, etc. Although the engine was running just fine at the time, I decided to have it gone through just because I wanted to be sure everything was OK. Fixing what wasn't broken proved to be a mistake.
After driving the car 1500 miles on the new rebuild in 2015, I sent away for an oil analysis to Blackstone as a "checkup" for my rebuild. Blackstone indicated that they found concerning amounts of various metals in my oil sample. I sent this oil report to the engine builder, and he pretty much chalked it up to the fact that it was a fresh rebuild and that it should clear up. So, I changed the oil again and waited for the spring of 2016.
In 2016, I drove very few miles (about 500) and again sent the oil in for analysis. I got pretty much the same response from Blackstone. Although I drove fewer miles, the oil was still not looking great. Had I actually driven 1500 miles again instead of 500, Blackstone said we would see much more metal. Again, the engine builder wasn't very interested in what Blackstone had to say.
The years 2017, 2018, 2019 brought very few miles as life got very busy. No further oil analysis was performed. Into 2020 I go, and drive the car a little more. In late August, with about 3300 miles total on the 2015 rebuild, a rod bearing begins to knock. I was very fortunate that I got the engine shut off immediately as I was one block from home when the incident occurred.
The engine has since been disassembled, and the number 7 rod bearing is showing quite a bit of copper. All other mains and rod bearings look very good.
So, I am quite convinced that oil analysis is a good thing because it gave me an idea that there was indeed a problem back in 2015. I never drive the car hard, so I know it is not a case of abuse that caused the rod bearing failure.
I have a few aviation friends, and they are huge proponents of used oil analysis.