anth115

Hi everyone,

I have a 2006 C6 Z06 and wanted to share my Blackstone results as I am a little concerned about the titanium levels and would like more feedback on it.
The car has 51,000km (32k miles) and sees ~4 HPDE days at Mosport (high speed, high RPM).
Relevant mods/details are as follows:
- Bronze valve guides
- Stainless steel exhaust valves
- Brian Tooley double springs
- LPE 10.5qt tank with Aviaid tank baffle
- EE catch can
- Always run on 5W30. The oil sampled is Mobil 1. I have always used this except for the previous oil change (which was Castrol Edge; shown on my first sample) and Quaker State Ultimate Durability (in the car currently, after this sample was taken).
- No (known) oil pressure issues, runs great. Uses about 1/2qt per HPDE day, which I believe to be OK given the high RPM nature of the track.
- I incorrectly noted in the Blackstone report that the Ti intake valves were replaced; but in fact it was only the exhaust valves that were replaced - Ti intake valves are stock.

I have seen threads on here with people showing severe rod wear with only 12ppm of Ti, and others saying it's no big deal. I am glad that the ppm trend is flat for me so far, but I figured it may be helpful to solicit some feedback on this sooner than later. Blackstone seems to think I have nothing to worry about yet as there's no indication of bearing wear (see email response in the pic below).

Thanks
Anthony

SPDKLZ1

I would continue to monitor it and oil pressures. Maybe send in another sample a bit earlier next time. My first sample was 0 titanium then after heads/cam it was 7, 8, 4, 4 every 2k miles. Oil pressure has been very consistent since new and it runs great. I also have Brian Tooley dual springs and titanium retainers. It could also be coming from the retainers.

anth115

Thanks; anyone else have thoughts on this or their own results with Ti levels to share?

Unreal

I would be pulling an oil pan and check rods. WIth the number of ls7 rod failures, and how common it is becoming, any level of Ti in oil like that is concerning. I think CPR said they did 3 this month with bad rods. That is significant.

K-Spaz

My report shows 100 miles, but the reality is, it was more than that. The car was driven from Philly to my home and some more before I ever took a sample. This was after the previous owner said they'd just had the oil changed and the oil was clean enough I didn't question it, but I wasn't sure what the miles truly were. I need to send in another sample because now I do know the miles for sure.

Mine showed 0ppm, and that was good enough for me at any mileage. If you're showing some Ti, I'd call that cause for concern. If that Ti level starts increasing, it could make the R&R a whole lot more involved. Jmho...
This is what mine looked like.

Dirty Howie

How much oil does your catch can accumulate?
Do you have any of the sparkling fairy dust at bottom of your can? Empty can then look in sunlight at film left in bottom of can ....... do you see glitter? Take a picture.


DH

anth115

Will do tonight. The Elite Engineering can is about half full after 1 day/4 20 minute sessions.

Unreal

Best way is to take oil filter off and cut it open.

Any Ti dust will act basically as liquid sand paper and start destroying everything else in the motor. So I would be very cautious. Another person I just saw had a lifter go out, decided to pull motor to deal with it and found 2 bad rods with basically no indication, so now is looking at a completely new motor. This rod issue IMO is going to become as bad or worse than the head issue with cars with mileage.

Jayfabs

I’m seeing a lot of Rods rubbing these days. Mine were and it definitely ruins other parts.

Hib Halverson

I've been analyzing my LS7's oil since the car was new in 2012.

In spite of all the trouble I've had with Katech's Street Attack LS7 builds, one problem I've never seen is high titanium in wear metals.

In six oil samplings, two by ALS Tribiology and four by Blackstone, the Ti number was never more than 4PPM and that was only in the most recent sample in FEB2019. In all the rest, Ti was zero.

That yours is at 12, three times the max. I've seen with my engine, is worth changing the oil then sampling again in 3000 miles.

anth115

Thanks Hib & everyone. I'll definitely continue to check in before that as the car only sees 3k km/year (~1800 miles) and I like to do an oil change before storage.
The catch can did have some shiny specs in it but I couldn't get a pic - I forgot that I cleaned and emptied it prior to leaving the track this past weekend.
Having Ti from the spring retainers or the intake valves seems much easier to resolve than Ti from the rods... I'll continue to read up on this.