i have four ecu's... my dealer never knew

 

Soooo, I got an add oil light today at 285 miles. I have feeling I under filled since I don’t have a level surface at my house. Normally, as mentioned in a very old post of mine, I would have carbon flecking on the back of the wagon which I always attributed to blow by but that idea was contradicted by others in that thread. I have not had any smoking or flecking and will check to see that filtercap and drain plug are tight in the morning. After that, I will use xentry on a flat surface to verify my oil.

I also had little to no flecking left after checkvalves and pcv.

When I put in the 5-50 I did not go to 9.5 and think I should have. I added slightly under nine…which depending, can be low. I was waiting to get on a flatter surface to verify before adding.

I think it will be raining tomorrow so I’ll likely report back on Wednesday. This would be more oil use than ever as I normally get 1500 plus before adding under hard driving conditions. Oil level was verified as low on the dipstick when I stopped at a gas station on my drive today to the eastern shore which was about 140mi.

 

Step one. Read if the oil is quarts or liters.

The castrol 5w50 came in individual quarts. The driven oil I flushed with was also in quarts. I have been using Motul jugs so long that I ASSumed I was pouring liters.

So the first time I filled with just under 9quarts with Driven. I pulled out just over eight 8 liters as measured in the waste oil pan, then added back only 8 quarts of Castrol. So I started at least one quart low depending if you like 9-9.5.

Even though the surface I use is not level, it is always the same place, and relative. I add the correct amount of oil, check the stick, it reads a bit high and I’m good. This time i did not do a hot cycle check and the oil is thicker so likely gave me a reading higher than my normal oil, given a similar wait time.

Something to look out for if we are to move to new oils during these tests.

 

As I consider what oil to order for the next oil change, I thought adding these charts to this thread might be interesting. I’m historically not a fan of the Mobil one before the sp rating was recently added. Could these charts indicate Mobil one fs 5w50 could be the best choice? It’s now sp rated though a 229.3 oil. We know 229.5 requires a fleece filter for longevity, but does a 229.3 still flow well through a fleece filter? Of course none of us should be considering a 10-25k OCI. Are fleece and paper still available for these cars, or just fleece? I’d have to assume fleece lasts longer but is it also a difference in porosity?

 

We share the same rational understanding

I too am looking for my next oil in 5w50 SP... I think this is the sweet spot for ultimate balance - Not too high not to low viscosity - Good average value over temperature range for normal driving.
(track/race is way different requirements).

ExxonMobil giant is extremely well qualified of course for great lubricants - It's up to us to match our needs


Lake Jr's lab results

Let's have a good look to compare these numbers... many different oils.... not apple to apple.

Any 5w50 SP is a good choice ... how many other matches, perhaps in heavy-duty grade for stability.

​​​​​

 

I wrote a response last night, but not sure that I never hit send.… or it’s in a different thread

I’m wondering if the Mobil one FS 5W 50 is different than the Mobil one 5w50 in this test. Will the FS give similar shear results to the FS 40 shown. That could make it slightly better than the castrol. Castrol 5w50 shears down to 45ish, and the Mobil 40 shears down to about 37ish. Probably splitting hairs if remaining above 40 with the right filter and oci.

Any thoughts on paper vs fleece on these 229.3 oils?

 

yeah .... paper is for bathroom!

Only FLEECE going forward!
Quality fleece filters are built with multiple layers not to clog up during extended intervals with plenty of burned oil residues.

Each of the multiple layer has different filtration granularity to trap increasingly smaller particle with good flow characteristics.

Paper is legacy product for economy FRAM grade.

Every oil is batch and every oil specs are different. The published numbers are a good estimation.

The W40 vs. w50 numbers are not equal at all.
That's why we moving up to get better oil pressure, less chance to burn oil with higher smoke temp.

Yesterday I started looking for great new oil and specifically:
the smoke point temperature
the viscosity at 100C


It looks like Mob1, BP-CASTROL and MOTUL have modern SP chemistry in 5w50 (non-Race-oils/ZDDP application).

SP Chemistry


(my current 15w40 oil for comps)

The key for good oil stock is to not shear into w30 then it can keep cooling.
✌️

 

New M278 cylinder scoring video


My thoughts: replacing the injector and ECU was probably unnecessary, he didn't say in the video if he inspected the original ECU for oil on the plugs/pins before replacing the injector and ECU. Also, he resolved the CEL misfire on cylinder 5 but it's only delaying the inevitable with that level of cylinder scoring on 5 and 6.

Merry Christmas to all.

 

Yes, as noted in the other thread, the cross-hatched bores in this video place a shadow of doubt on the alleged M278-iron-liner topic. The engine in the video is before the alleged changeover point to iron liners, yet has cross-hatched bores which are consistent with iron liners.

 

Continued...

Update - So, what have I done and what are the results.

Sidebar - Ive been doing spring Maintenance of my two vehicles because Im supercommuting currently while building a business. Rear pads, rear tires, Air filters inside and out, oil, and now coils and plugs, boost pressure sensor, and a map sensor while I was in there on top of the throttle body.
I found a cheap launch creader a few weeks ago and then promptly erased my transmission and wet clutch..... Shout out to Mercedes Specialists in Westminster MD for a quick and easy fix, costing only an hour. They were new to me but I could not get through teach in my slightly hilly area. Fantastic service.

Back to the cylinder walls.

So you may have seen me chiming in here and there about using cleaners to try and rectify my two wettest cylinders, and then remove the ceratec deposits, ultimately from sticking rings. This thread was the start of tracking what I would do.

So above you see my initial use of cleaners. I have since put 5000 miles on the car. In that time I have had the solenoid plugged back in for about half the time due to finishing out a warranty last year and then unplugging again, just a few weeks ago. I used castrol 5/50, changed to Pennzoil 5/40 for the warranty period, and then just put in some mobil 5/50, sticking with SP and NO ADDITIVES. Ive changed the oil roughly five or six times including the start of the thread. Ive used the Proline LM flush two times, one bottle each time (weaker than rec, just due to me being cheap, not worry. The pictures from the first flush were up above, and the last flush a few weeks ago are included below. Besides the flushes, Ive used two bottles of Techron, and one bottle of redline since initially doing the berryman's. I also had my valves cleaned during that warranty work.

While I was changing plugs and coils I figured it was the perfect time for a picture check in. Any guesses as to if any of what I have done have made a difference? Did I mess up my cylinder walls? What happened....? Do I regret it? Boy I wish they made Restore and Protect for us, as its been great in my LX..

Well, I had never changed my coils and my plugs dont have many miles but were due because the plugs were dirty 5k miles ago and figured maybe the cleaners may not have worked. I put the old plugs back in for a proper test where the only changed variables were the cleaners. Yes I watched Motor Oil GEEK, but there's no R and P for us and he made the statement of understanding that us Euros need a solution as well. I also continued to use a mix of top tier and non top tier, as Id normally do....as my gas bills are currently insane so I dont chase top tier as much.

Here we go...


Fuel injectors are noticeably cleaner. The Ceratec valve deposits are considerably cleaner and now not building, nice there's no additives anymore.



EVERY cylinder wall is DRY

All of the cylinder walls look GREAT, and EVERY piston is significantly cleaner....Look at that QR code..


The dark carbon is turning to white ash and disappearing.


OOH Shiny. Yes the spark plugs have always been clocked correctly.



Ceratec reduction...


And below, the results from the flush after 5k miles, which was probably 2-3k on the oil.






So, I made the right choice, for me, and will continue to cautiously move forward. Feel free to ask me any questions. Im not here to debate, but share my experience of a controlled visible outcome.

What have I learned? Ceratec and its associated chemicals are absolutely terrible for any engine that has thin low tension piston rings that might clog on their own anyway. It's not cool in that LM didnt have "any knowledge" of this happening and is complete BS. There's a reason LSP laughs at the statistics of LM in his testing....cause he knows it's not the best, and not even good or average compared to today's average SP oils. Stick with plain SP with no extras additives and you might not have the issue I did...as I was wrong in my first post saying additives might be needed, as I think the data disagrees with that...other than these cleaners of course Thankfully I caught it and found a working solution.

I'll update again sooner since I will start piling on files comparatively to my past few years. My lx is my daily but this is my slightly more economical car right now for long drives now that the weather has turned.

 

Seeing your piston QR Code stamp is amazing. Your walls are in mint condition.


genuine piston QR Code

You've got carbon chunkies trapped in your filter presumably coming off your pistons. A step in the right direction towards effective spray cooling.


> Bye-Bye Blow-By:
My favorite part is your oily cylinders are now "DRY" without blow-by forcing significant oil quantities into the combustion mix...

1. Clean sealed rings
2. Minimal blow-by
3. Predictable CKP timings
4. Disabled combustion misfires
5. Reduced viscosity drop
6. controlled engine heat removal.

> PRECISE AIR... A/F Mixture:
With 5W-50 PAO SP you'll disable the squirters pressure surges that shoot out VVT positions near 2000.Rpm.

Now seatback and let your ECU re-adapt to the predictable timings little by little with better mixtures.
Throttle response improves top-down from the higher Rpm's down to lower Rpm's near 900R.

 

Im happy it’s moving in the right direction.

now, for timing adjustments, I have higher cam adaptation numbers than I’d like so may chase the reluctor wheels when I can get some free time this summer.

 

Some pictures of the plugs and coils. I I never usually start to replace coils until I notice a problem and these all seem clean so I’ll keep them as spares. One thing I noticed is that the coil boots were different on this round of Bosch coils that I got from FCP. The boots were the only thing on the old coils that showed a little bit of corrosion inside the springs. I even have eight sets of boots in case I was just going to do that part.

As for the plugs, they look better than they did in the beginning of the thread, just like the Pistons, etc., do. All of the plugs were dry. Those still had the sand appearance. The plugs had approximately 20,000 miles on them. New plugs from fcp came pre gapped at about 28. The new plugs were clocked at about 10-1030 and to get to 12:00, would needed to have had the washers sanded.
I left them as is, but we’ll go back in when I have some time to clock them to 12 o’clock because that’s how I’ve always done it and I want to stay consistent


All of the tools used for coils and plugs. I purposely used the most minimum amount of Tools so I could share that it could be done with just these items. I did not need anything else though if you want to measure torque on the coil bolts, you need that adapter or proper torque wrench size/scale, which I have as well. In order to do the map sensor, I added another etorx as well as a torx bit into the pile

Coil electrode surfaces all looked pristine

This would be the plug view from sitting inside the car, not the same as above

 

Two more thumbs up on tending to best ignition despite low 20kMi. We take nothing for granted: good call on your new plugs!

GDI ECU absolutely needs precise timings on all cylinders.

Your engine still tends to coat everything with remaining white ceramics... known to be effective high-voltage insulator.


> Phaser mapped control.
The phaser solenoid PWM positioning vs. Rpm is not computed live, it's mapped.

When the oil pressure changes, the ECU slowly relearns these adaptations data.

Disconnecting pump solenoid and changing oil viscosity is not inconsequential - It corrupts the data of this positioning logic.

The camshafts positioning directly affects the air intake and thereby the A/F trims. This is a source of misfirings.
Once you are aware of this, no need to over react.

One of the goal of MOD-X:5W50 is to provide VVT solenoid smooth oil pressure without pressure ridges near 2kRpm.
When you switch back and forth MOD-X to MOD-0 the phaser map is made irrelevant.
Instead of engine running better... it runs worse from lean mixtures.

The cam control logic has very limited ability to respond to any unexpected pressure events such as:

1. pump switching!
2. viscosity switching!
3. squirters opening!

These stock issues is what 5W-50 help address.


Camshaft positioning must be really precise, just like ignition else misfires.

 

The plugs are definitely coated in the ceramic and the spark is surely improved. Im sure that stuff is everywhere and you can see a bunch in the newest filter pic. Im happy that is Slowly eroding so it doesn't clog anything but damn, one cant help to think it could be in the vvt actuator screen. I only think it will get better and better over the next 10k miles. Today was the first day driving since the new coils and plugs and she felt great. Ive driven this car about 95% of the miles in sport plus, and the rest in comfort. Im hoping to train the comfort mode to be a bit better than it is, for these long commutes or im going to wind up in jail constantly in sport plus;/

Yep, I agree with this thought process on timing. My concern is that my cam timing adaptations on the right bank are near zero, and the left bank intake is around 2.5 degrees, and the exhaust is about 4.5 degrees. Interestingly before the initial solenoid pull, it was at 3.6 or so. So to me, this means the reluctor wheels might be slowly shifting. Just about any sensor that may have read "not perfect" has been replaced and the adaptations never change. None of the testing reveals a different pathway for me to think about. Ultimately I hear we get a check engine light at 6.5 degrees. I will prepare for phasers, and perhaps some camshafts in the future, but would start by trying to pull valve covers, inspecting and pinning the wheel.

Thanks for taking the time for your input, always appreciated.

The car runs great, Im just a tinkerer at heart and like to act preventively....hence the ceratec disaster. As someone involved in agriculture, I should know that you can easily kill something with too much love...ie water or fertilizer in ag, or the wrong additives for cars.

 

Your M157 camshaft adaptation needs attention on what I understand is your Bank2: Cyl. 5 to 8.
Your CPS sensors are already all new.

It's odd that both corrections are positive instead of Pos. + Neg. for and advance/retard correction.

I dont see both reluctors getting shifted at the same time without active rattling...


reluctors marks are visually lined up at 53°

You can double-check that your reluctors have not shifted loose from camshafts -- See Tasos M157
Let's figure out what this positioning error is. Hopefully just the recent tweak that are not adapted yet.

Each bank has dual camshafts (DOHC) driven by a short chain with tensioner.

 

i’ll double check my numbers in case for some reason I didn’t add the negative sign, but I’ve followed these adaptation numbers for years and only saw the one exhaust cam shift slightly by 2° over the past five years or so. When I got the car at 40,000 miles it did have the half second rattle on start up, very infrequently and that’s when I replaced tensioners, added check valves etc as the first step. When doing the tensioners, the exhaust adjuster was a little wet but no skipping or anything, and no rattle in five years or so. All sensors and magnets were replaced, no oil in harness for five years or so.

When I’ve looked through the cam holes at the reluctor wheels, they look fairly close, but it would be hard for me to see just those few degrees. It’s on my list to revisit. And verify.

 

Update: 3k miles later after the last oil change and ive not had to add any oil. Judging by the stick, ive maybe used a half liter or so. For reference, Ive had to add oil every 800-1250 miles throughout my ownership. This driving is also all long commuting (2hr each way) vs my standard of mostly around town driving with lots of boost. Ive used lots of comfort mode as well as some spirited driving. Ill likely change the oil in a week or two and will see what the filter has to show this time.