Oil inspection

@ajiman, One of the challenges with the the earlier cars (prior to the Life ECU) is that it is extremely difficult to know precisely how many hours are on the engine.  External hour meters are good, but they can be reset and many times there is no way to know how long they have been installed.  Sometimes they fail and need to be replaced. When buying a Pre-Life ECU car you are stuck relying on the sellers knowledge of the engine hours and many times the seller is relying on what the previous owner told them, so it isn't uncommon for there to be miss-calculations on engine hours. Judging from the wear you are seeing I would guess that your engine has more time on it than you think and is likely to be needing overhaul (or will soon).  Keep in mind that I am a very risk averse person and I tend to do maintenance on the earlier side if there are any signs of trouble because in my experience overhauls can get much more expensive when bad things happen.  With that said, hopefully someone like @rlm-dan who has a lot more first hand engine experience will add comments.  He sees these engines every day and has a much more experience with them.

@charleyhradicalsportscarregistry-com 

Thanks Charley - It's true the hours are hard to track.  I've created my own spreadsheet to log the on-track hours but I still have to rely on previous owner information (at least until I rebuild the engine). 

I wonder if I should get the oil tested? Haven't done that before.  The shimmering copper look to it makes me think bearings but maybe it could be clutch? 

@ajiman, getting your oil tested regularly is a good practice.  I get my oil tested at every oil change to track the changes.  Also when tracking hours you should be tracking total engine run time, not just on track time.  It seems unintuitive to many people, but Radicals overhaul intervals are based on total time, not on track time, or on load time.

@ajiman as Charlie said it is important to know that Radical log hours based on total running time. This means that an engine that has done 10-15 hours on track could be well over.

I know its a stupid question but are you sure that oil drain tray was completely clean before you drained your oil?

If so I would be massively concerned by your findings and not running that engine again until it is checked. You should never see copper, as you say you may see steel from the gearbox. For how bad that is i would say its serious. I wonder on your oil level and if you have suffered surge in that 10 hours on track.

Thanks @rlm-dan and @charleyhradicalsportscarregistry-com

Noted on tracking hours properly.

Sorry I was not clear before - the picture of the shiny metallic particles in the oil is actually of the bottom of the oil filter, not of the oil pan that the oil drained into.  The oil that was drained out was clear (no shiny metal particles).  So this is a picture of a concentrated part of the oil that has all the stuff in it that the filter was catching. Does this change anything? My original concern was that there are particles at all - I would expect there to always be a film of oil between the bearings and journals such that they would never touch, so I was not expecting anything in the filter.

However, I forgot that this is a wet clutch, sharing the same sump.  Would normal clutch wear look like what I'm seeing in the oil filter?  I don't know for certain that these particles are copper, all I know is they are not magnetic.  Is there a way to distinguish if the particles in the filter are from the clutch or from bearings?   

I'm thinking one option is to send to a lab (if anyone has a recommendation, please let me know, located in CA).  The other option is to pull ECU data.  Does the older MBE 992 ECUs log oil pressure?  If so I could plot that against RPM for the previous track day to see if I have any surge issues as Dan suggested.  If no drop outs, then maybe that gives us some confidence.

FYI - I am running a dry sump.

Any further suggestions are greatly appreciated.

I have cut open a lot of filters and I have never found anything close to this amount of debris.  I would definitely send the engine to Spring Mountain (RLM if you were in the U.K.) for overhaul. In my opinion Spring Mountain has the best Radical engine shop in the U.S..  They have been building Radical engines longer than anyone else in the U.S. and have seen just about every possible issue.  Most of the U.S. based dealers send their engines to SM for overhaul.  Right now I know they are backed up due to demand and part shortages, but it is worth the wait knowing that it will be done correctly.

Also, it looks like you used some type of cutter to open the filter.  I have had great luck with the Longacre filter cutter.  It opens the filter like a can opener.  It isn't cheap, but it is a high quality tool that will last a long time.

https://www.longacreracing.com/products.aspx?itemid=1740&prodid=7630

I inspect my filter every time and that is ALOT of trash!! If that is engine bearing material I would be concerned that your crankshaft is smoked.

@CharleyH Could the copper particles be clutch material?

I have the Goodson brand tool.  Had it for 15 years and works great.  A little less expensive than the Longacre brand. 

https://goodson.com/products/fit-1-g-oil-filter-inspection-tool

@charleyhradicalsportscarregistry-com @ntf3000

Thanks for the comments.  Looks like I'll be pulling the motor in the coming weeks. 

@Charley - you had mentioned that you send out your oil for inspection regularly, are you able to share their contact info?

@ajiman, yes, do a search for Blackstone Labs.  They do a great job.  If you contact them they will send you free containers to ship the sample back to them.  When you run out of containers they send more. 🙂  We have a section of the Forum where people post some of there results.  Take a look when you have a chance. https://radicalsportscarregistry.com/radicalforum/oil-analysis-discussion/sr3-1500-blackstone-reports/