I want to say thanks again to everybody who participated in the BE Bearings free oil analysis tests. The results will all be posted as soon as they are available.
While we're waiting for everybody to submit their oil and wait for the results, I'll share with you a little bit about the cars that were selected for the free oil analysis.
As you can see, this is a very diverse group of cars. Many cars are heavily commuted, some heavily tracked, and one with a spun bearing. It doesn't get much better than this.
For the car with the spun bearing, I sent in the sample to Polaris and Blackstone so we can compare the results of each company on the same sample of oil.
As results become available, I'll be sure to post them.
-- UPDATE --
I spoke with Polaris data analysis guys for about 30-minutes on the phone. Since there's this new theory that fuel dilution in the oil is the true cause of bearing wear (not reduced clearance), I wanted to get more information about the gas chromatography tests Polaris performs, and what the expected ranges may be.
Fuel dilution is a function of oil viscosity. As such, the fuel dilution results will depend on the oil viscosity results. Because of this, the fuel dilution results will often be marked "estimates" instead of actual numbers.
One percent (1%) is the smallest amount of fuel dilution they can measure. Anything measuring less than one percent (< 1%) is considered negligable, or not to exist.
I hope this answers the questions that might be generated by these results.