The 3.6 Tick Bites Trail Recon at 31,000 Miles

[ShadowsPapa]

Another funny Pentastar thing...You can drain that thing for an hour and put a glass under the drain hole and in the morning it´ll be half full. It´s crazy how much oil comes out after so much time has passed with this engine.

I've noticed that as well. I won't get even a couple more ounces out of my other vehicles. In fact, some stop dripping completely after an hour (I often pull the plug and go do other things and come back to it later)

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[Stan H]

Watching this is a educational moment for the thin versus thick ..

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Watching this is a educational moment for the thin versus thick ..

That adds a lot that motor oil geek leaves out. Finally, something non-geeks might get. This is what we learned in college and our factory training. The basics.
And.....back to ..we do not have a thin oil problem.

 

[Badunit]

At time mark 1:52 they say "thicker is going to create more surface separation" while causing more parasitic loss and heat. If lack of separation is the problem with the cam/rocker (and if thicker oil will help there) then I will accept a little parasitic loss and lack of fuel economy to keep from having an engine failure.

At about 3 minutes in they talk about thicker oil being detrimental because of the parasitic losses and heat generation vs "a correctly formulated oil". But what if the manufacturer's suggested oil is not "correctly formulated" for the engine? . I think of GM and their bearing problem. Maybe 0w-20 was "correctly formulated" for a correctly machined crank like they thought would be installed but not for the ones that were actually in the engine.

40 minutes into it they show how good Amsoil is. It is an Amsoil video so this is expected. I'm surprised they waited until the end of the video.

 

[Stan H]

That adds a lot that motor oil geek leaves out. Finally, something non-geeks might get. This is what we learned in college and our factory training. The basics.
And.....back to ..we do not have a thin oil problem.

Yes I totally agree its not a thin oil problem, He said the thicker it is the bigger vortex created and harder for all the oil to make it in
It literally is in the additive package .
They simply take a refined group 3 molecule derived from oil out of the ground (very clean & sulfate and parafen free & add proprietary additives to it ) . It was educational.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Yes I totally agree its not a thin oil problem, He said the thicker it is the bigger vortex created and harder for all the oil to make it in
It literally is in the additive package .
They simply take a refined group 3 molecule derived from oil out of the ground (very clean & sulfate and parafen free & add proprietary additives to it ) . It was educational.

Like anything else - oil is made of molecules. If they are larger/fatter, or don't slide around and across each other easily, then there's that. It gets rolled up at the edge of the contact area, instead if between the parts.

I have been amused at times by the quest for "cheaper filters", "I can buy brand X for half that price" and so on. And yet - it's one of the most important pieces of the oiling system.
People don't dig into the details.
I want a filter that's capable of holding a lot of stuff (not restrict or drop oil flow too much as it gets dirty) and that will filter our small particles, and am willing to pay MORE for a better filter, I don't look for one that's a buck cheaper.

From an online article -

Working film clearance between the piston ring and cylinder wall in engines is extremely small — maybe as little as 10 microns. Debris in the 10-micron range can cut or scratch metal as the particles roll between opposing surfaces. Particles larger than 10 microns will not fit into the smaller gaps and will be swept aside. Smaller particles will generally flow through the gap with the oil.

Consider that a standard oil filter removes particles that are larger than 40 microns. It’s been demonstrated that particles that average 10 microns can produce four times more wear on rods, rings, and bearings than particles larger than 20 microns.

Can you see the problem?

General Motors reported that a filter that captures 30-micron particles or larger reduced engine wear by 50 percent over a 40-micron filter. A 15-micron filter reduces engine wear by 70 percent over a 40-micron filter.

This is why experts often measure and report capture efficiency based on how well the filter removes 10-micron particles or larger. It is worth noting that this performance property is a large component of the premium price you’re paying for high-end filtration.

Back to the capture efficiency. A filter that has a 95 percent capture efficiency of particles larger than 20 microns means it will remove 95 percent of particles that are equal to or larger than 20 microns on a single pass.

Detergents in the oil oil crap in suspension, not letting it drop out, the filter has to remove it otherwise it goes right into your CAM LOBES, bearings and ring areas.

Back on the oils - some oils - the base oil - has a better ability to hold the viscosity and not lose it over time. So you have two areas - the base oil, can it hold the viscosity, and the additives - that create the wanted viscosity - and hopefully hold it there as the oil ages in the engine.
(differences between PAOs and other oils - that's one of the bigger ones)

 

[StevieY1]

At time mark 1:52 they say "thicker is going to create more surface separation" while causing more parasitic loss and heat. If lack of separation is the problem with the cam/rocker (and if thicker oil will help there) then I will accept a little parasitic loss and lack of fuel economy to keep from having an engine failure.

At about 3 minutes in they talk about thicker oil being detrimental because of the parasitic losses and heat generation vs "a correctly formulated oil". But what if the manufacturer's suggested oil is not "correctly formulated" for the engine? . I think of GM and their bearing problem. Maybe 0w-20 was "correctly formulated" for a correctly machined crank like they thought would be installed but not for the ones that were actually in the engine.

40 minutes into it they show how good Amsoil is. It is an Amsoil video so this is expected. I'm surprised they waited until the end of the video.

I learned quite a bit from this excellent presentation. I am an Amsoil user for the better part of 40 years now and to answer 1 observation from Badunit above, they did wait till the end which I think lends creedence to their presentation - not many will watch the whole video like we did and they "didn't toot their own horn" till late so...

Other observations - kind of in order of importance from my point of view:

1. Change your oil sooner rather than later. I like to change every 5000-7000 kms once the engine is fully broken in - *(3100 miles - 4350 miles) Just me...Oil is cheap, engines are not.
2. "50% of all wear in an engine happens in cold starts" Higher percentage of microwelding of contaminents between wear layers - They both agree on this and it makes sense to me also, hence the concept of doing anything to mitigate that - for me, including a device like the Baxter and part of the reason I like to use the Slick 50 additive.
3. Finally, they do conclude in the case of Amsoil that adding something to their oil formulation is not desired as it may "upset" their carefully developed oil configurations. That is where I differ from them, in that I'm convinced that my engine runs better with Slick 50 in it that not. That's just me. To take a contrarion's position, you will notice that motor oil is graduated to synthetic motor oil by removing and refining and then by adding polyalfhaolefins and other un-named substances to acheive their proprietary Amsoil Synthetic formulation. This helps create the Tribofilm that is crucial to be there, especially during cold starts and as micro wear eventually occurs on the wear areas in the engine.

Thanks very much for adding this video to the convo.

 

[dos0711]

My first oil change was at 500 miles as a precautionary against machining debris. 5,000 mile changes thereafter.

 

[Sweetums]

Sounds like the first company to make a viable roller bearing rocker arm retrofit kit will make bank.

 

[FrankFrqnkFrank]

Sounds like the first company to make a viable roller bearing rocker arm retrofit kit will make bank.

I’m wondering if the new parts will fix the issue in this engine. And I’m wondering when will we know they fix it

on the wrong engine I shared, it took to the AH version before a fix was fixed

since the Promaster is often used by expediters, often a lot of miles are quickly put in rebuilt engines. For Kip Amore (a Promaster repairman and an expediter) to say the AH version has fixed the issue, I know it’s a statement based on direct experience

 

[ShadowsPapa]

For Kip Amore (a Promaster repairman and an expediter) to say the AH version has fixed the issue, I know it’s a statement based on direct experience

Again, for Pentastar 3.6 PRIOR to 2016 model year, Wrangler JK and older.
None of what he said applies to our engines at all, nor the JL Wrangler, or the Grand Cherokee starting with 2016 model year.
The valve train, cam, followers, etc. are quite different.


Unless a part number has changed for our followers or lash adjusters (exhaust and intake), that sort of thing, there won't be a fix. They did change the cam number very early on - if a 2020 got a replacement it also required a PCM flash, but we don't have any information on what changed or why.
Benny has looked up part numbers but so far, nothing sticks out as really changed.

 

[FrankFrqnkFrank]

Again, for Pentastar 3.6 PRIOR to 2016 model year, Wrangler JK and older.
None of what he said applies to our engines at all, nor the JL Wrangler, or the Grand Cherokee starting with 2016 model year.
The valve train, cam, followers, etc. are quite different.

So you can't take anything at all he says and apply it to a JL or JT or WK2.

In other words, unless you own a 3.6 version 1 or a JK or older, you can ignore his video.

you must not have read what I posted

ill spell it out for you

it took FCA 7 tries to fix the older engine’s problems. The Promaster users of the older engines drive a lot of miles and have data to know the AH fixed it

how do we know the replacement parts used in the newer engines will actually fix the problem?

please LMK if I need to explain it to you again

 

[ShadowsPapa]

you must not have read what I posted

I re-read and then edited.
The 3.6 version 1 would be resolved. The design of the rollers was changed (as he said) but sadly - it won't matter to us.
I've not seen any "it's happened again" posts in the various JK or other Jeep forums (I follow 3 others aside from this one).
I'm sort of surprised FCA used that bearing design in the early 3.6 followers - people using roller lifters and cams in other cars have complained for years about needle bearing failures! So they switched to bronze bushings, and got rid of the needle bearings but there was FCA, using needle bearing followers - asking for trouble.

The PUG - we have nothing anywhere indicating there were any changes impacting the "issue".

 

[Deleted member 67086]

Shift Auto and Off-Road, the shop that worked on the Trail Recon Gladiator, posted on Instagram that they were working on another intake cam replacement. I messaged them asking for some more details, and they provided the following info:

 

[Stan H]

Sounds like the first company to make a viable roller bearing rocker arm retrofit kit will make bank.

I think we should design one . !!!

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