so ill start with a little information about my maintenance and whats done to and what i run in the car..

*so first off i change the oil in my car every 750-1200 miles and sometimes less.
*i run AMS OIL 20w50
*built buschur 2.3 built everything 700+ hp
* small jegs breather catch can with -10 lines from factory valve cover ports
*only driven in summer
*and on e85

OKAY SO NOW MY PROBLEM

i changed my oil before the track a couple weeks ago. and the oil was fine, opened up valve cover to check cam caps and head studs and it was all clean and fine. head to the track all weekend. break my clutch haul it home and so on..

so now i have my motor out to tuck the engine bay, so why its out i decide to re seal my oil pan(it was leaking) and change valve steam seals..

when i took off my oil pan i was shocked, there was about a 1/4 inch of sludge in the bottom of my pan(kinda looks like that jack Daniels sauce at TGIF lol) and all over my crank and rods ect... then i opened my valve cover to find it all over in my head one EVERYTHING...

what could be causing this? did the oil break down that bad at the track? did my FF turbo with no filter (at track only) suck up that much ****?

this is the only picture i got...... i forgot to take pics before i cleaned it all out
but you can see the sludge on the retainer and down in the head after i somewhat cleaned it out



thanks in advance for any help or thoughts!!

 

Sludge--Sounds like your problem. Its from the oil, not the expert today but back in the day, oils with a high ash content tended to build sludge.. Curious, why your not running a synthetic?

 

hmmm yeah that makes sense i guess, never thought about that. i wonder if it will cause pre mature wear. and ill have to clean it out alll the time

the ams oil 20w50 i run is full synthetic. has a high zich content. buschur told me i shouldnt run anything other than 20w50 and amsoil was the only decent synthetic 50w i could find

 

I don't use it but I don't think it is a bad product. So, something funny here. The cheapest oil sold at Walmart should perform better than this has.

Years ago, like around 1980, an oil company put out some oil without antioxidant, engines completely sludged up and the company had to buy people new engines. The company then was a premium brand.

 

yeah ive had no problems with the oil at first, with a weekend cruise here or there, but the first time i take it to the strip this happens. kinda makes me nervous about the condition of my motor now... but i caught it early i guess

 

forgot to mention im on e85, so i thought maybe i didnt have enough catch can and it diluted the oil and turned it to ****? or i wasnt sure if the oil broke down that bad

 

Naa there is a problem here that we don't know about even the op may not know about his issue yet...
Any synthetic is very hard to sludge even harder to sludge a group 4 synthetic.. not imposible.
With enough heat, running it longer than reccomended, running hot fuels ect can sludge.
Pherhaps a fuel issues.... many reasons why an oil can sludge but not just out of the blue.

I am curious as to which 50 are you runnin OP

 

This could be a reason.. depending on the ethanol blend you are getting.. rumor is the north blend is nastier ??
How long did you run the last oil run for ? That engine should be sparkling clean inside trully you should be able to see metal everywhere

 

apagan01 i ran that oil change just for the track thats it, two days of getting the snot beat out of it.
i run the AMS oil motor oil synthetic 20w50.

http://www.555subaru.com/product.php?id_product=93 thats the oil i run... not where i buy it from, the link is just for visual purposes.

The content was e86 but as for whats mixed in it to make it nastier or cleaner idk.

yeah the pic was even after i wiped everything off, it was just gooped up like someone sprayed bed liner in my engine

 

however the sludge buildup in my pan could have been there since beginning of summer and none just ever came out when i changed oil.. but it wasnt ever up in my head like it was this time.

id just like to figure out why its sludging so i can fix the issue before i need a new motor!!

 

Also last time i had my oil pan off was about 2 months ago and it was clean

 

That is weird. I have run AMSOIL for 10k miles between changes and never an issue. Does your down pipe touch the oil pan? Is it wrapped? Maybe extended high power caused it to bake the oil in the pan. Wrap the downpipe and put heat reflective tape on the oil pan.

 

Hmm. Interesting point, never thought of that. my downpipe is really close to the pan and is not wrapped. Gunna wrap it now just to make sure!

I just wonder if I should take apart my oil pump and check it out. Or at least clean it out? Spins fine tho.

 

You are surrlly using the right oil, stuff you are using is very robust in this case the importance is the flash point and this oil has a very high flash.
I don't want to sound to defensive, but I would bet you you don't have an oil problem, there is a heat or fuel issue somewhere.

Are you measuring engine temps ? Do you know what have they been.
Surelly 700 ponies like your car has is no joke and oils get punished much harder but a group 4 oil will not break down in one day of racing.

 

I would invest in an oil temp gauge. That will tell you when you are running too hot and help you to prevent this in the future. You might need a larger oil cooler along with the other things we discussed.