1500km's or 937mi. By looking at the oil I am pretty happy that I broke her in propperly. What do you guys think?
Made a little history by missing my first ever 2nd - 3rd NLS in her completely haha. On my 2nd run out I nailed it every time, 1st - 2nd NLS was way too brutal for my liking and stopped doing that after a while. But the 2nd - 3rd shift is a BLAST if you get it right! I can't wait to take her to the drags this Friday and opentrack Sunday



fresh oil




and the 1500km old oil and filter!





And some black and white action...

 

nice!

 

Why did you change the oil at 900miles? The dealership's shop manager told me not to change it before 4500 miles for the first change. I questioned him, and he knew a bit about GM's higher performance cars.

 

Ehh, why not?

what the hell is LITRES ? Looks like 5 quarts to me

Nice cars.

 

Man awfully nice of a fellow Cobalt owner to allow you to snap a picture of his car !! That turned out better than I thought it would seeing as it was dirtier than all hell that day I figured the black would cause the dirt spots to stand out, apparently I was wrong. I've been trying to get mine in all week since I'm now past 4000km but I keep getting held back at work willing to bet mine's as black as the car as well . I checked it the other day and it appeared dirty, but after seeing the pic of the new oil, it's in dire need of changing!

I'm still up for the track Friday night btw unless something comes up with work, leaving straight from here so I'll see you down there at some point .

Post Oil Change
------------------
Ugh, as I figured the guys in the back didn't read the ******' manual and assumed they were dealing with the LSJ, christ check the flippin' badge on the car!! My work order shows 5.6L of Mobil 1 was used when the manual calls for 4.7L. Suppose I should take it back tomorrow and have them drain it and try again...I can't imagine that extra .9L is a good thing.

Update
--------
Got a hold of service afterhours and they're going to take the car back immediately in the morning, drain the oil completely from the engine and fill it up again with 4.7L this time. I also need to have the dealership update my car's profile to read SS TC not SS SC. Since you purchased your car there as well, you might want to make sure their records are accurate or god only knows what might happen when the vehicle is serviced.

 

What's the correct Oil that's supposed to go into the LNF engines?

Is this right?

GM#: 12345885 (oil)
Filter: 12605566 (filter)

Type of Oil: Mobil 1 Synthetic 5W-30S

 

The original oil contains special additives to help the break in process.

 

1st time I ever heard that and I work at a dealer

 

I've heard about that to. My dad use to be a mechanic and my grandfather back in his days I believe was called a chief mechanic or something. But I heard for the break in period, that they didn't even use synthetic oil in the car for its first oil (if that is what was required), they used regular oil that met the standards of the company that made the car. Now I don't know how long ago this could of been, if its still true, if it was never true, but just something they told me.

 

The dealer wouldn't know for sure since the engine is assembled at a factory (Spring Hill, TN?)

 

Nope, it's regular Mobil 1 with no additional additives. With the modern machining, components, and initial run time at the factory there essentially isn't an any need for a break-in period for the engine. Items like your clutch and some other driveline components on the other hand can benefit over the long-term from a good break-in (and it definitely won't hurt the engine either). With that said there's nothing wrong with changing the oil early. There's also nothing wrong letting the factory oil go until the oil life monitor indicates a need to change it.


You can run any 5w30 oil you like and maintain warranty compliance as long as the oil is certified to GM's GM4718M standard. There's only a handful of oils, all of which are synthetic, that meet those requirements. The M1 oil you mentioned and what happens to come in the car stock meets GM4718M but is very expensive if you try to buy it at the dealer. The GM AC Delco (Hengst ENERGETIC) oil filter cartridge is a very good filter.

I'd personally recommend buying your own oil at some place like Wal-Mart in the 5-quart jugs or see if your local auto part chain store runs any oil change specials for the quart bottles. If you're not doing the oil change yourself that will still save you a lot of money at the dealer or oil change place vice buying it from them.

On a side note, if you do buy from Wal-Mart I'd probably recommend the Pennzoil Platinum 5w30 synthetic over the M1 5w30. Both meet the GM standards but the Mobil 1 tends to shear down a lot more towards end of service life. The Pennzoil has proven to be an outstanding oil choice in many engines (and it doesn't hurt that at most stores in the southwest it is a few bucks cheaper per jug than M1).

The oil forums which can be found here is a great resource if you want to learn a little more about the differences in lubricants as well as seeing independents test results of used oil samples.

 

Lordstown Ohio.

 

The car is assembled in Ohio but the engine comes from the plant in Spring Hill. Not that it would matter much as to the factory oil. I'm not positive on the Cobalt specifically, but nearly all assembly lines fill the fluids after the powertrain has been assembled and ready to be placed into the vehicle. This would occur at Lordstown. I thought we had a couple people that work at the plant on here so maybe someone can chime in to verify.

 

Thank you VERY much blackbird for the above info. That certainly helped me. Also, reading on GM's website, I noticed this:

http://www.gm.com/corporate/responsi...cle_043007.jsp

Now, I had always pretty much ignored my "Oil Life System" in the gauge area, but it looks like I shouldn't? I didn't know that GM had built in a hours tested system that is this accurate at reading your oil. Should I just follow the cars OLS from now on? I had always just been doing so every 3,000 miles, but it sounds like that may be a little outdated now?

 

bikes i believe still use that...mineral based oil for first oil in the bike ever..and 2nd change (well technically first oil change since u origionaly put mineral in) would be motul synthetic

 

Hopefully you are going to wash it next time, it took me a couple hours to photoshop all the dirty spots
4.7L put me right between min and max and another .3L was enough bring it up to the max mark. I would not go more than that. And note to self... do not trust any of the service guys in the back haha.

 

My Ducati's and my Triumphs all came with synthetic oil.....Can't remember what my Hondas had?

 

Your dealer is right, you do not HAVE to change the oil this early. But it is always a good idea. You can tell a lot about your motor by looking at the oil. Other than sending a sample for analizing I know my motor was running pig rich and/or a little blowby for their was a strong gas smell plus the oil was really dirty for only 1500km's. That means there was wear going on somewhere and from experience building racing engines (nothing like the LNF though) I know it was the rings.
Me I am glad I changed my oil early and will probably do the same when I buy my new Corvette in 5yrs

 

Man you must have some mean Photoshop skills to take care of that mess you even added in the reflection, I'm impressed . I washed it again today after the rain and getting bombarded by bird ****, I swear they target it...it was absolutely covered .

I'll tell them tomorrow morning what you mentioned above, I'd rather be above the mid-point so ~5L sounds good to me. If I were you I'd check your records (forms, etc.) to confirm they read SS TC not SS SC. Anything coming from dealer records is reading SS SC so I'm going to have them correct it tomorrow first thing in hopes of avoiding this again.

 

Oh my. Sorry

 

what are the venom pullies in the background for.

 

I have 5 pulleys for my 03Cobra.
In Solosprint I need to dial in the boost depending on weather conditions and tracks to keep the IT2's stable.

In this pic you can see my 2.700 that I use for dragracing.

 

damn...makes me want to go out and check my filter

 

umm that doesnt look like mobile 1 that he took out of the car lol. i've changed plenty of oil in my time, between 3000-5000miles and at 3k miles the oil still looked new. 5000 a little darker but not black like that. either its not mobile 1 they used or the filter isnt doing its job very well. but good job on the oil change though.

 

I usually changed the oil on my 2.2 every 6 k and it was that dark every time. I used Mobil 1. Oh and my SS/TC was that dark at 1200 miles.