Aluminum flakes

[Cshenker1121]

I probably have 3000 miles on this engine. It’s a LS3 crate motor with twin 62mm turbos. Runs in E85. Now we have drilled out the valve cover and also the aluminum oil return tank so I’m hoping to blame it on that, but we cleaned everything out pretty well. But I’ve dumped the oil in this motor probably 15 times. And I keep seeing metal in the bottom of the pan. When I cut the filter open the pleats are clean. I’m assuming when I plop the filter open it comes out of of there. Anyways, does this look normal at this mileage? The motor runs great and doesn’t skip a beat. Made 640whp on the dyno. I used k&n filter and driven racing oil. I just feel like if something was falling apart it would of done it by now or would at the very least be making noise. Or the oil would have more trash in it.

[79 Camaro]

Can't comment on the flakes but one of my car buddies runs a turbo LS drag car. 5.3 at 22-25 pounds of boost. This is their second engine because they started out on E85 and as they found out E85 is not always E85. Sometimes less than E85 octane rating. They used the E85 because it's so much cheaper than race gas until you factor in the new cost of a engine. Now they run nothing but race gas.

[Cshenker1121]

Can't comment on the flakes but one of my car buddies runs a turbo LS drag car. 5.3 at 22-25 pounds of boost. This is their second engine because they started out on E85 and as they found out E85 is not always E85. Sometimes less than E85 octane rating. They used the E85 because it's so much cheaper than race gas until you factor in the new cost of a engine. Now they run nothing but race gas.

I run a flex fuel sensor in the truck so it reads alcohol content and adjusts timing on its own. Wether it’s 91 (15% alchohol) or Torco E85 (which I run) it’ll adjust for it. I tried to plan ahead haha

[79 Camaro]

Sounds like a great plan. They weren't running any kind of sensor for alcohol content.

[Zachalanche]

I have had similar issues with motorcycle engines where some event (like clutch disc failure) resulted in aluminum debris in the oil, and I can say that it takes a very, very long time for the particles to work their way out either through filtration or oil changes. I have never had a failure or loss of performance due to this. If you are set on cleaning this up perfectly, I would bet you would have to disassemble and clean everything to get it all, or at minimum drop the oil pan and clean out the pan and oil pickup strainer. My guess is that although the filter should protect your engine, there might be some risk of damaging your oil pump, but the risk would be much higher if the debris was steel. If you aren't seeing any debris in your filter, then it's probably not getting sucked through the pump which is good. If you can increase your oil change frequency that may help, and just keep a close eye on things. Or if you have a way of filtering oil outside the engine, you could drain, filter, and pour back in a few times with a little bit of driving in between to hopefully help dislodge and evacuate the rest of the particles.

That's my 2 cents, but I'm not an expert so use your best judgement. Good luck.

Edit: one last thought, an oil analysis would tell you if there is any bearing material in the oil which could be a leading indicator if something is happening. if the only contaminant is the aluminum shavings, it's probably from drilling the valve cover and return tank.