Delvac1, circling the drain and flushed...

[cheetahdriver]

well, my Delvac1ESP experiment is done, with results i am not particularly happy with. for a super-premium priced oil, this stuff really didn't work as well as i expected.
here is the 15k pull of the D1ESP in my FX45. the oil was changed back to M1 TDT. i currently have a gallon of this left, but am not very impressed with the ESP formulation. am also running it in my Miata MSM for an interval (which may be shortened).

Oil Filter--------M1-109
OIL                    D1ESP5w40    D1ESP5w40  M1TDT5w40   M1 0w40  M1 0w40  M1 0w40  
MILES IN USE ------       15,077         10,279     9800        9986     5000     9437
MI/HR-ON-UNIT-----        106,356        101,279    91800       69627    59641    54641

ALUMINUM----------      5               4          4         (3)        4
CHROMIUM----------    1        1          1          1         (1)        1
IRON--------------    20        16         26         38        (10)       15
COPPER------------    5        3          5          3         (3)        3
LEAD--------------    14        7          7          15        (6)        25
TIN---------------    0        4          1          5         (0)        0
MOLYBDENUM--------    6        5          19         75        (74)       87
NICKEL------------    0        0          0          0         (0)        0
MANGANESE---------    2        2          1          1         (0)        0
SILVER------------    0        0          0          0         (0)        0
TITANIUM----------    0        0          0          0         (0)        0
POTASSIUM---------    3        3          3          3         (3)        0
BORON-------------    33        33         38         115       (124)      127
SILICON-----------    15        10         11         13        (11)       10
SODIUM------------    7        6          5          7         (8)        10
CALCIUM-----------    1655        1436       1702       2847      (2551)     2941
MAGNESIUM---------    1004        819        665        15        (13)       17
PHOSPHORUS--------    1124        1011       913        823       (728)      813
ZINC--------------    1739        1434       1150       1016      (895)      1034
BARIUM------------    0        0          0          0

SUS-VIS@210F------    82.6        78.2       76.9       71.3      (70.9)     70.9
cSt-VIS@100c------    16.16        15.06      14.75      13.29     (13.19)    13.19
FLASHPOINT-IN-F---     415        410        410        390       (420)      395
FUEL%-------------<0.5
ANTIFREEZE%-------0.0
WATER%------------0.0
INSOLUBLES%-------    0.2        0.2        0.3         0.3      (0.3)      0.4
TBN---------------    1.2        2.5        3.0         3.9      (6.0)      2.4

blackstone's comments

Lead doubled in this sample, so this oil may have been run a bit too long. However, your engine
did create less wear at 15,077 miles (per mile) on this fill than the average Nissan 4.5L engine does using
3,500 mile oil changes, so it may not be a problem. The viscosity was a bit high but not an issue. The TBN
was short on active additive at 1.2. Continue running 15,000 miles on the oil if you are comfortable with this
amount of wear, but we think this engine/oil combination's sweet spot is probably at around 13,000 mile oil
change intervals. Resample to monitor.

one thing is that the Delvac had 2qts usage at 10k (and was a qt low at 15k), while the TDT was about a qt low at 10k. the 2 qt refresh of Delvac didn't seem to stem the rapidly dropping TBN as i expected it too. i think it would be interesting to try TDT in the same way, but with a 1qt refresh at 10k, it might not do as good at 15k. the other side of this is that it had a higher TBN than the Delvac did at 10k (3.0 vs 2.5).

i think that i will stay with the 10k OCI, however. my goal is to change it out with a ~3-5k cushion, as my schedule is quite changeable.

i had also thought about going to a different oil, the 5w40 Ultra for instance, to see if it did better. the TDT is doing quite well though, and i still have a couple of gallons i bought at 3.50 a qt. i have yet to see the 5w40 Ultra in any store....