is over. in the past week, the motor has lost about 1 qt of oil, likely through the valve cover gasket (there's a trail from there down to the headers, past the tensioner). that one week represents about 700 miles driving and about 20 hours of continuous motor operation. ill figure out the exact mileage later, but it looks like the motor went 5100 miles using up only .2 quart of oil, including a massive amount of time idling! i think i'll probably take a sample and hide it in the dark until my transport bottle gets here from the analysis company. i hope it turns out well, if so, it means that one can use a fat 30 weight in a healthy m50 (spec'd for much fatter oils) and come out with decent metal wears. the oil i was using was german castrol syntec 0w30, which is sold in europe and australia as castrol SLX. i was really hoping to test it at 6500 miles elapsed, but i guess this will have to do now, as i'm not likely to find a bottle of the GC in the town that i live in, which means either mixing with dino or mobil 1 :^(