What is normal?

[ksjohn]

So when you inspect an oil filter and the sump, what do you consider normal?

A little back story. I bought my Boxster in December. I got it pretty cheap, no PPI, knew about the potential of an IMS issue. I did find some metal in the filter and sump, decided to replace the IMS bearing. I did the work, the old, dual row bearing was still intact but worn and wobbly, IM shaft was full of metal particles. Cleaned it up, put in a new bearing, flywheel and clutch.

I have driven it 5500 miles since and I have changed and inspected the filter 4 times during that period so I could understand what was going on inside the engine. The first filter captured quite a bit of metal debris which I expected. BTW, I have a spin on filter and filter mag, both of which I highly recommend because I know that debris are not getting back into the engine once in the filter! Each filter change since the first has had much less visible metal as well as decreasing amounts of metal flour captured by the magnet.

At 5500 miles I changed the oil and dropped the sump. I really found nothing as far as metal in the sump, just one black plastic which probably came off the chain guide. I have 97,200 miles on the car.

Attached are some pics I took. There is still a small amount of metal flour being captured and a few tiny specs of metal. I could not see anything in the filter media.

My question is, what is normal to see in a filter for one of these engines? Can you expect to see no metal bits and no metal flour or will you always be capturing something due to engine wear?

Thanks