dark preservative oil in one cylinder

I started exhaust installation for my new Van's purchased IO320. When I removed the plastic exhaust covers cylinders numbers 1 through 3 had honey colored oil but cyl 4's preservative was very dark colored. Looks like used auto oil. Normal?

I seem to remember some dark preservative oil when I took off those caps. No worries.

Thanks, Glad to hear someone else has seen it. I called Lycoming and the person I spoke with could not come up with an explanation but did not feel it was a problem.

Absolutely normal.

Same thing here with my new YIO-360-M1B. Before installing exhaust, remove all spark plugs and sump plugs, level the engine, pull it through a few times and just let it sit! All of the preservative oil will eventually work its way out. Clean the plugs, check mag timing, fill it up with mineral oil and youre ready to go. I changed oil & filter after 10 hours, and also found mag timing need a little tweaking. FYI, I spoke with the Lycoming rep at SnFun and asked him what the difference between the certified engines and the experimental versions were and he said " absolutley nothing" they come down the assembly line together and just get different data plates. He also mentioned that at Van's request, they try to get them a little more test cell time since the engines may get a little more ground time prior to first flight.