not sure if anyone else has seen this but it is a good read up on selecting your oil... http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/Goods-Oils-t22458.html&hl=which+oil comments please im not at home atm so i cant check the group my oil i use would be in, but its valvoline full synthetic and aparently there should be a sticker on the back that tells you the group its in or something. id have to check this when i get home from work 2night as it shows that the full synthetic stickers etc mean jack.... in addition by those calculations what does it seem to be the best viscosity to use for our cars. obviously not one size fits all as mentioned in the article but i guess we could go with a normal running temp of 80c for question 1. and someone else would have to comment on the oil temp ???
Castrol Edge comes in four grades, two are the cheaper non synthetic, two are synthetic. I'm not sure that the Edge ones listed above are correct.
Its the Castrol Edge Sport which is supposed to be a full synthetic, Castrol Edge is not. So I'd be very surprised if Edge Sport is only a Group III.
Lord, three posts in a row, I'll shut up after this Am a bit wrong about what Castrol Edge oils are synthetic and which are not, they are all called Sport. Anyway some interesting stuff here, bye http://forums.pelicanparts.com/new-zealand-australia/477001-oil.html
Whats the difference? how are Nissan oil filters superior? Quote... "As far as oil filters go, get a genuine nissan one if you don't want to spend much, these are superior to ryco/cooper"
Oh all right, I'll comment further First of all, what is the source of that info? If its not AU then it means nothing as far as AU produced oils go, nothing. As far as 'synthetic' oils go, one important characteristic is their ability to operate at high temperatures, which I think is crucial. So if an oil will operate at high temps then a label means nothing, oils claimed to be synthetic typically are good for 200 degrees C. Turbo users note. On viscosity, sure a thin oil will flow better and conduct heat away better. But a heavier oil will protect bearings better, so, for a race engine a heavier oil may be the best choice, for a daily then a lighter oil. Thats enough from me
..... but ..... I run Valvoline race 50 in my Marque Sports race engine ..... and suffered an engine failure last weekend ... because .... The oil temp did not rise enough on the warm-up lap (Sandown on Sunday morning last week was "chiily"). I had 60-65DegC oil temp at the start and put the boot into it a bit too early .. oil was still like treacle ... so current explanation is that the oil overheated locally (big-end bearing) after which life turned brown very quickly ... I can salvage the entire top end, plus 6 rods and pistons, but the crank, 2 rods/pistons and the block. main bearing girdle (magnesium) are cactus ... Thick oils are good in race engines, but the big change we are making now is to put a heater into the dry-sump tank and start then engine with engine oil temps already at 85DegC. RB
You want a good oil and prepared to pay for it check out Mainlube Oils They do everything from flushes to engine/box/diff and more oils. Also will do a filtergram test on your existing oils. A lot of the LSx fellas use it and swear by it, and its used worldwide by car enthusiasts, race teams etc. heres a little blurb about syn vs mineral
I don't want to put myself up as an oil expert because I'm not. But, yeh, good lesson there although I am surprised 60C oil would result in a bearing failure, it must be a non multigrade oil eg not something like a 20W60?
Not as surprised as I was when the engine let go just as I am (short) shifting from 4th to 5th at the kink leading onto the back straight at Sandown and it locked the rears as it went bang, which pitched me straight into a high-speed spin ... proper butt-puckering stuff as I thought I was straight into the wall ... armco is 8 feet off the black stuff at this part of the track ... but oil temps is the most likely root cause ... even @ 60 DegC, Race 50 is still thick (it is an old-style race oil, no modern stuff in my race engine as it is based on an engine design that dates back to 1962), so no, not a modern multigrade ....
Back in the ninety sixtys & seventys I use to use vegitable based oils 'Castral R & Shell M' oils which were far better than the mineral cause 50 race oils @ that time. But you had to condition the oil first by putting it in the engine starting the car warming engine to normal operating temp then let the engine cool down.Then warm the car up to normal operating temp on the start grid. Only problem was you could only use this oil for one race meeting.
Single grade oils are used for racing only purposes because they retain more viscosity at higher temps than multigrades. But yeh they have to be got up to temp before even revving the engine a lot, can burst oil filters etc otherwise. I've spoken with a few oil tech advisers, as a result use a multigrade in the VG engined Z which is basically only road registered so it can be driven to sprints and back. Castrol Edge Sport 10W60 synthetic, OK for cold starts and running, good hot viscosity for bearing protection.
Lube oil "underheating" is also a major contributer to oil degredation due to water and fuel contamination. A normal part of engine operation from cold results in water condensation within the crankcase and fuel contamination from incomplete cold combustion getting down into the crankcase with normal piston ring blowby. The combination of moisture, combustion gasses and fuel in the oil can combine to form very strong and destructive acid which circulates around the oil syste until such time as the oil is sufficiently heated to evaporate away these contaminants. If the oil is not heated to reasonable running temps for a sufficient time due to either repeated cold starts and running or too large oil cooler setups then those water and fuel contaminants do not get completely evaporated away, eroding away metal surfaces and contaminatin further the lubricating oil which compounds the destructive process! Its a common and misguided mistake to fit oversized oil cooler systems to road cars without ever actually knowing if the oil was overheating in the first place! Some cars come with nifty little water to oil heat exchangers and not only do they "cool" oil but actually heat it up from cold as the "cooling" water increases in temp tenfold to oil temps in the sump further helping to reduce destructive cold oil running. Remember, oil properties are rated at 100 Deg.C. The dude (BGTV8) that lunched his engine. M8, just because the engine was de-rigeur in the '60's does not mean it WONT benefit from modern oil technology. You ran the (usually) monograde heavy oil you did in its day because that was probably the best they had in THAT day. BP Corse 50 sound familiar? later on Castrol GP50 lol! Times have changed in the oil technology game and modern semi and synthetic multigrades will outperform all but good old fashioned vegetable oil (Shell/Castrol M) which is the best shit of all to run as a crankcase oil!!!!!!! In a motor that is regularly stripped that is lolol! However, running clearances, tolerances and metalurgy have not altered that much with regards to engine running tolerances and fundamental oil requirements in race engines. Dry sump system place extra emphasis on oil temps as the oil reservoir is placed away from its primary heating source which is the block! Many a circle track racer has lunched engines due to oil being too cool. This is where the benefits of an oil temp thermostat in the cooler lines becomes paramount. In my dry sump system on my race car, I fitted a 240v 100w screw-in heater element out of a truck oil system for use in arctic conditions made by a Canadian company KimHotstart. I use a small 150w 12/240v inverter and "plug the car in" on the trip to the track and the oil in the tank arrives at the track at a cold start friendly 80 degrees C! My engine is thoroughly warmed up by the time I have gotten it down to the dummy grid for practice!!!!! I also use an oil temp thermostat on my oil cooler lines to prevent loss of heat from the cooler when not needed as well. I have seen anything from a couple of 100 w reflector globes aimed close at the tank, simply dropping in a large tropical fishtank heater and portable hair dryers to pre-heat oil in a remote tank on cold nights! have fun E
Please note when I ran Castral R or Shell M veg oil you had to drill out the oil ways re-strictures by 20% & then we would run the engine at a lower oil pressure than you would dare run on mineral based oil. One long distance race the oil pressure dropped down to 5 to a max 15psi for over one hour. When we stripped the engine we could see no notable bearings,cams,pistons problems. The only problem we fond was the relief valve spring.
Thought of this thread on Sunday at the Lakeside sprints. Even with a thermostat regulated oil cooler the oil temp would not go above 60C in the pits. So took it easy for the first two laps
