Am I wasing money? (oil)

I've only been using Valvoline Racing 20/50 in my car since I bought it. Anyone know how much of a difference there is between this and regular Valvoline 20/50? I don't mind paying for it, but I was curious if anyone knew what the major differences were.

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Adam Nitti
ajnitti@mindspring.com
www.adamnitti.com
'85 911 Carrera Coupe

uh... "wasing" means "wasting"... he-he. sorry about that.

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Adam Nitti
ajnitti@mindspring.com
www.adamnitti.com
'85 911 Carrera Coupe

I have used Castrol 20/50 in all of my cars for years. I don't know the diff between valvoline racing and regular oil, but I think as long as you change regularly any name brand 20/50 is ok. How much price diff are we talking?

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Robert Stoll
83 SC
83 944

I've used lots of different kinds of oil and have developed some preferences. I don't like Pennzoil any more because of the dark stain buildup. As it turns out, Valvoline consistently lands in the top three when oils are graded, overall.

I use the Valvoline 20/50 racing and I don't even know if it's different from the regular 20/50. But it's just $0.20 more per quart.

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'83 SC

i'm paying a little over 2 bucks/quart for the racing. in my area, that's about .75 extra per quart over the regular valvoline.

i figured since they had porsche guage graphics on the bottle, that was the correct oil to use for my 911.


(just kidding, of course.)

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Adam Nitti
ajnitti@mindspring.com
www.adamnitti.com
'85 911 Carrera Coupe

Ah yes. so many 'fast' graphics use Porsche styling. I think Porsche doesn't mind.

This week in the Car Toys store, I noticed that the radar detector display prominently featured a picture of my dashboard, and yours.

I'd be very comfortable with regular Valvoline 20/50 if the racing were that much more!

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'83 SC

I switched to 20-50 racing after a long time P owner recommended it. The cost is insignificant at .20 a quart. No money wasted there.

OK Warren, I got this one for you! It not so much the type of oil its that you change it regularly!! And don't forget the transaxle at least once a year!!

I would never presume to be Warren but I wanted to show that I do listen. Oh yea by the way, does this grade of racing oil leak any worse than the normal? Maybe once I stop the leaking I could use it!!

See Ya,


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Mark Isaak
'74 Targa

someone in the know feel free to chime in here, but it is my understanding from speaking with some mechanics that different oils do indeed perform differently. i presume that factors like climate, driving conditions, driver style, and mileage all play key roles. i have read that 'cheaper' oils will leave behind more sludge in the long run.

i find it hilarious that certain brands of oil have adopted advertising methods that are designed to stimulate the sales of their assorted 'flavors' of oil. my favorite is the one who advertises their special version that is optimized to protect 'engines that go beyond 3000 miles' between oil changes in case the owner is too busy to deal with it... or how about the special versions for 4x4's?

maybe i'm just playing into the hype, too by using valvoline 'racing oil', but that's what my mechanic recommended as the best...

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Adam Nitti
ajnitti@mindspring.com
www.adamnitti.com
'85 911 Carrera Coupe

I'm no Warren either, but I can tell you that oils are not created equal. Find and read about oil characteristics and tests. As it turns out, their performance on several separate measure are available for your decision, including the 'sludge buildup' characteristic.

And I also agree that frequent changes is at least as important as oil grade. And finally, I'll say something I've said before: I have and motors survive hundreds of thousands of miles of unforgiveable oil change abuse. Once when I drained the oil from my '79 Audi Fox, only about 1 or 1.5 quarts came out. Of course, it was closer to mud than oil. I believe one of the very most important secrets to engine longevity, is tuning. Ignition and mixture should be perfect all the time.

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'83 SC

some years ago I had a lotus 2.2, and the factory recommended three engine oils in the service manual, two of which were mobil 1 and valvoline racing 20/50, I cannot remember the third. The valvoline was about a third the price of the mobil, I used it then and I use it now purely on the lotus recommendation

Bruce 83 sc

I don't think the extra $0.20 is a waste. My usage of Valvoline Racing Oil goes back to my VW Beetle years, and after seeing many professional racing teams -- the little guys, not the ones with major sposorships, the ones with a whole bunch of little 4"-5" decals on their cars ... Nascar and Can-Am, and in '69-'73 the majority were using Valvoline. After I changed to Valvoline Racing oil, I noticed far less gray sludge on my VW's drain plate, a miniscule amount compared to other VW's changed with 2500-3000 mile intervals. I had to believe that there was something to the 'ashless' claim, and that the racing oils held up under the higher VW operating temperatures, probably because of the 'racing' formulation.

That is the reason I used the Valvoline Racing oil in my 911 from day 1, and my 911 ran hotter than most of the SC and later models. That is probably still the case with my add-on front cooler that does not benefit from the 10 foot run of heat-dissipating brass tubing! My temps still run in the 210-220 degree F range on hot summer days, but the oil arount the cylinder heads must be quite a bit hotter than the gauge reading, so Valvoline Racing oil is needed, in my opinion!

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Warren Hall
1973 911S Targa

I've seen recommendations to use Chevron Delo 400 and other 15-40 "semi-truck" oils in 911's, anyone have 2 cents about this. There were some posts I've seen on Porsche sites recomending the stuff.

Check your specs on the oil can! The old adage was that "RACING OILS DON'T HAVE TIME FOR DETERGENTS!" This is not important where an engine is frequently torn down. Its those specs on the side or top of the can that mean the most! Unfortunately I'm far away from an Action Auto or Wall Mart where I can examine those labels.

How, diverdan, do you tell from the container how good it cleans?

I too have heard that Delo is good stuff. At least preferred by truckers and diesel guys.

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'83 SC

Got a new MB for the wife for Christmas, was looking through the "Factory Approved Service Products" booklet. Is a list put together by MB after exhaustive testing of various products.
The oils are:
Mobil 1 Tri-Synthetic
Valvoline SynPower Full Synthetic
Castrol Syntec
Castrol Softec Plus
Shell Helix Ultra
MB does a lot of testing of oils, these are what they have found to be the best, FWIW.

Check out these 2 sites: http://www.vtr.org/maintain/oil/overview.html http://www.grmotorsports.com/oiltech.html
Good info. Unfortunately I don't have the API SAE tables here at my home in the Emirates.

Superman:

Decades ago I used Chevron's RPM super DELO. I'm not sure that was a great idea. It cleaned great, but I later learned that deisel fuel contaminants are different than gasoline contaminants. Deisel engines don't go through the stop start warm up cool down cycles the way car engines do. They start them up and don't shut them off unless its going to be a long layover. Those big Detroit Deisels and Cummins motors don't do a heck of a lot of RPMs, but they do feel 22:1 compression. Gasoline combustion also provides a heck of a greater shock to the components as it is more explosive, particularly as the octane number goes down. I think that it was in an old issue of Excellence, where someone wrote about airplane oils in conjunction with turbo chargers and P engines for cars and planes.