Ultimate Motor Oil Thread or Why we hate CJ4/SM oils

[mtbguy]

Thanks for the good info, Charles- and good oil also!

[JFairman]

Would you recommend the Brad Penn 20-50 for a 930 in florida over synthetic?
I've trained myself to think that synthetic oil is best for the heat in the bearing of a turbo, especially with all the coked oil chunks that look sort of like used small coffee grounds I've found in my cam spray bars.

My next oil change is going to be regular royal purple 20-50 with a half bottle of comp cams oil supplement that is high in zddp, since I already have it.

From what you say, maybe the Brad Penn 20-50 is the best oil for my car without going to the expense of Mobil one V twin 20-50.

I used to use the Kendall GT 1 20-50 or Castrol GTX 20-50 (when it was on sale at department stores) in my BMW 2002 back in the early eighties.
I liked the green color of the Kendall.

thanks in advance,
Jim

[RWebb]

The friction notion is dubious. Most of the heat - by far - has to be from blowing up gasoline in the cylinders.

I wonder if somehow the BP oil can transfer heat more readily than some others? I wouldn't think so, but you never know.

With all this talk about it, I may have to think about switching from M-1... I guess we could import it into my little town -- it would be cheaper than a French wine...

[Steve@Rennsport]

Originally Posted by RWebb

With all this talk about it, I may have to think about switching from M-1... I guess we could import it into my little town -- it would be cheaper than a French wine...

LOL,..I do carry that stuff,...

[pmajka]

any one have a line on Brad Penn in pennsylvania....I just got off the phone with a dristributor and he is OUT!

he has never seen a swell in oil purchases like this and its mostly Pcar folk.

[Gene Wilkes]

Triangle Gas Co, Butler PA. 724-483-0750

[GothingNC]

http://www.lnengineering.com/store/catalog/index.php

[RWebb]

Steve - I figured you did. Now, it's only a 5-6 hour round trip! A group might head up sometime this winter for oil...

[livi]

Please, Charles (or anyone inclined to answer),

I have used euro M1, 0w40 for three years with no obvious detrimental symptoms. I like to think it healthy for cold starts up here.

Now, if the levels of Zn and P are too low - how much damage would that have done in those three years and approximately 15k miles ? Are the euro formulations different than the US counterparts ? I actually put the question to one of the oil 'experts' on a British Porsche forum recently and he claimed it was a wise choice.

Come to think of it, this is a very typical situation for many patients in the health care. Ask two doctors and you will get two different diagnosis. Ask three doctors and.. Every individual´s 'knowledge' is no better than it´s sources. Most of the time there is no absolutely correct answer and no absolutely incorrect answer. Strictly evidence based knowledge is hard to come by.

[Steve@Rennsport]

Originally Posted by RWebb

Steve - I figured you did. Now, it's only a 5-6 hour round trip! A group might head up sometime this winter for oil...

Give me a heads-up to make sure I have enough in stock.

[JFairman]

For those of us in southeast florida, Murray's Speed and Custom has the Brad Penn 20-50 for $4.32 a quart.
They stock it in the Stuart store and can get it the same day in the West Palm Beach store.... 561.848.5946

They have Royal Purple, Redline, and Amsoil synthetic oils, and Comp Cams break-in additive too.

[cnavarro]

0w40 is overkill for "cold-starts". There are many "approved" 5w40 oils with API SH, SJ, and SL API certs with much higher HTHS viscosities than M1 0w40 and with more Zn and P. I'm actually going through the "approved" lists right now trying to identify these oils. I think right on Porsche's bulletin it says -25F starts, or something like that for a 0w.

You can safely use the Brad Penn down to 32F starts (they claim 20F starts are ok) and Swepco 306 down to 20F or even lower.

If you've changed your oil more often than Porsche recommends and you haven't gotten the engine all that hot, it's possible you haven't done anything more than normal wear and tear (which would be lower with better oils mind you). Also, them M1 0w40 has been an SM only for the last year, maybe two years. Before that it was I think an SH or SJ, can't remember which. You can actually still find the old formulas of 0w40 and 15w50 here, since I'm in farm country and there isn't much demand for those products - the bottles have been sitting there in Napa for years. :-)

Jerry Woods switched away from M1 and uses Swepco now, due to failures with reformulated oils. He's actually the one that put me onto the Swepco 306.

I've been working on addressing cam and lifter problems with the type 1's and type 4's for years now with Aircooled Technology, and Brad Penn really does work. They break in every engine with it and mandate their customers to use the Brad Penn after first hand experience in their race cars and dyno mules. Although we were not seeing catastrophic failures, parts were most definately wearing faster than they should. 40 hours in a spintron, and cam and lifters would come out looking like they had 100,000 mi running GTX 20w50.

I'm also working on building another spintron so I can simultaneously test oils along with the testing that Aircooled Technology has done. It just takes a lot of money to keep up on oil testing and to do the spintron testing, that's the main reason I started selling the oils, so I could try to recoup some of the cost and to allow me to keep doing research. :-)

[old man neri]

Originally Posted by livi

Please, Charles (or anyone inclined to answer),

I have used euro M1, 0w40 for three years with no obvious detrimental symptoms. I like to think it healthy for cold starts up here.

Could be a totally different formulation than the North American Mobile 1.

[cnavarro]

It's now all the same around the world. I was checking all the worldwide sites too. I'll try to finish going through all the approved lists before the weekend is up and I'll post my findings. There are plenty of "approved" oils with SH, SJ, or SL ratings still AND have the ACEA A3/B3 approval too, which is the perfect scenario, at least for the newer water cooled cars. I'm sure many of these oils will also suffice for cooler and temperate regions.

[rfuerst911sc]

Charles any results from your test of " non street legal " Valvoline 20-50 VR1? You were trying to determine how long the detergent package was good for if I remember correctly. I think you said it was a quality oil but the question of oil change longevity ( or lack of ).

[cnavarro]

I actually held off on sending it because I didn't have any Staveley pre-paid samples. I actually just filled it out and made a shipping tag not even 5 minutes ago for it, so that it can go out on monday to be tested.

[dvkk]

Originally Posted by cnavarro

....... Mobil 1 V-Twin is 5.8 cSt and Amsoil Harley is 6.1 cSt - Brad Penn 20w50 is 6.8 cSt, all at 150C for the HTHS vis.

All of Brad Penn's formulations have some excellent film stregnths. Even their 0w30 has a higher HTHS vis @ 150C of 4.1 cSt compared to M1 0w40, which is ony 3.6 cSt..

Why would anyone care what the viscosity is at 150ºC (302ºF) when nobody in their right mind would let their oil get that hot?

[livi]

Thanks a lot, Charles!

Would be great with a compiled list of different oils suitable for our cars. It is not always easy to find an oil you recommend here by you, here in Europe.

Ideally, I still would like to go with fully synthetic if I can find a 'good' oil in that category.

[cnavarro]

The HTHS vis is imortant because there can easily be localized "hot-spots", especially in an aircooled engine, and there are plenty of friction surfaces that are subject to loading as well as the bearings that are protected by the high film stregth.

There is an SAE journal Properties of Engine Bearings Lubricated with Low HTHS Viscosity Oil that shows bearing weight loss proportional to the HTHS viscosity of the oils tested. Granted they are using a modern engine with modern bearing designs and materials, better than what we have in our engines. With a HTHS of 2.1 there was a loss of 190 mg loss with the rod bearings vs. 28 mg loss with a HTHS of 3.3. Similar numbers were reported for the mains. Even better results would be expected with higher HTHS viscosities, but there is a trade off of loss of fuel economy typically when these numbers increase, hence the desire for manufacturers to come to an 'acceptable' loss of bearing mass or other wear limits when setting minimum HTHS - for both Porsche and the ACEA A3/B3, they came up with 3.5 cSt HTHS at 150C.

I have customers who have run the oil in their race cars higher than 300F, if that's any consolation. :-)

[rllevin]

Shell Rotella T Synthetic 15w-40. Still SL and CI-4 plus. $16.47 a gallon (!) at Wal-Mart.
Charles, you haven't tested this since 2005 but the specs (ON the bottle, anyway) haven't changed as far as I can tell.
Thanks for publishing your data for the rest of us to use.