I understand what you're saying, Rick, but I chimed in to address only a couple comments suggesting the infallibility of Porsche:
I don’t think Porsche is trying to make a bunch on our old air cooled cars. I really think the people who made our cars know best. Did you know that the great sports car company now sells more SUV’s than the 911 now? I’m going to believe Porsche over the backyard P car dude. Let me see your chemical engineering degrees! I bet the folks at Porsche have them . They have German accents to boot.
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I fully concur...And it is just not chemical engineering - across multiple areas of engineering.
For one, Porsche's knowledge and application of systems engineering is absolutely top notch!
What I'm suggesting is to NOT believe the rumours and hype that people on an internet forum are posting. DO your own research. TEST a sample of oil. Don't listen to what I or Bill or Humberto says. And don't blindly put that oil into your engine just because it says Porsche on the can (or do, it's your engine...), especially when Porsche refuses to publish information about the oil. Would you buy a box of Front Loops with no ingredients listed on the side just because the guy at the store said it was freaking awesome and Kellogg's is a good company?
Have any of the believers here actually made the effort to send in a sample for analysis? Again, I suspect not or they would have said something.
While I'm very impressed with these cars we all so love, Porsche has proven time and again that they're not infallible and have made some really dumbass, bonehead engineering errors.
I don't care if people here are a Nobel winning chemical engineer or some rocket surgeon, what specific facts do we now about this oil? That a car using it didn't leak oil in the winter? Really?? That's hardly conclusive, is it?
Because I haven't had any of this 10w60 oil analyzed or seen the results of a test, I can't comment on its chemistry.
But how about this:
This is an analysis report for the Porsche Classic 20w50 oil (yes, I know different oil, but follow along). I know the images are small, but you can enlarge them to read the text.
And for the information that most will be interested in:
Yes, that's right. The Zinc and Phosphorus levels are both less than 1000 when the commonly accepted amounts for our air cooled 911 engines are in the area of 1200ppm.
Porsche Classic Motoroil 20w50
Zinc: 883ppm
Phosphorus: 927ppm
Viscosity at 100C: 19.1
TBN: n/a
Based on these results, it appears that the Porsche is lacking in the ZDDP area. The one thing Porsche had going for it was the Calcium level - 2026ppm - but almost none of magnesium.
So the Porsche "engineers" are suggesting the use of this 20w50 oil for earlier 911 air cooled sixes. This just reinforces my opinion that if the oil chemistry is important to you for the longevity of your engine, rely on yourself and test any oil you might consider pouring into your engine. Hell, don't even take this analysis as gospel - test your own oil. The only one truly looking out for you is you, not all the people on Pelican and certainly not Porsche.
Good luck to all on their oil choices.