Oils Aint Oils <Merged Thread>

[RHR]

NULON!!!!! GOOD SH!T

[Buf-Phoon]

another vote for the purple here

[Ralph Wiggum]

Royal Purple here too. Search for in on Ebay, theres a guy that does good bulk buys.

[Mat]

In the past I've used Castrol R, Motul Turbolight, Mobil 1, Royal Purple (all on a WRX) and didnt notice any difference if the correct "weights" were used.

Using Penrite HP10 on the XR since the first change but I might go to the Penrite Sin stuff. Bit more money but when I finally get the mod's installed / car tuned it might be worth it. My brother has been using Penrite on his R8 Clubby and its taking a hammering and its been happy enough!

I dare say most of us couldn't tell the difference between any of the good oils. Stick to a decent brand and change it regularly!

Edited 19/05/08 04:49 AM by Mat

[senna_T]

I mostly notice the noise difference between oils. This is probably easier to hear on a forged engine due to them being a little noisey, but I found Castrol EDGE 0-40W fairly noisey, the Ford LPG stuff pretty good, and now Motul Turbolight is quite good.

[aiboart]

Ford’s viscosity specification for the oil in the XR6T and the F6 is 15w-40. AFAIK, no one is certain as to why Ford set such a high minimum viscosity, after all the lower the oil viscosity the lower the friction and the faster the oil circulates at cold startup.

There are a number of theories as to why this is so,

1- 15w oil is required due to large tolerances in these engines.

2- There is a strong relationship between film strength and oil viscosity. These engines generate high loads and therefore need high film strengths. The relatively high 15w specification provides some film strength protection against owners who would seek to load up their engines whilst still cold.

3- 15w oil is cheap and fleet owners love it. Whilst this has the satisfactory emotional resonance of a conspiracy theory and the implication that Ford is cheap, (BTW what do you think of the FG F6 prices  ?) It does not explain why FPV specify the same oil weights for the F6/Typhoon as ‘Ford’ does for the XR6T. One imagines when seeking to create product differentiation between Ford and FPV, specifying special oil would be a great way to differentiate the two (engine) products…

So if points 1 1and 2 are in any way valid, it would seem prudent to warm your engine prior to applying hi loads or revs. Not only will this allow your engine components to reach correct operating temperature (clearances), from an oil perspective, it will allow your oil to reach operating viscosity/strength.

Many xr6t/F6 people run the best synthetic oils. These tend to be either 0 weights or 5 weight, a few are 10 weights in the winter specification mode.

These oils no doubt providing the best operating temperature protection and they boast as part of their marketing the fact that the 0-weight or 5-weight or 10-weight winter specification allows the oil to circulate quickly at startup, which reduces wear.

The point to make then, perhaps, is that whilst the low weight oil is circulating and thus reducing wear on cold startup, whilst in its low viscosity range the oil is not ready to provide protection to the engine under high load.

The finer your oil’s winter specification, the more critical the engine warm-up becomes to the high load performance of the oil.

Maybe… 

Also

Oil threads… and color war threads, tend to be passionate affairs.

Therefore I declare that the best color bottle for oil is…

Regards,

aa

[dule]

My theory was that turbos were running higher oil temp then NA, higher the temp thinner the oil gets. So if the NA engine needs 10-40 (40 being the operating temperature viscosity), the turbo would need an oil that once heated to that higher temp would have the same viscosity as the oil in the NA at lower temp.

In that case they should use 10-50 not 15-50 but as we all know Ford is cheap and as they already had the 15-50 oil for the LPG they thought they'd use that as it was close enough to the requirements.

Please do correct me if I'm wrong.

[Lawsy]

I like oil.

From an engineers view, it takes some pretty awesome research and engineering thought to make todays oils. Obviously they make it look easy, but the reality is, an insane amount of groundwork has been done over the course of a few hundred years to understand and refine it, so making it significantly better, so much so that its worth upgrading, is a real feat.

Anyways, just a few points (ok, quite a few, sorry).

1- 15w oil is required due to large tolerances in these engines.

The tolerences are quite good actually, a highly respected automotive design engineer once said that if the viscosity when cold is too low on this particular turbo, then there wouldn't be sufficient lubrication for the turbo's bearing when first started. The motor itself preferes a 10w-30 (and I'm not saying this just because the NA requires it, its simply what the motor itself works best with).

... it would seem prudent to warm your engine prior to applying hi loads or revs... ...it will allow your oil to reach operating viscosity/strength.

So long as every surface that requires lubrication, has lubrication (of the required quality of course), then everything is fine. This actually happens only 20 or 30 seconds after you start almost any modern engine (older engines tend to actually take a few minutes). But with a 15w cold viscosity, once 20 seconds is up, drive it like you stole it.

Many xr6t/F6 people run the best synthetic oils. These tend to be either 0 weights or 5 weight, a few are 10 weights in the winter specification mode.

In our climate, 0w oils are nothing more than a marketing scam... Again, In our climate (obviously important ).

At 0°C (plus or minus a few), the viscosity of both a 0w and a 5w oil starts to converge, until both run along the same viscosity curve, assuming that the oil thins to the same viscosity when at 100°C (the second number).

If you have two fully synthetic oils infront of you, both from reputable brands, one is a 0w-40 and one is a 5w-40, get the 5w. Unless you plan on starting your car in sub zero temps more often than not, the 0w is a useless exercise in how to quickly waste money.

Oh, the point...

0w oils have a lower pour point, and slightly less detergents (the ones you want though) most of the time as well (but not always). So in some cases, you're worse off, but its so marginal that only over a billion km's of racetrack driving would you start to notice the difference. Simply put, for all intents and purposes, you're paying 10 dollars more for exactly the same result.

Assuming your engine is mechanically in very good condition, then the best protection you will find for the inline 6 lies within high quality, predominately fully synthetic oils in the 10w-40 range (or in some significantly hot climate/high power cases, 10w-50, 15w-50 for really hot climates, but not many fully synthetics are 10w-50. Penrite HPR10 is, and for a semi synthetic, its about as good as you can get, and cheaper).

But with the 10w you need to make sure that after a cold start;

- The motor idles for 10 seconds before you put it in gear, and,

- The motor doesnt recieve full throttle (more importantly, doesn't hit boost) or see the second half of the tacho for at least two minutes...

Do that, and your car will love you long time!

If you can't be bothered to pussyfoot your car for at least a minute or so, then dump 15w in there, but your overall protection won't be as good until the oil as at least 50% of running temperature. Its a catch 22. You're instant protection is higher for the first 30 seconds, but your short term protection is lower until running temp. You decide.

May I just add, an oil's viscosity is the oils most important property, bar none and getting it completely wrong (even 5-10 either side of optimal will have an effect) will shorten the life of the motor and reduce its efficiency. The thing is, you may not notice this strait away, but you will five years down the track. Especially if you run more power.

Like has been said, Royal Purple, Nulon, and the like, are probably your best choices. But not in that order as such, as they are all very good. The nulon has the lowest frictional properties of any mass produced oil in the engineering world, the royal purple probably has one of the highest quality base stocks in the mass produced world as well (marginally, but that's still a very significant achievement); it also has very good frictional properties to boot. It's your choice. The Nulon is cheaper though, but is missing one or two of the more exotic detergants that the RP has. There are others well worth your hard earned, but I've just had a day failing at thermodynamics report work and can't really think of them right now...

Edited 20/05/08 11:11 AM by Lawsy

[RAP1D]

I use Castrol EDGE 0-40W in mine now.

Basically its too thin really if I was looking at regular driving changing at normal intervals, but I give the motor a pretty hard time in regards to boost and heat build up from sustained track driving, so this oil works well.

I dont recomend it for normal drivers though, its noisy as Pat said, and disapears quicker lol but it doesnt burn which is what I like

[Superdan]

Bloody hell Chris, I've just put that into mine, and I drive like a grandma most of the time!!

Are you saying that I need to drive harder now?