Oil advice and recomendations!

[wez]

This is good stuff guys

So do we know what Valvoline is then as this is the oil that has been recommended and I have been using it since I purchased my Sup.

[oilman]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (wez @ Aug. 10 2004,09:39)]This is good stuff guys ?

So do we know what Valvoline is then as this is the oil that has been recommended and I have been using it since I purchased my Sup.

Valvolene is american, this means it will cost you an arm and a leg. You can by better quality european oils for less!

US oils also have another problem besides their price.

It may be best that all fans of U.S. oils close their ears or
look away at this point, you may not like what you read!

Some basics first.
A good oil must be quite low in viscosity even in the cold, so that it gets around the engine in a fraction of a second on start-up. On the other hand, it must also protect engine components (piston rings for example) at temperatures up to 300 deg C without evaporating or carbonising, and maintain oil pressure.
Unmodified thin oils simply can't manage this balancing act. The answer is to use a mixture of thin oil and temperature sensitive polymer, so as the thin oil gets even thinner with increasing temperatures as the engine warms up, the polymer expands and fights back, keeping the viscosity at a reasonable level to hold oil pressure and film thickness on the bearings.
All oils have a viscosity index which is the number indicating that rate of change in viscosity of an oil within a given temperature range. Higher numbers indicate a low change, lower numbers indicate a relatively large change. The higher the number the better. This is one major property of an oil that keeps your bearings happy. These numbers can only be compared within a viscosity range (10w-40 vs 10w-40) but here it the important thing...............
They do not give an indication of how well the oil resists thermal breakdown! (The oil film tearing or shearing)
This is all down to a very important additive called a Viscosity Index improver and it is critical that this is shear stable.
VI improvers like all other things in life vary in quality and this is down to cost and availability.
In other words, an oil can look great on paper and make impressive claims but, unless all the components are of high quality it will fail to perform under the most arduous conditions.

I asked John Rowland the Silkolene/Fuchs Chief R&D Chemist for 40 years to give me his opinion on U.S. oils for another car club and below was his reply:

Quote:

Simon,

The main problem with the majority of American Oils is that they have ?low grade" Viscosity improvers in them. Good ones are just not available in the states due to the fact that they are just not required for the majority of American engines.

The consequence of this is, although the oils look good on paper with high VI indexes etc the low grade inprovers mean that they have a tendency to "shear down" causing a lack of ?oil ?pressure , after a couple of thousand miles hard use in a stressed engine. .

For example, the oil you are using may be a 10w-40 when first put in but could be operating ?as a 10W/20 after a few thousand miles! It?s the use that sorts them out.

JR

Unquote:

I was intrigued by Johns answer and wanted to know how he knew it was the case in the U.S. that good quality VI improvers were not available. His reply was as follows:

Quote:

We have found it is impossible to source shear stable VI improvers
in the U.S.A. even for ready money!

Unquote:

Bear in mind here that Fuchs/Silkolene is the largest independent Lube Oil Manufacturer in the World and has facilities in the U.S.

Mis-information abounds in the oil world and looking behind the marketing hype and claims is impossible unless of course you are a chemist and able to look deep into the oils make-up which neither you nor I can do!

Food for thought

Cheers

Simon

[wez]

OK more good info.

Would you recommend an oil for a single turbo supra pushing upto 600hp which sees some track abuse but could also be used daily?

[oilman]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (wez @ Aug. 10 2004,16:47)]OK more good info.

Would you recommend an oil for a single turbo supra pushing upto 600hp which sees some track abuse but could also be used daily?

Wow,

That sounds like a fun car you got there!!!

With this kind of BHP plus track use, you only really have one option, and that is the best.

In my opinion the ester based fully synthetic Silkolene Pro S 10w-50 is the ideal option.

Esters assist the additive pack in a motor oil formulation because they are surface-active (electrostatically attracted to metal surfaces), so they help to reduce wear and friction.

They are fluid at very low temperatures and at high temperatures they are very chemically stable and have low volatility (don?t evaporate away).

They also help to prevent hardening and cracking of oil seals at high temperatures.

Ultimatley they are very shear stable which with that BHP is a must.

For tech specs on this oil look here http://www.opieoils.co.uk/lubricants.htm

E-mail me for prices at sales@opieoils.co.uk

Hope this is of help.

Cheers

Guy.

[suprastone]

Could you reccomend an oil for me-less fun im afraid, just a 3.0 auto non turbo thrashed twice a week nothing extreme no trick days. cheers

[Martin F]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (oilman @ Aug. 10 2004,17:09)]They also help to prevent hardening and cracking of oil seals at high temperatures.

Ahhh now that would be handy as that's something our Supra's suffer from in old age.

[oilman]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (suprastone @ Aug. 10 2004,18:09)]Could you reccomend an oil for me-less fun im afraid, just a 3.0 auto non turbo thrashed twice a week nothing extreme no trick days. cheers

Trust me, all these cars are fun, I am in the process of changing cars at the moment so I have a "run about" it gets me to work but it is not fun!

The Stock recomendation for the car is a 10w-40 semi synthetic.

You could stick with this and look at a quality semisynthetic such as,

Fuchs Titan XTR 10w-40 (semisyn)
Castrol Performance 10w-40 (semisyn)
Total Quartz 7000 10w-40 (semisyn)

However you could move to a fully synthetic, this will provide your engine with yet better protection. If you went for this option you could move to a good quality 5w-40 for better cold start protection.

Have a look at these,

Fuchs Titan Super Syn SL 5w-40 (fully syn)
Fuchs Titan Super Syn SL 5w-50 (fully syn)
Fuchs Titan Unich Plus 10w-40 (fully syn)
Total Quartz 9000 5w-40 (fully syn)
Silkolene Pro S 5w-40 (ester fully syn)

All of these oils and more are available through us, e-mail me at sales@opieoils.co.uk for prices and details.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Guy.

[alex h]

Interesting stuff so far.

How does Castrol RS 10w60 stack up against Silkolene Pro-S 10w50?

[oilman]

HMMM

It doesn't, its a "hydrocracked" oil, not a true synthetic, bit like 1st and 3rd division I'm afraid.

Cheers
Simon

[Martin F]

Simon\Guy

One thing you may be able to help us with is an oil for the manual transmission on the Twin Turbo cars. This is a Getrag transmission and has been the source of quite a few headaches over the years after people moved from the Toyota V160 oil and experienced problems.

A lot of the guys in the US tried a Redline substitute and ended up with problems described HERE.

So most people use the Toyota specific V160 oil which as you can imagine is not cheap and sometimes hard to obtain. I myself have used Royal Purple Synchromax (as have some others) and not experienced any problems to date.

It would be good to have an alternative oil that we know is in good supply and is technically compatible. However you may need to bear in mind that some of the guys will always stick with the Toyota V160 oil as a new transmission is in the range of ?5k.

Here's a bit more info on the transmission http://www.mkiv.com/techarticles/get...ecs/index.html

And the service manual spec http://www.mkiv.com/manual....dex.htm