Fluids Discussion

SON240sx Automotive
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Basically a thread to discuss what you are running and/or what you want to run (company, weight, and reason for that weight/ grade selection/ brand). All fluids apply.

Currently:

Engine: 10W30 Amsoil Synthetic
Reason: Was the only Amsoil I could easily get on a Saturday, at the time I thought a 10w-30 was a better weight than a 5w30, because I thought oil would thin out more on a 5w30.

Experience: solid oil, it could take 20K easy with top ups. Synthetic oils don’t break down, it’s the additives which leads to it gradually becoming a 30 weight only oil (10w polymers breaking down), detergents, and contamination. Good oil, wrong weight.

Tranny: Mystery fluid. Whatever cheap generic stuff came with the swap. Bitchy shifting when cold, especially 2nd, not the greatest fluid by a mile. Needs to go

Brake fluid: stocker mystery fluid. Shit pedal feel, probably has boiled over/ is watery, needs to go.

Diff fluid: same deal. Mystery amount of km’s, needs to go

Future:

Oil: 0w30 best case scenario, 5w30 worse case. Possibly Amsoil 0w30 if I can find some tomorrow, if not 5w30 Greddy.

Reason: 0w30, 5w30, and 10w30 are all 30 weight oils at normal operating temperature. The difference is the vicosity at start up. As well as cS and flow, as well as drag. At start up/ when it is cold is when most damage occurs is because your engine is dry. Metal on metal friction if you will. A 5 or 10 has a higher vicosity and requires more pressure at start up resulting in higher cS, and less flow. More so the case as you increase the rpm’s, which results in more work from your engine to pump it, and more of a window for metal on metal friction because a 10 or 5 will not thin out as quickly to a 30 as a 0 will, which is where you want the oil when you reach 100c.

Tranny: Redline MT-90 Possibly mixed with Lightweight Shock Proof.
Reason: solid fluid, and usually when mixed there is less bitchiness. The MT90 is solid when warmed up but flows less on cold start ups/temps than the Lightweight Shock Proof. Ideally, with a 30-50% mixture there should be less notchiness on colder shifts than a straight MT90 mix, and the protection of shock proof as well with the lubrication properties of the MT90 at normal operating temps. RB25 trannies tend to notch in 2nd and a light bit in 3rd when cool. Also the MT90 isn’t always the nicest in lower gears and sometimes grinds on synchro’s apparently, hence the mix balancing them both out.

Brake fluid: Motil RBF600

Reason: Baller boiling point, DOT 4, better pedal feel, superior fluid. My brake fluid resevoir is on my turbo side, so boiling point is a serious concern. Also full synthetic, so it can take the abuse quite well.

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i have rbf but one of my buddies was telling me you could get ford racing brake fluid with similar boiling points NON synthetic(which is ok, nor real need for it ) and its much cheaper

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i got tons of that rbf shit kickin around my place from all my bikes… and i just put plain jane dot 3 in my car

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I’ve got RBF in there now and it is working great. Far better pedal feel and response. Still have 1 and 1/2 bottles left over. The RBF never ended up boiling of course, but my power steering fluid boils over lol.

Also running the Ow30 German Castrol and so far so good. My engine seems to love it so far, really smooth, and only $8.96 a quart. Before that I had Amsoil 10w30 and it came out very nice and held up quite well for 7K.

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feint saw you pulling into wendys plaza yesterday at 4pm. i was kind enough to wave at you in my tegi but you ignored lol lol

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I never even saw you , but my passenger said that a hunter green Integra waved at me with dealer plates, so I knew it was you after I was told that. If I saw you wave I would have waved back. When you drive with black leathers in 30c weather with no A/C, you just want the helll out of your car.

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What company uses cardboard in there oil filter? Fram?

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oil… i very often just use whats on sale or what i get free at an event… 5/50 in my Kouki right now with Fram double guard filters since they are at CT… cheap, fast, easy for oil and oil changes for me since the motors.

I don’t plan on ever having a motor last for more than a few years before having some other type of catastrophe so why blow $60 on oil every couple months…

brake fluid, what ever Sasha put in my car… i think motul…i asked for good stuff :slight_smile:

diff… more good stuff, royal purple in the coupe (ATS Carbonetic 1.5 way)… i forget whats in the kouki’s 2-way

tranny… CT brand in hte Kouki, good stuff in the Coupe… but i forget again…

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Yes. Nissan makes quality filters, as does Wix, NAPA, Mobil 1, K&N, and Amsoil. The Nissan filter isn’t an extended interval though, so it needs a change around the regular interval time while Synthetic oils can run at least 10K. A lot of them are advertised as 1 yr and they could be run that long in theory (AMS Aston Martin for example is a good SON example) but I would rather change it sooner to to be safer. It’s hard to really know how much sheardown has occured without doing an oil analysis.

Synthetics pay for themself for a myriad of reasons. Far less prone to sheardown, less use of viscosity index improvers which means your 5w30 stays as a 5w30 a lot longer than a Dino oil which will have more VIP that degrade, eventually turning the oil into a straight 30, better lubrication, cold start flow (where the most damage happens), etc.

Oil pressure is everything. Too thick=incorrect oil pressure= starvation at higher RPM’s due to inefficient flow=increased bearing wear=pop goes the motor one day. Another spun bearing.

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ps: i used to run dot 4 on my 636. since i had to ride my back brake allllll day everyday since rear brake works as a holly shit bar when your up on one wheel lol

with reg dot3 motul i could feel my brake getting soft and lose after half day of riding… and dot3 could fry up your caliper… as i was told. but this is for stuntbikes… dont know why would you guys need a dot4 high boiling point fluid…

as an example… when i had to change my brakes on tegi… i had to heat up my caliper mount bolt to cherry red… and i bet you with my shitty aim using 20 dolla ct propain torch… i must of boiled up that fluid pretty good but my brakes on tegi works juuuuust fine with decent pedal feeling… and i bet you it aint no dot4 motul seen?

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The Teg is NA though. I am boosted, so all of my waste heat from the turbo heats up my brake master. Let’s put it this way: there’s enough heat to boil over my power steering on the opposite side of my turbo, how do you think plain Jane dot 3 is going to hold up to that heat? Not well at all.

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My brake fluid seems to be fine :shrug:

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With WOT for extended periods of time? I never boil anything except at the track “track”. I bet I can boil your DOT 3 :devil: .

Plain Jane brakes will also burn. Once again, only track issues, not daily.

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hum… isnt there a wrap you can put on yo turbo? to keep the heat in one spot? thats crazy dou yo lol

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There’s a heat shield, but it doesn’t stop it. It prevents the waste heat from the top and left and right side of the turbo from rising up. However with under the hood velocity and the amount of aste heat being produced, it just spreads out from the sides anyway and heats up the engine bay. You can feel the waste heat around your legs lol, turbos are stupid hot. Also, when you consider the temps of the exhaust gases running through the turbo and coming into the hot pipe, it is not surprising at all that DOT 3 brake fluid can boil over. Those gases are 2x hotter than the boiling point of DIT 4 . And when it comes to brakes, why fuck around? Imagine not being able to stop reasonably because you were too lazy/ cheap to use DOT 4. Bye bye car. Brake fluid is cheaper than a car.

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engine: Mobil 1 (5w30 or 10w30)

trans: Redline MT90 (GL-4)

diff: Redline 75w90 (GL-5)

transfer case (for the GTiR): Redline 75w90 (GL-5)

brake fluid: Wilwood EX600 (same fluid as RBF600, diff packaging)

coolant: Prestone premix

power steering fluid: Mobil 1 Synthetic ATF

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i’m bringing this thread back because i’m due for changing my tranny and diff oil, but also because i know a lot of you don’t drive your cars in the winter, so

is there anything in particular anyone recommends for the winter time? i’m talking about tranny & diff.

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ive mostly run 10w30 and 10w40 as i only drive the car summer and race duty high mileage kind of worry (oh its a ka but why blow it). I ran the 10w40 thinking ill blow it up on track or something lmao… it ran smooth and fine… but i ‘felt’ more power with the 10w30 so since then just stuck to 10w30 anyways… easiest to find so meh. I’m not driving a ferrari engine.

Have stuck with amsoil since i first began using it and now run it on all cars… can’t go wrong… good quality oil… wouldn’t ever buy any of those other mystery dyno oils or mystery synethtics no matter the brand name… i did that and two cars died on me like that… never ever cheapening out on oil lol…

As far as tranny goes… mt90 works… but again not good for colder weather but i never drive winter. Bottom line is have to use gl-4 as gl-5 has some additives or something (i can’t remember now) that can ruin our trannies (brass synchro components or something?)

brakefluid i use the ATE blue/race fluid… cheap and works… rbf600 felt spongy or weird on me i dunno… and then i switched to wilwood fluid just as it came with my calipers… works just as good.

Powersteering: redline ATF

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I went to: Craptire, Parts Source ( I know same as ctire), CarQuest, and wal-mart none of which had Redline MT-90 =\ anyone?

Anyone used Quaker State synchromesh for tranny?

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I thought this was a post about golden showers boy was I wrong