In order to avoid carrying on in the Intro threads, I wanted to start a new thread.
To my knowledge, there is regular oil, synthetic, and I know Valvoline offers a “durablend” which is a mix of synthetic, and regular oil.
I’ve heard of some racers running a thinner oil in order to reduce resistance, and gain horsepower, but I would think you can only go so thin before you put your engine in jeopardy.
We also have rotary engines, which according to 2 rotary people on this forum, should never use synthetic.
What’re the basic differences between the 3 oil types, what are the advantages and disadvantages of using each?
According to the guy at Delta Sonic, Synthetic will give me at least 3 pounds of boost more than regular oil. After I made him look like a fool, I got the mix blend, cause I’m cheap like that.
Yea I don’t see how a different oil would make a turbo or supercharger (turbo in your case) spin faster to compress more air, and force more air into the engine.
The only thing I’ve known could happen, is a thinner oil has less resistance, allowing the engine parts to spin more freely.
I compared this to running in a swimming pool, vs. running out of water.
EDIT: Now that I think about it… turbos have an oil line run to them IIRC… so it may help the turbo life, IF synthetic is good for it, but I can’t see it even remotely increasing boost.
The oil quality will only increase turbo life, at least to my knowledge. But I don’t think a specific type (ie. synthetic, blend, normal) would do anything for boost.
As far as thinner oil for racing a car… that would be a pretty bad idea in my honest opinion. I usually ran 5W30 in my ATX and after a night of pushing it a little my shit was running terribly. Oil light on, some crazy bad noises. My engine loves to spin rod bearings and all I have to say is that the next day I dropped the oil and threw in some 10W30 for now until I figure out what I’m doing with it. Thin oil = the bad for my POS under very little extreme driving.
Edit: Each car/engine has its own little quirk. You all know what happens under certain conditions and what will tend to happen given these conditions because to each engine its own. I guess if theres no problems with a thinner oil in your specific motor, then see if it does anything. I know the hard way I can’t run it.
my boost is driectly controlled by a wastegate. The wastegate is directly controlled by the little blue box on my dash that says make this much boost @ this RPM… no more, no less. The oil inside the eingine/turbo may make it run better in general, but will not give it more boost, unless I tell it to.
BTW - From what I gather, synth is better for turbos due to the extreme temps… thats why i try to change mine every 2500.
I actually ran the dip stick dry @ 3000 miles, but my oil pressure was still good… so i’m not sure what happened.
btw, there’s really nothing wrong with dyno oil…its just that you gotta replace em sooner…therefore, if you change em ever 3K miles, it should as good as syn…
syn however, got more cleaning detergent on it…which can keep your engine clean from crap (carbon, sludge)…
synthetic oil wont break down n get dirty as fast as convntional oils… and it does a better job of cleaning n protecting then the basic stuff does. If you use synthetics on a car that isnt beat on constantly you can take it to 5000 miles between changes too… i work at valvoline …
cleaning has absolutly nothing to do with the oil itself. that is the additives, and the only reason people are told to change their oil so often is becasue the additives stop working… oh, and the oil companies want more money.
and i am excited to hear you work at valvoline. i work for G&G Fitness.
thought this was interesting and seemed to fit this topic
This is writen by a well known engine builder
We used to mainly use straight weights, such as 30 wt. for standard engines and 40wt. and 50 wt. for racing engines. This was due to whatever the inside clearances were and temperatures the engines were going to be run at. A racing engine is usually set-up loosed (wider clearances) than a basic street engine and most racing engines are run in warm, Summer weather, which would require a thicker oil to take-up the spaces and keep the engine protected. These days, with multi viscosity oils, you get better protection BUT there is a real misconception on this. 10W-40 oil is 10 weight oil. It is very thin. 10W-40 means that the oil is a 10 weight based oil but when it’s hot, it has the “viscosity” of 40 weight oil. It does NOT turn into 40 weight oil like so many people think multi viscosity oils do. They are called “multi viscosity” for a reason, not “multi weight” oil. It isn’t meat gravy! It doesn’t get thicker when it heats up. Don’t believe me? That’s an easy one to prove. Check your dip stick when your engine is cold. The oil stays on the dip stick as normal. Now check it when the engine is hot, the oil will run off that dip stick like it was thinner than water! Like I said, it ain’t gravy! 20w-50 is the same thing, 20 weight oil when it’s cold and the protection or “viscosity” of 50 weight oil when it gets hot. This is because the molecules in the oil are kind of like springs. When they heat-up, they expand and when they are cold, they contract, in simple terms. This expansion and contraction does not thicken the oil when it gets hot. It still thins-out like any oil.
Now, what is a good weight to run in your engine? Most modern car engines have very tight clearances and need thinner oils so the oil can get where it needs to go to do it’s job as fast as possible. Thick oil has a hard time getting in tight places or getting where it needs to go until it warms-up and thins out. That’s why we always warm-up our performance engines before we started driving or putting any loads on the engine. This made sure the oil was warmed-up, thinned-down and has had time to get where it needs to go to start protecting the internals of the engine. Thinner oils have less drag on the oil pump and drive gears as well, which equates to less parasitic power loss. But again, too thin of oil can also mean les protection under high loads and high heat so there is no one perfect answer. The problem with thin oils is that most oil and advertising is geared towards the East coast where it is very cold in the Winter and thinner oil is more suited. The West coast almost never gets that cold, so the oils we use out here need to be thicker. I would never recommend 0w-30 or 5W-30 oil in ANY performance engine let alone any normal street cars in warm weather. That stuff is like water and can’t take the kind of heat and loads of a performance engine. This can go on and on, so I’ll try to keep it brief. If you look in a Valvoline catalog under oil recommendations, they recommend 30Wt. in trucks that drive in weather over 80 degrees. Well, that is pretty normal weather for the West coast
190k thousand miles, next to no mods, and still putting down 201whp in the Super-Beater™. Just by using a custom blend of what ever oils were cheapest at the time.
Dollar Store oil for life! :tup:
In all honesty if it worked with what you used before, chances are there is no need to change it. I don’t entirely buy into the synthetic/high miliage sales point when I’ve had 3 cars well in excess of 150,000 miles on them with regular dino oil. Just change your oil every 3000 to 5000 miles. Sure synthetic will last longer, but last I checked it doesn’t eliminate crap from building up from non-maintence.
Synthetic oil is superior to conventional oil, period. Synthetic oil is chemically engineered. The molecules are pure oil molecules. Conventional oil is REFINED from crude oil. They NEVER get ALL OF THE IMPURITIES OUT when they refine it. When you run your motor for a long period of time between changes or run it really hot in the summer, these impurities will begin to cook and char and turn your oil extremely dark. Ever remember seeing that old Mobil 1 commercial where they take the 2 oils and cook them in a frying pan? At 500 degrees, the conventional oil turned into a black syrupy substance. The Mobil 1 still looked like light brown oil. I know what your saying right now, “but my motor runs at 200 degrees, so I shouldn’t have to worry”. Well, your coolant may be at 200 degrees when your motor is running but your combustion chamber is well over 1000 degrees when it fires, and there is a glaze of oil on the cylinder walls directly under the flame front. The sybthetic is just extra insurance IMO. You can go much longer between changes with it too. So a synthetic change will run you maybe 30 bucks compared to 8-10 for conventional oil. For me, I’ll spend the extra 22 bucks for peace of mind.
At the same weight, neither one will last more than 1000 miles in my car before the HLA tick bothers me enough to change it. 10W30 in all cases, started with Havoline, went to Valvoline, then Mobil 1. After 1000 miles, the Mobil 1 doesn’t look much, if any better than the two dino oils I tried. Since the car is normally seeing 4000 RPMS for extended periods, and autocrossed regularly by two drivers, and only driven in the summer, I am thinking I need to go to something thicker.
neuro-- Thats an interesting problem you have there. The only thing that I can think of is somehow you have an excessive amount of dirt entering the motor. Is the motor a little tired? Maybe you should try one of those oil additives, similar to slick50 perhaps. Hope you cure the tick.
Some cars will get the tick because of engineering flaws. 90-97 DSM’s will have lifter tick because the oil orifice is very very small. It will get clogged with dirt and grime. Sometimes there is no oil or fluid that can be added to keep stupid crap like this from happening.
this is also common on z32’s. i know mine has a tick that can drive me crazy at times but it will never go completly away with an oil change or additive
