What oil are you all using?

Hi all -

Just wondering what oil you are all using in your motors?

We have been using Q8 Formula F1 10w-50 :
(ACEA A3, API SL BMW Special Oil, MB 229.1) fully synthetic in a Fontana alloy 302 (347) drysumped with 4-stage pump.

Ok but oil pressure v-low at idle when oil gets hot - say 100 degC or above.

So question is - what are you using and in what + any thoughts on its performance.

Do you prefer mineral? to synthetic and change it more often?

cheers!
 
Paul,

I prefer Hawaiian Tropic.

Rubs in well! Smells superb. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
O.K on a semi serious note:

My brother has been using Motul 15W-50 in his old Ferrari 308. No oil pressure probs.

Paul, do you for certain that the Q8 muck is 100% synthetic?

From my research, the more addtives they put in oils to give a wider range i.e 5W-60 the greater the chance of the oil breaking down.

Motul claim to use virtually none, and rely on very good synthetic base stocks.

That'll be my choice once my engine has a few miles on it.

Currently I'm using 76 racing 20W-50 mineral.

I'll then move to the Motul 15W-50.

Paul that extra "5" between the Motul and Q8 might make all the difference.
 
Paul,
I use Castrol Magnatec 15/40, which is designed for 'conventional' rather than 'modern' engines. I have a steady 50-60psi, even at idle when the engine is very hot, as at Le Mans a couple of weeks ago. Admittedly my engine has only done a couple of thousand miles in its current incarnation and I don't thrash it perhaps as much as you do. . . . .
One invaluable thing that Frank Catt showed me, when the car was at Wealden Engineering this spring, is the importance of dipstick calibration. I had religiously filled up to the dipstick mark and was rather surprised when just under 2 litres came out when we drained the oil to change it! The dipstick supplied obviously wasn't calibrated for the engine's sump.
Now, with 7¼ litres, there is a new mark, much higher up the dipstick that I fill to!
Of course I'm not even suggesting that you race with only 2 litres of oil in your sump - you would have found out the hard way a long time ago!
 
Hi Tony -
Thanks for the input - Per chance Roy has changed to Magnatec today for a trial run tomorrow as Jools has had good results from it also. We like the protection that a fully synthetic gives but currently suffer low pressure at idle when oil is hot. Let it all cool down and pressure is back up to 60 psi at idle. I have also read about steel or alloy end plates on the pressure outlet of the oil pump to improve pressure when hot. An issue with expansion rates / clearances I believe.

Anyone else got any thoughts - or can let us know what they use???
 
Does anyone use an additive like " Slick 50 "? Many years ago when I was in the Navy we were shown a movie where helecopter engines were tested with the additive and without it. The engines were run for 8 hours ( I think ) and then all the oil was drained out. The engines with the additive would run for 1 hour without oil and the engine that only had regular oil which was also drained out would only run for 15 minutes. This was supposed to get the helecopter out of a battle zone if it lost oil preasure. Joe
By the way I use Penzoil 15 w 40.
 

Peter Delaney

GT40s Supporter
Like Tony, I also use Castrol Magnatec, but 20W50 here in Oz for the warmer conditions.

I was also strongly advised by "experts" against using synthetics in older "conventional" engines.

Dipstick Calibration - what a timely introduction of this topic ! My engine builder stuffed this up nicely - modified some F100 dipstick or something, & ran it up between (& touching) the headers. I am now the proud owner of a piece of "modern art" - a melted yellow blob at the top of the dipstick tube ! Not only that, the other end of the stick just sits there above the oil level - maybe he was trying to get the thing to measure oil vapour pressure or something ??

My engine is based on a standard '95 Mustang block & I think it has the original sump. The manual says that the capacity is 2 US Quarts (4.73L), so I started off with 5L of the Castrol. Its now time for an oil change & a real dipstick :

Any ideas on :

- Whether 5L sounds about right for a stock sump ?

- If not, where should the oil level be in relation to the crankcase/sump joint ?

- A suitable dipstick assembly & where it should sit ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Peter D.
 

Lynn Larsen

Lynn Larsen
Mobil 1, 15-50 The low end weight depends on your minimum temperatures: the colder it gets the lower the cold viscosity number. Hell, they even make a 0 weight oil. The high end number depends on a lot of things, but primarily the clearances in your bearings and the temperatures. I have been using synthetic multiweight oils for quite a while now and I can see the oil pressure rise as the temp increases. I get the highest oil pressure running at interstate speeds with the A/C on.

The only thing I have noticed is that in the winter, my cam followers in the Mitsubishi V6 that pump up kind of like hydaulic lifters are noisy because the oil never gets thick enough to pump them up tight. That is one reason I went to 15-50 vs 10-40.

Lynn
 
Peter,
Frank Catt is (as always!) my guru on matters relating to dipstick calibration. So much depends on sump depth and oil filter size, remote oil filter line capacity and so on, that you should never heave in a volume of oil and hope that the final level is correct - which is what an uncalibrated dipstick does, after all.
You need to start at main bearing journal height in the block - crankshaft centreline, say - and make allowances for crank and journal diameters, then a little bit to ensure that the the big ends don't touch the oil, otherwise you get violent frothing. We calculated this all out for my SVO engine at 265mm from the dipstick seating at the top of the tube.
Then you measure the oil that you put in until it reaches the mark. Run the engine to fill the oil filter (and lines?) and repeat the process again, recording the amount of oil all the time until you hit the mark with the engine cold and drained down. The total is what you need for a dry change. I needed 6½ litres with a dry oil filter, then a further ¾ litre after that - 7¼ litres in all.
Once this is all done, road test the car and look for oil pressure fluctuations and other anomalies, such as oil blown out of the breather, which might indicate overfilling.
The objective, surely, must be to get as much oil into the engine that it will take without the crank splashing, in order to maximise heat dissipation and, of course, lubrication.
 

Lynn Larsen

Lynn Larsen
If you can calibrate your dip stick statically, it makes the process much easier. I had the luxury of doing this. I installed the windage tray and filled the pan with water making sure it sat at same angle as it would on the car. The dip stick tube was installed on the pan and the dip stick itself was trimmed to make certain the tip was in the proper location. You definitely do not want the oil level above the windage tray. So I measured the amount I put in and marked the dip stick with a high and low mark. I added more water to see just how much it would hold and not come above the windage tray. A couple of days later when I was sure the pan was completely dry, I installed it on the car. Like Tony described, I put the amount of oil in that I had determined and ran the engine for a while. I then let it cool/drain down and rechecked the dip stick and adjusted the amount of oil needed to be in the marks. There was just under a 1/2 quart of oil in the remote filter, cooler and the lines. I was surprised at how little the difference was. Actually, it turned out that I can run between 7 and 9 quarts of oil and be just fine. My low mark is 7 quarts and my high is 8. The difference between 7 and 8 quarts is only about a 1/4" with my oil pan. Although, I could put an additional quart in, I am afraid that with the sloshing of being on the road, too much oil could get above the windage tray and cause the frothing that Tony mentioned. Too much oil is worse than a bit of underfill. So as long as my engine doesn't burn or leak oil and I am not in a 24 hour endurance race, I see no value in overfilling it to 9 quarts.

As long as the rods aren't hitting your windage tray, the static method of calibration would do just fine :).
 
MK-IV Castrol 40W Racing
P 3/4 Castrol 40W Racing
Lola Mobil 1 15w 50
Dusenberg Castrol 50w Racing
Maser Agip Stint 10w 40
Turbo Cayenne Mobil 1 0w 40
 
Using MOtul 15w/50 on all my race engine during 10 years never problem,on my latest dyno session back to back have observed a lost of 6HP between 15/50 and straight 30 oil
 
I'm using Castrol Magnatex as well. 'For Older engines' for my 66 289 & 'For Modern engines' for my 2004 Mustang-based 302. A friend of mine is an oil tester. His job was to run engines of all ages with oil of all types, flat out for 24 hours, then strip & examine them. He found with the Magnatex that long after draining & stripdown, the oil film on the components was about 10x thicker than non-magnatex oils. As my car stands for weeks draining, then is subjected to anything we get up to with '40's, this seemed the best compromise. Oil pressure dips to 37psi at tickover when hot and the oil has travelled a 1000 miles or more, but it is at normal (55 ?) pressure at all speeds & all temperatures. There are so many myths surrounding 'synthetic' or worse still semi-synths. that for me I decided to ask an unbiased oilman.
So, who has actually lost an engine due to wrong oil choice?

Tony.
 
Paul,

I have recently switched from Castrol GTX to Catrol GTX Magnetec 15/40 for Conventional engines. I was strongly advised by my engine machinist not to use magnetec on a new engine - after all the intention is get some wear while running in.

With my old engine and a high volume pump I was getting >100psi when cold with revs above 2000, when hot it ran about 80/85 psi all the time and ticked over about 60 psi.

When I built my new engine everyone talked about going back to standard oil pumps so I followed the trend - I now have 60psi cold, 50 running and down to about 35 when very hot (e.g. following the Le Mans circuit).

My engine seems to tickover much better now with Magnetec but I was concerned it affected my lifters !?! Shortly after changing I found more than one rocker started ticking and had to be re-adjusted - these are hydraulic so any gap has to be taken out. Is this likely?

As to dipsticks (present company excluded) I had the advantage when building my engine to calibrate the dipstick with the front cover mounted alone on my (Brian Magee) sump. I put the top mark just below the windage tray level and have 1 litre between top and low level marks. On a recent change it took about 7.5 litres including a short oil filter. I changed after getting nothing but good reports on Magnetec.
 
I put that Magnetec muck in my boat once. Had to pump it out the following week. Nearly all the rockers started ticking, a right bloody racket! All because I thought it was a superior oil. NOT! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

Went back to Quicksilver Marine oil, ticking rockers gone immediately. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Magnetic is just plain marketing shite! All synthetic oils cling to metal.

If Magnetec does work in your engine why not try a proper synthetic like Motul, Neo or Amsoil?

We get shafted every single day by clever marketing, I certainly won't be shafting my engine with an oil from a T.V ad!

Regards,

J.P

P.S I can here Castrol's marketing dept now. "Look John we've got to try and make a really profitable product, lets just use our cheap mineral oil and bung some sythetic oil in there and give it a fancy name. How much are we spending on this project anyway? Reply: £20 million on the advertising and £1 million on the product.

P.P.S I just don't trust any company who spends millions on a product that costs so little to make. I will always go with the company that spends the money where it really counts.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gifThe quality of the product /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
 
That load of rot belongs in the bilge of your boat, JP!
While not necessarily arguing with your comments on Castrol's marketing budget, I do take exception when you slag off the product.
Castrol have been in the oil business for longer than you have been alive, I suggest. Their reputation was made when nobody knew much about oil, but I know plenty of guys in the Castrol engine test department who know exactly how well their product performs and they are very happy with Magnatec.
That your boat engine didn't like Magnatec is down more to your engine than the product - a good marine oil, rather than a high performance automotive one, would probably have done the job quite adequately.
The number of people on the forum who find that Magnatec 15W40 looks after their engines very well (read Peter Delaney, Roy Smart, Tony Jasper, Dave Champ again - and Mk IV J6 uses Castrol products too!) should add weight enough to my comments. If Castrol marketing are idiots, this forum certainly aren't!

A slight case of select brain before engaging mouth, I think /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
I love argueing a point, so i'll continue with great vigor.

The only thing that belongs in my bilge is the Castrol Magnatec! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I'm sure the product is indeed good, to a point.

However, it certainly would not be as good as say the Motul 15W-50.

I don't see many Le Mans teams using Magnatec in their engines - they use the best available product.

I'm pretty sure that Ferraro Prodrive use Motul, as do may other big racing outfits.

I know we are not racing at Le Mans. BUT, GT40's do get pretty hot, so it makes absolute common sense to make sure that the oil we use is the best available.

I would also maintain that, in the case of GT40's, it is wise to change the oil quite often. The intense heat again hammers the oil, breaking it down, thinning it etc.

I'll be changing my oil at least once a month.

Castrol are not marketing idiots because they got you to buy their oil, and me too!! We're the idiots for being suckers for well placed advertising. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

All said and done, if your happy with Magnatec then that's great, but I'm not so there! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Regards,

J.P
 
JP,
Consider what you have just said and step back. You are coming from a purely Motorsport angle, where cars will not sit and oil gets changed more frequently than may cat's litter tray. Can most people add an additional £60 to their budget per month? Not on the wages Ford pay me!

Others look for longer term on the road driving solutions. I once had the pleasure of having an indepth talk with a guy from Catsrol, as they had an office in the plant, due to the amount need for cutting the gears and filling the gearboxes. He took me through how Magnatec worked to Molecular level. Whilst most of it was lost on me I retained enough Physics and Chemistry to understand some of it. Whilst I can't comment on how other oils work exactly, the way in which he described the change in polarisation of some of the molecules to induce a magentic affect was truely interesting... and he was an engineer not a PR guy. For after hearing that I would use Magnatec, as they say it is initial start up which causes most wear.

Just my tuppence

Brett
 
I'm guessing they add a small amount of synthetic ester, but I still rate it no better than any other semi-synthetic.

Have a look at the Silkolene site. There's a very good explantion of the whole deal:

www.silkoleneoil.com

Regards,

J.P

P.S Any proper synthetic oil that contains esters will stick to metal.
 
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