A Question for Motorheads...

[Rolex]

I've been part of a race engine design, building and maintenance team. We've been around for about seven years and have a Formula driver as part of the team. Since I sold my business, I've been more involved - it doesn't seem like work. 

We're looking at leveraging the race experience and contacts to import and distribute high-end synthetic racing oils to high-performance shops throughout the country (Japan). We're only interested in the highest quality product and have no interest in low cost, consumer-grade oils.

I know there are some fellow motorheads here, so I wondered if you had any good or bad experiences with high-end synthetics? High-end motorcycle and gear oils?

[Maverick]

There has been a consistent issue with seeping / leaking seals using synthetic vs dino oil in BMW motorcycles with some miles on them. It is not an issue with the brand new engines but after they get about 30k miles, engines that were sealed tight with dino oil started to leak with the synthetics.

The recommended change interval is also an issue due to the costs involved in synthetic. A serious use of an oil analysis program should be considered in converting so that you get the full use out of the synthetic oil. No reason to toss out good oil just because of the miles or calendar say that it is time.

Frankly speaking, if you are going to follow the oil change companies guidelines ( lubepit, grease monkey et al 3k oil change) you are a darn fool for using synthetic on anything that does not absolutely require it.

[icepac]

How high a perfomance engine are you talking about?

I only run synthetic oil on turbocharged engines that don't feature a water cooled center section of the turbo or supercharged engines that use engine oil to lubricate the supercharger as well as road race cars that might be called upon to run enduros.

For anything else, I run a good quality consumer motor oil and have had zero failures.

I think it's a mistake running synthetic to greatly stretch change intervals since contamination does not discriminate between synthetic and regular oil.

[Shuffler]

I run Synthetic Rotella in my '05 Chevy Diesel truck. No issues at all.



As for the BMW motorcycles..... I thought they all dripped oil. Every one I have ever seen usually had a small tray under it if it was in a shop or garage.

[Bino]

My 2003 MINI Cooper S came from the factory with synthetic oil in the crankcase, and that's what I've kept in it for the 167,000 miles I now have on the car.  I have the oil & filter changed every 10,000 miles.  By the time that interval comes around, the engine is only about a half a quart low.  No leaks.

My 1972 Citroen DS 21 had dino-oil in it for about 140,000 miles with its first two owners.  Since I bought it, I've kept Red Line synthetic in the engine, with no leaks.

[Dragon]

I use dino in the Jag as recommended.

The Land Rover is now on a Synthetic (Rotella) diet since it was suggested clear up some lifter noise.  It cleared up after a few hundred miles but I think I'm going to stick with it although it does tend to leak a bit more.  

[Rolex]

Thanks for your comments.

Yeah, roger on the leaking seals, Maverick. Many times we rebuild before making a transition. Our private customers are, well, obsessive. Private build customers insist on using on the best products and cost efficiency is irrelevant to them. It's a boutique market of customers for us.

For icepac, we tune engines up to Formula Nippon class (private tuning is allowed), so they're 3400cc V8 normally-aspirated Honda HR10E or Toyota RV8K blocks. They're Indy class engines. Also lots of GT class. The rules are that we have to run the same engine for 3 races.

We're not looking at any of the big company brands because every one we've tested and had analyzed has been inferior to the smaller brands. That's probably not a surprise.

[Maverick]

I run Synthetic Rotella in my '05 Chevy Diesel truck. No issues at all.



As for the BMW motorcycles..... I thought they all dripped oil. Every one I have ever seen usually had a small tray under it if it was in a shop or garage.

No you have mistaken it for the harley brand "chain lube feature". Frankly if you can't tell the difference between those two brands you probably aren't qualified to handle anything with fewer than 4 wheels anyhow.

The brit bikes tend to spray a bit but even triumph has done work to stop it.

[CAP1]

I've been part of a race engine design, building and maintenance team. We've been around for about seven years and have a Formula driver as part of the team. Since I sold my business, I've been more involved - it doesn't seem like work. 

We're looking at leveraging the race experience and contacts to import and distribute high-end synthetic racing oils to high-performance shops throughout the country (Japan). We're only interested in the highest quality product and have no interest in low cost, consumer-grade oils.

I know there are some fellow motorheads here, so I wondered if you had any good or bad experiences with high-end synthetics? High-end motorcycle and gear oils?

first off....this is just my experience.

 that said.......

 in our camaro dragster, we ran regular racing motor oil. we never ran synthetic. we never had a single problem with that engine. i prefered valvoline, but my racing partner always won that discussion, and we ran castrol in that car.

 in my mustang gt, which was only a 12 second car, i also ran regular oil. she was an every day driver, any weather. she was raced at the drag strip twice a week, street raced every weekend, and driven to and from work, on the hottest of summer days, and the coldest of winter days. she was driven from nj to conn., to florida, to md, to upper pa.........never a single problem running plain old valvoline high performance motor oil.
 
 a friend of mine used to use amsoil in his gmc safari(yea, i know it's not high performance), and went nearly 700k on the original engine, although he did go through 2 trannys, and 2 front diffs. he had a 10 second grand national, which his wife used to drive every day....he ran amsoil in that too.

[WYOKIDIII]

dammit I thought we were gonna talk about Lemme Killmeister .

[Grayeagle]

Ok.

When Mobil 1 first came out I had a friend who had worked on pit crew for a Formula Toyota open wheel car.
Since he was in the USAF also, he used the SOAP lab for oil analysis for every oil change
(owner/driver was a Capt then, flyin F-4's ..most of pit crew were USAF, stationed in Germany ..
..they ran what races they could.

Mobil sent them cases of their new synthetic for the askin ..so they gave it a shot.
Driver initially had to adjust his braking points as the car was faster at end of straights,
had to be easier on throttle comin off the apexes, and first oil change showed 50 percent drop
in measurable metal contaminants. Second oil change was again 50 percent drop.
By 4th oil change there was no measurable metal contaminants by the USAF SOAP lab.

End of season, engine was sent to Toyota for rebuild.
Previously it needed new bearings and occasional hardware replaced (rockers, lifters an the like)
The note they got back with the engine was it needed nothing, it was all still in spec for class.

So they tried Mobil 1 synthetic in the tranny. Previously they ran Dexron ..everyone did.
Same routine happened.. by 4th oil change, no metal content.
Driver said the back end was loose ..more power .. lap times went down ..again.
They started gettin podium finishes and spec tear downs

I personally tried it in my lil '87 Honda CRX. Change from Castrol netted 3mpg improvement
and about 5mph top end gain. There is a stretch of desert 2 lane I useda run every day on
the way to work, approx 10 miles from one intersection to the other, straight as an arrow.
I'd just floor it all the way. It was a Honda

From then on I used Mobil 1 synthetic in everything I had. (this was in 1988)
'88 1100cc Honda Shadow, '78 Gold Wing, my beater van,
years later my bran new '96 Z28, '98 bran new Durango, etc
 .. all went to 7500 mile oily changes.

Cut to the present .. my '97 Vette oil cap says right on it to use Mobil 1 synthetic ..been on it since new.
Nowadays there are other brands out there with their own additive package -shrug-
As long as it says full synthetic, it's all good.
I prefer Mobil 1 ..they did it first and it has always worked very well.

-GE aka Frank  (just sayin -tm Pasha)

[Big Rat]

Funny thing about motor oils is that the more the EPA got their hands in it the less protection we got.  Now that they got worried about the zinc content damaging the convertors.  If you were anywhere near the classic car industry in the last few years, you know this left all sorts of owners with old flat tappet cams looking for alternatives to the big named brand oils, that through the EPA had to reduce their zinc content to meet the new standard.  Now the big motor oil companies had to have the "latest" and "greatest" standard so they all went with the zinc reduction.  This was much to the liking of the small motor oil companies which stuck with the racing market, such as Redline, Royal Purple, and companies like them.  Was also good for a lot of the diesel oils which didn't have to conform to this standard and were able to keep their high zinc content, so many started to run diesel oil.  It's not just flat tappet cams that have to worry though, anyplace their is going to be high pressure loads in an engine will benefit from a good zinc content.  If you are running a roller cam over .600 lift you should have it as well, even though it's a roller that's still quite a bit of drivetrain load.  I personally run Royal purple in both my vettes 69 big block with hydraulic flat tappet cam .560 lift and my 2000 FRC with a hydraulic roller .613 lift.  To this I add a Redline zinc additive to both.  Probably overkill since Royal Purple assures us they have plenty of zinc, but haven't been able to pull up their numbers to verify.  Now the zinc content issue is really only a factor on older flat tappet cam engines, and engines that are going to have wear components under high loads. For your regular daily driver's the zinc content in the current oils is just fine, as almost everything now runs some sort of roller cam.   

If you are looking for a high grade oil to import for Racing purposes, and cost wasn't the main issue, Redline Oils are hard to beat.  They have been a specialty oil company for a long time, with deep roots in the racing industry.

 
BigRat     

[CAP1]

Funny thing about motor oils is that the more the EPA got their hands in it the less protection we got.  Now that they got worried about the zinc content damaging the convertors.  If you were anywhere near the classic car industry in the last few years, you know this left all sorts of owners with old flat tappet cams looking for alternatives to the big named brand oils, that through the EPA had to reduce their zinc content to meet the new standard.  Now the big motor oil companies had to have the "latest" and "greatest" standard so they all went with the zinc reduction.  This was much to the liking of the small motor oil companies which stuck with the racing market, such as Redline, Royal Purple, and companies like them.  Was also good for a lot of the diesel oils which didn't have to conform to this standard and were able to keep their high zinc content, so many started to run diesel oil.  It's not just flat tappet cams that have to worry though, anyplace their is going to be high pressure loads in an engine will benefit from a good zinc content.  If you are running a roller cam over .600 lift you should have it as well, even though it's a roller that's still quite a bit of drivetrain load.  I personally run Royal purple in both my vettes 69 big block with hydraulic flat tappet cam .560 lift and my 2000 FRC with a hydraulic roller .613 lift.  To this I add a Redline zinc additive to both.  Probably overkill since Royal Purple assures us they have plenty of zinc, but haven't been able to pull up their numbers to verify.  Now the zinc content issue is really only a factor on older flat tappet cam engines, and engines that are going to have wear components under high loads. For your regular daily driver's the zinc content in the current oils is just fine, as almost everything now runs some sort of roller cam.   

If you are looking for a high grade oil to import for Racing purposes, and cost wasn't the main issue, Redline Oils are hard to beat.  They have been a specialty oil company for a long time, with deep roots in the racing industry.

 
BigRat     

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   the epa screwing things up??!! say it ain't so!!!!!!! 

[icepac]

Thanks for your comments.

Yeah, roger on the leaking seals, Maverick. Many times we rebuild before making a transition. Our private customers are, well, obsessive. Private build customers insist on using on the best products and cost efficiency is irrelevant to them. It's a boutique market of customers for us.

For icepac, we tune engines up to Formula Nippon class (private tuning is allowed), so they're 3400cc V8 normally-aspirated Honda HR10E or Toyota RV8K blocks. They're Indy class engines. Also lots of GT class. The rules are that we have to run the same engine for 3 races.

We're not looking at any of the big company brands because every one we've tested and had analyzed has been inferior to the smaller brands. That's probably not a surprise.

If that's the case, then amsoil is not bad for the engines but we run a super secret fluid in the ricardo transaxle because it has to live behind a 2600hp engine.

[Hajo]

I've ran synthetic exclusively after the first oil change in my Hypo vehicles.

I've had no problems at all.  When changing from regular oil to synthetic I noticed the difference right away after starting the engine.  Frankly synthetics have proven to be a better lubricant in the long run. Better lubricants of course have a better effect  on friction, less, helps the cooling, and holds its' viscosity longer all which help with increased performance and mileage. 

I've many friends who race at the track.  Consensus from them 4 brands of synthetic that are the best are: Red Line, Amsoil, Royal Purple and Mobil 1.

BTW BMW required that I ran BMW synthetic racing oil in my BMW.  Found out that BMW Racing Oil is Mobile 1.  I run Royal Purple and a Royal Purple Filter.  The filter has a magnet which will hold metallic particles, as do some other brands.


Something else to consider installing is a catch can (easy to install) that drops out any oil and prevents it from entering the intake.