Oil advice and recommendations

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Oil advice and recommendations

Post by oilman »

The following advice that I gave on MROC may come in handy here as there seem to be an awfull lot of oil related questions.

If I can be of further assistance than please feel free to post your questions on this thread and hopefully it will build into a worthwhile thread that people can refer or be referred to.

Hopefully this information from our database should be of assistance.

The following grades are the Manufacturers recommended ones (which should appear in your handbooks) for stock cars used on the road so, unless you car is modded or being used competitively then they should be followed.

I would recommend the use of at least semi-synthetics but fully synthetics will give better protection both in the short and long term.

MR2 (1985-90) Oil capacity 3.3l 10w-40
MR2, GT (1990-99) Oil capacity 3.9/4.2l 10w-40
MR2 1.8 VVTi (2000 onwards) Oil capacity 3.7l 5w-30 or 5w-40
MR2 1.8 VVTi SMT (2001 onwards) Oil capacity 3.7l 5w-30 or 5w-40

If your car is modded and has increased BHP you need to consider your choice of oil more carefully and moving to fully synthetics is the safest way to increase the protection of your engine.

The following is good guidence for those of you that don't have stock cars:

If you are "modding" your car and adding BHP then consider your oil choice carefully as the stock manufacturers recommended oil will not give you the protection that your engine requires.

A standard oil will not be thermally stable enough to cope with higher temperatures without "shearing" meaning that the oil will not give the same protection after a couple of thousand miles as it it when it was new.

Let’s start with the fundamentals. An engine is a device for converting fuel into motive power. Car enthusiasts get so deep into the details they lose sight of this!

To get more power, an engine must be modified such that it converts more fuel per minute into power than it did in standard form. To produce 6.6 million foot-pounds per minute of power (ie 200 BHP) a modern engine will burn about 0.5 litres of fuel per minute.(Equivalent to 18mpg at 120mph). So, to increase this output to 300BHP or 9.9 million foot-pounds per minute it must be modified to burn (in theory) 0.75 litres.

However, fuel efficiency often goes out of the window when power is the only consideration, so the true fuel burn will be rather more than 0.75 litres/min.

That’s the fundamental point, here’s the fundamental problem:

Less than 30% of the fuel (assuming it’s petrol) is converted to all those foot-pounds. The rest is thrown away as waste heat. True, most of it goes down the exhaust, but over 10% has to be eliminated from the engine internals, and the first line of defence is the oil.

More power means a bigger heat elimination problem. Every component runs hotter; For instance, piston crowns and rings will be running at 280-300C instead of a more normal 240-260C, so it is essential that the oil films on cylinder walls provide an efficient heat path to the block casting, and finally to the coolant.

Any breakdown or carbonisation of the oil will restrict the heat transfer area, leading to serious overheating.

A modern synthetic lubricant based on true temperature-resistant synthetics is essential for long-term reliability. At 250C+, a mineral or hydrocracked mineral oil, particularly a 5W/X or 10W/X grade, is surprisingly volatile, and an oil film around this temperature will be severely depleted by evaporation loss.

Back in the 1970s the solution was to use a thick oil, typically 20W/50; in the late 1980s even 10W/60 grades were used. But in modern very high RPM engines with efficient high-delivery oil pumps thick oils waste power, and impede heat transfer in some situations.

A light viscosity good synthetic formulated for severe competition use is the logical and intelligent choice for the 21st century.
You should consider a "true" synthetic for "shear stability" and the right level of protection.

Petroleum oils tend to have low resistance to “shearing” because petroleum oils are made with light weight basestocks to begin with, they tend to burn off easily in high temperature conditions which causes deposit formation and oil consumption.

As a result of excessive oil burning and susceptibility to shearing (as well as other factors) petroleum oils must be changed more frequently than synthetics.

True synthetic oils (PAO’s and Esters) contain basically no waxy contamination to cause crystallization and oil thickening at cold temperatures. In addition, synthetic basestocks do not thin out very much as temperatures increase. So, pour point depressants are unnecessary and higher viscosity basestock fluids can be used which will still meet the "W" requirements for pumpability.

Hence, little or no VI improver additive would need to be used to meet the sae 30, 40 or 50 classification while still meeting 0W or 5W requirements.

The end result is that very little shearing occurs within true synthetic oils because they are not "propped up" with viscosity index improvers. There simply is no place to shear back to. In fact, this is easy to prove by just comparing synthetic and petroleum oils of the same grade.

Of course, the obvious result is that your oil remains "in grade" for a much longer period of time for better engine protection and longer oil life.

If you would like any advice on oil then please feel free to ask.

Cheers
Guy
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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by oilman »

nutter wrote:So (and excuse me for being dumb... cos i am :) ). If you have a modified engine you should run a fully synthetic oil (eg mobil 1?) What rating is best though? I'm assuming the you'd want the lowest number W (ie 0) and the highest number after that? (50?)

Does this make sense?


Yes but you don't need to move far from the manufacturers recommendation viscosity wise, you just need better quality which means that the oil is more shear stable and therefore capable of lubricating the engine beyond what it was originally designed for.

So in the case of a modded MR2, instead of using a semi-synthetic 10w-40, use a fully synthetic 5w-40 or 10w-40.

If you are seeing extreme oil temps when pushing hard (above 140degC) then the move to a fully synthetic 10w-50 would be adviseable but this is rarely the case as modded cars often have oil coolers which mean that you need thinner oils like 5w-40.

The other important thing to bear in mind is that it's the Viscosity Improvers that shear causing the oil to lose it's ability to operate properly as a multigrade and the wider the viscosity range (i.e. 10w-60 = 50) the more Viscosity Improvers it requires. For example a 10w-40 will be less prone to shear than a 10w-60.

Narrow viscosity oils are the most stable.

So, it's not that simple but we'll get there with a few more lessons.

Cheers
Guy :wink:
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GT Rich
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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by GT Rich »

Mr Oilman i need your help on oil choice please.

I am rebuilding my engine with forged pistons, cams, bigger valves, new oil pump etc. So the engine will be like new.
What running in oil would you recommend to use and also what oil to perminanty use once its run in :?:
I would like the ultimate protection please, so i know that the engine is being looked after. As i will be doing 1/4 mile runs on high boost and hopefully some track racing.

thanks for your time

Rich :)
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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by oilman »

Rich,

For running in the engine you will need a good rich mineral oil, around the 15w-50 grade and run in for around 1000 miles. They use mineral oils to run in because of there poor lubrication and shearing properties, so the engine beds in quicker and leaves the vital deposists.

Once run in is complete I would go for the Silkolene Pro S 10w-50 ester/pao syntheitc. 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 makingnthem ideal for tuned turbo engines.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Guy.
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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by oilman »

Ok, if you've modded your car and oil temps are an issue then you may need to consider an sae 50 rather than an sae 40 so either 10w-50 or 15w-50 are an option however, if not then a step up to a proper fully synthetic 10w-40 or 5w-40 will be fine. We have cars in excess of 400 bhp running on products such as Silkolene PRO S 5w-40 and Motul 300V 5w-40 which are competition oils suitable for road use.

The quality is important here as a good race spec fully synthetic 5w-40 will not shear with the extra stresses and will deliver all the benefits of thinner oils, i.e. less oil drag (friction/heat), better bhp and oil/fuel consumption.

Will be at JAPFEST on 21st May, so look me up for advice and "carriage free" quality oils!

Cheers
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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by oilman »

Any advice on oil required, please feel free to ask as I can help you

You will also find some useful info on my website here

http://www.opieoils.co.uk/oil-and-filte ... oyota.aspx

All the best for 2009

Cheers
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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by oilman »

Anyone for some oil advice? Feel free to ask.
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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by Munnsy »

Really interestin read there :clap: but has made me very confused ](*,)
I will be aiming for a modified turbo pushing the stadard internals to its limitations (350hp Approx)
I have a new turbo to go on, and have been told to do a new oil and filter change.
I have since been using mobil super s 10z40 semi synthetic,

With the new stresses involved within the engine and higher temperatures what would you recomend??

Many thanks in advance and again good interesting read :mrgreen:

dave
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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by oilman »

Are you using the 10w-40 semi for running in? Our choice would be for the ester based Silkolene Pro S 10w-50, ideal and well procen in your setup http://www.opieoils.co.uk/p-1145-silkol ... gines.aspx

Cheers

Guy
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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by dansREV2turbo »

can i ask, i have recently changed my oil (10w 40 silkolene purchased from yourself).
the diference is that the lines for my cooler make it not possible to put a stock oil filter on. I did have a smaller sports filter on the car but could not find another one so i ended up using an oil filter from a 1.0 toyota yaris.

can you tell me if there be any adverse affects from using a filter designed for such a small engine? can you supply smaller filters for the 3s engine? (the one i removed was made by juran.)
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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by oilman »

Any chance you can give me the part number for teh filter fitted? I will check it out.

Cheers

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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by dansREV2turbo »

the filter i fitted is W68/1 . if im reading the correct number!
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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by oilman »

Have you checked here mate?

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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by dansREV2turbo »

i've been trying to look it up but with no result :(
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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by RyanRs »

Hi oilman. I noticed this advice while reading your thread..

oilman wrote:

Once run in is complete I would go for the Silkolene Pro S 10w-50 ester/pao syntheitc. 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.


Now, i was alwayse under the impression that electrostatic oils such as GTX magnatec etc was not a good idea. Mainly because when you do an oil change , the oil will electrostatically stick any debris/particals to the metal components inside the engine, So when you drain the old oil, the majority of debris will remain in the engine?? so after time, these debris will build up and become a problem??

Perhaps what i have heard is a myth?! whats your opinion on this?

Ryan
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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by jim55 »

good read guy :thumleft: ive got a rev3 turbo ,pretty standard (apexi induction and a generic 3" ss exhaust).im gona up the boost a little to 16 psi .will this increase the temps in the engine ?i mean to change the oil anyway so what do i need .synthetic i take it ,but what grade ?is fuchs any good ?
jim 8)
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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by dansREV2turbo »

silkolene is fushs m8 :thumleft:
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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by oilman »

Any advice needed ?

Ask us here, will be happy to help :-)

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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by oilman »

Hi folks,

With winter here and plenty of cold starts, perhaps it's time to consider changing the oil that you use in your car.

Does your antifreeze need changing?
Is your gearshift okay when cold?
Do you need something to protect your car from the weather?

Let us know if you need any advice, we are here to help. You can call us on 01209 202944, email us at [email protected], or just ask here.

Cheers

oilman
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Re: Oil advice and recommendations

Post by oilman »

Feel free to contact us here for any oil recommendations or any oil related questions you may have.

Alternatively complete our oil recommendation form and we will get back to you asap. You can also give us a call on 01209 202949 Monday - Friday 8.30am - 5.30pm or just drop us an email to [email protected]

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