0w-20 HDEO oil

[Rollins]

I don`t know whether this has been before-found some interesting info about Fiat Powertrain/Infineum/FL Selenia-Petronas co-operation in developing a SAE 0w-20 HD FE oil.

The first publication is from Lubes'N'Greases, 2008...page 18:

http://www.lngpublishing.com/LNGmagEMEA/LNG_july2008.pdf

Visc.@100C -8.6cSt;HT/HS-2.9cP...
Quote:

...declined
to disclose formulation details
except to tell the TAE
symposium that the 0W-20
version uses API Group IV
and Group V base oils...


...The engine tests did reveal
slightly increased wear on
some components in the valvetrain
– exhaust rocker arm
bearings, injector rocker arm
bearings, camshaft bearings
in the cylinder head – but
still well within the normal
acceptable limits. All the testing
was carried out in standard
unmodified engines,
showing that good engine
design enables the use of very
low viscosity lubricants...

Hints about the ongoing development of the lubricant are given in some other documents...like this one from Infineum(dated 2010):
Delivering the Lubricant Performance...

A fuel saving comparison chart from,Cursor 13 engine:

 

[zyxelenator]

Nice comparison pictures in Moly test in pdf(link).

 

[A_Harman]

Reading the article, I see the tests were run over an interval of 150,000km (90k miles). That's about 2000 hours of runtime, and is not even long enough to get most engines through their warranty periods. There's no point getting excited until they demonstrate durability to 1,500,000km (1M miles) on a statistically significant number of vehicles. Also, the sidebar article says that Selenia formulated the oil specifically for the needs of Iveco engines.

 

[CATERHAM]

Very interesting and thanks for posting.

It's noteworthy that the increased wear was restricted to the valvetrain and while the wear was considered acceptable, for widespread acceptance of the lighter oil no increase in wear is acceptable.

What I conclude from this is that a 20wt oil is not too light but more work needs to be done with the right AW additive mix and possibly base oil chemistry to eliminate the increased valvetrain wear working along with the engine designers.
I'm sure it's just a matter of time before we see new HD diesel engine that spec' a specific HDEO 0W-20.

 

[SteveSRT8]

They said it all when they mentioned design.

If a mfgr wanted to they could literally design the engine for the oil.

 

[A_Harman]

That's along the lines of what I was thinking:

Should engine manufacturers design engines to run specific oils, or should oil companies formulate oils to protect specific engines?

I come down on the side of the engine manufacturers. Designing an engine to run a specific oil viscosity to save 0.6% in fuel is an extreme case of the tail wagging the dog. Everything that rubs together in an engine would tend to get bigger or more expensive: bigger bearings, bigger cam lobes, fancy tribological coatings, finer surface finishes, etc. The engines would get incrementally more expensive, and that would wipe out a significant part of the fuel savings. Engine manufacturers don't exist to serve lubricant suppliers, lubricant suppliers exist to serve engine manufacturers.