2 Valvoline Restore & Protect tests

[Avery4]

But similarly, if you’ve ever held a piston in your hands with rings in place, the first thing you notice is how easy it is to grab the rings and turn them. Yes, they’re compressed when the piston is installed in the bore, but there’s nothing locking them in place and of course they’ll move around during use.

Yup. If the rings stayed in place on their own, there would be no need to secure the rings in place on 2 cycle engines to prevent the ends from hitting the ports on the cylinders.

I remember reading that the rings tend to rotate at an average rate of about 1/1000th the engine RPM depending on many factors.

 

[tired]

If you want this oil to work better, drive the vehicle for 10+ miles per trip. One needs to get the engine and the oil up to it's proper temperature and still have several more miles to drive. Better tests of this oil are the 12+k annual travelers. If all you are doing are short-tripping your vehicles to grocery stores or schools, this ain't the oil for you.

What is the oil for you if you have to drive lots of short trips with intermittent highway use then?

 

[Triple_Se7en]

What is the oil for you if you have to drive lots of short trips with intermittent highway use then?

Fresh or non-diluted. Use one viscosity thicker than what appears on either the oil cap or inside the owners manual.

You can always lengthen your highway trips, to ensure the engine is at full temperature longer. UOAs can tell a story. But I prefer gauging dilution at analyzing labs other than Blackstone.

 

[97prizm]

I never thought much about Valvoline's fairly new Restore & Protect oil until The Motor Oil Geek recently posted a video on it. Once I saw his video, I did a bit more research on that oil and saw a couple reports of reduced oil consumption and such, but no before and after pics, so I decided to do my own test.

The first test is going to be my recently acquired 1990 Acura Legend Coupe with a 5 speed manual transmission and the C27A1 2.7L V6 engine. I don't know the mileage because the odometer broke at 176K in around 2002 (which I fixed), but the maintenance was apparently quite poor judging by the heavy carbon buildup under the valve covers.

It doesn't seem to burn any significant amount of oil, but it does have a lifter tick after being started cold, which lasts for a few minutes until the engine warms up a bit, at which point the ticking stops and it runs very well. The cold lifter tick is common on those engines if not properly maintained.

Compression is 180-185 PSI across all 6 cylinders with a nominal spec of 171 PSI and a minimum spec of 142 PSI, so I'm not expecting to see any improvements there since it's already very good.

This test is really just for fun since I plan to pull the engine and totally disassemble it to clean and rebuild it anyways, but may as well do some experiments on it first so we can all (hopefully) learn something. I just changed the oil and refilled it with Valvoline Restore & Protect 5W-30, so we'll see what happens. The previous fill was Rotella T6 5W-40 with a quart of Marvel Mystery Oil, which seems to have done little cleaning but that's a subject for another thread.

Here's the front cylinder head with the valve cover removed before the oil change. There's a good mix of varying degrees of varnish and hard carbon, so that should be a good engine to test it on.
View attachment 225377

The second test will be on my friend's 2010 Honda CRV with an oil burning ~225K mile K24 when its due for its next oil change soon. It goes through about a quart every 1000-1200 miles. Those years of the K24's were known for clogged/stuck rings, which I suspect is what's going on with his. We likely won't remove the valve cover for before and after pictures because, unlike my Legend, there's not much to see under there, so that one is probably just going to be an oil consumption test and maybe before and after pics through the oil fill hole.

I'll post updates as I have them, but I'm expecting both of these tests to be somewhat long term, so I'll keep you posted. Any thoughts or suggestions are more than welcome as always!

Sweet ride. I haven't seen an Acura Legend or Vigor in 15 plus years. How many of those have to still be around, a couple hundred tops?

 

[Avery4]

Sweet ride. I haven't seen an Acura Legend or Vigor in 15 plus years. How many of those have to still be around, a couple hundred tops?

Thanks! I never even saw a 1st gen Legend coupe before and I haven't spoken to many people who have either, so I guess they never were that common. The fact that mine is a 5 speed makes it even more rare too. I'd be curious to know how many are left too.

 

[Avery4]

Fresh or non-diluted. Use one viscosity thicker than what appears on either the oil cap or inside the owners manual.

You can always lengthen your highway trips, to ensure the engine is at full temperature longer. UOAs can tell a story. But I prefer gauging dilution at analyzing labs other than Blackstone.

Why one grade thicker? Fuel and moisture dilution? I've always thought thinner was better (within reason) for short trips since the oil never heats up anyways?

 

[Kalle.J]

Why one grade thicker? Fuel and moisture dilution? I've always thought thinner was better (within reason) for short trips since the oil never heats up anyways?

If its not at operating temp 0W is the "thinnest" possible..

Minimum oil film thickness, and yes mitigates dilution to a degree.
Thicker oil also generates slightly more heat in the system.

 

[Avery4]

If its not at operating temp 0W is the "thinnest" possible..

Minimum oil film thickness, and yes mitigates dilution to a degree.
Thicker oil also generates slightly more heat in the system.

The W rating is only relevant at very low temps. Something like a 5W-20 is almost always going to be thinner on startup than a 0W-30 for example. The KV40 is a better indication of the viscosity of the oil at startup and during warmup.

Since the MOFT should be more than adequate with cold, thick oil anyways and it often takes 10-15+ minutes for the oil to warm up on a cold start, not sure a short tripper would be the best application for a thick oil, especially if efficiency is of any concern at all. That would depend on how much it is diluting the oil.

I'd *think* that a thinner oil would have less of a tendency to hold moisture and possibly fuel than a thick oil since it should flow better and splash around more, but that's just a theory. Thinner oils also tend to have higher solvency, likely helping prevent the sludging and deposit buildup that short tripping can encourage.

The ideal oil for a short tripper would make a great thread of its own. I don't remember seeing that discussed here yet.

 

[tired]

Fresh or non-diluted. Use one viscosity thicker than what appears on either the oil cap or inside the owners manual.

You can always lengthen your highway trips, to ensure the engine is at full temperature longer. UOAs can tell a story. But I prefer gauging dilution at analyzing labs other than Blackstone.

I don’t think that I’ve ever used non-fresh or diluted oil before. Isn’t it all fresh and not diluted?

 

[02zx9r rev2]

I don’t think that I’ve ever used non-fresh or diluted oil before. Isn’t it all fresh and not diluted?

I think he is saying change often on a short tripper

 

[tired]

I think he is saying change often on a short tripper

Ah. Thanks.

 

[Jetronic]

Great point, but I believe the 1 year limitation has more to do with short trips, potential idling in traffic, etc than the oil going bad in a year just sitting in the pan.

My scenario is fairly unique since I have several vehicles I regularly drive and I pretty much only drive on longer highway trips with very minimal idling, traffic, short trips, etc, so I'm not overly concerned about time for my application.

I wasn't concerned about the TBN because I don't have any plans of doing extended OCIs, so I just assumed that it would be okay for up to the perhaps 5-6K highway miles I'd actually run it for since Amsoil SS was intended as an extended drain oil, but without testing, there's no way to know for sure.

Agreed, My older diesel had a 2 year 35,000 km change interval (or sooner if the OLM said so, but it never did), but if I did less than 9,000 km per year I had to do a yearly oil change according to the manual. so short tripping and excessive idling seems to be the major concern with time based oil changes.

 

[Jetronic]

Why one grade thicker? Fuel and moisture dilution? I've always thought thinner was better (within reason) for short trips since the oil never heats up anyways?

thicker oil heats up faster and to a higher temp than thinner oil. While it might not be reasonable to expect the bulk of the oil to get near the boiling point of water on shorter trips in colder weather, you can drive up the temperature of the oil coming out of squirters, dripping down cylinder bores and leaking out of bearings which will help in evaporating more fuel and moisture.

 

[Avery4]

Update time. After about 2K miles, I just changed the Legend's oil and filter again. The oil looked quite clean, but there's definitely some carbon in the filter. Nothing extreme considering the abundance of filth inside the engine, but it's good to see that there has been progress.

Judging by the clean oil and somewhat dirty filter, it seems that R&P works more by loosening carbon particles rather than dissolving carbon. If it was dissolving carbon, I'd expect the oil to be dirtier looking. I'll try to get pictures of the front head/valvetrain soon.

As for my friend's CRV, nothing has changed. It is due for its 3rd oil change with R&P 5W-30 and the oil consumption is still roughly a quart per 1K miles.

 

[Avery4]

Here's the front head/valvetrain after about 2500 miles of R&P including plenty of longer trips. Zero improvements that I can see. As far as I can tell, there haven't been any improvements in the cold lifter tick either.

What's interesting is there seems to be another layer of hard deposits building up in the valve covers, which I spent quite a bit of time getting spotlessly clean at the start of this experiment. Whether the residue is from this oil or existing buildup getting redeposited I'm not sure, but I wonder if what I previously noted about this oil seemingly drying out and evaporating easily (at least in this engine) has something to do with it.

 

[OVERKILL]

Time to try @High Performance Lubricants now to see if that has different results.

 

[Glenda W.]

Here's the front head/valvetrain after about 2500 miles of R&P including plenty of longer trips. Zero improvements that I can see. As far as I can tell, there haven't been any improvements in the cold lifter tick either.
View attachment 249445


What's interesting is there seems to be another layer of hard deposits building up in the valve covers, which I spent quite a bit of time getting spotlessly clean at the start of this experiment. Whether the residue is from this oil or existing buildup getting redeposited I'm not sure, but I wonder if what I previously noted about this oil seemingly drying out and evaporating easily (at least in this engine) has something to do with it.
View attachment 249446
View attachment 249447
View attachment 249448

The hard carbon looks like it may need to be manually removed. The slow cleaning of R&P probably won’t dissolve that. Cool experiment!

 

[Avery4]

Time to try @High Performance Lubricants now to see if that has different results.

I ordered a quart of their EC30 on Saturday and plan on trying it as soon as it arrives. I'm hoping to see some kind of results before pulling the engine for a reseal and thorough manual cleaning!

If the EC30 shows some kind of results, I may get a quart for my friend's CRV too.

 

[Avery4]

The hard carbon looks like it may need to be manually removed. The slow cleaning of R&P probably won’t dissolve that. Cool experiment!

Perhaps, but seeing some evidence of reduction or at least a slight reduction in one of the varying shades of varnish or the cold lifter tick by now would have been nice.

Valvoline's key marketing point is cleaner pistons and rings. The rings and their grooves get caked with carbon MUCH harder than this, so if R&P can't even touch carbon that's soft enough to easily scrape off with my fingernails or any of the varnish, I don't have much hope that it is going to clean the rings.

 

[Mewbs]

I did a VRP with HPL EC30 on a friends KIA that was consuming lots of oil, it took around 3000 miles to show progress of improvements until it completely stop eating oil. I would try adding a quart of EC30 with VRP to see that combo works for you as well within a full interval. Just swap filters and top off as needed as you go.