96 Civic 5w20 Castrol GTX Conventional

[researcher]

This is my latest oil run using the Castrol GTX 5w20 Conventional oil. I did add onto the image, Blackstone thinks I rebuilt the engine, nope.. I just replaced the speedometer.

I think this is a decent analysis, aluminum 1 part higher than their universal averages, I wasn't going to worry about that.

Lab results from 6/30/15 to 7/23/17 was the TGMO 5W20 (Mobil) oil..

The 11/1/17 so short because I had a leaky fuel injector dumping fuel into the engine, that has been fixed now, new injectors.

 

[JLTD]

So am I reading this right that you only went 1793 miles on this fill? Seems mighty short was there an issue identified earlier?

 

[SR5]

Thanks Researcher. We can see that nice GTX add pack of Boron and Moly. You know your GTX, so I assume this was the earlier non-UltraClean version, but with the newer add pack.

BTW I just picked up some. GTX 15W40 UltraClean semi-synthetic (API SN & ACEA A3/B3), it was only $15 for 5 L, that's about $11.53 in your money for 5.28 qt., which is about as good as it gets in Australia. Yes, my car owners manual says I can use 15W40, for those concerned.

I look forward to giving it a run with one of my $4 Cooper filters (60% off) for a sub $20 oil change.

Thanks for posting the UOA.

.

 

[SR5]

BTW here is the 2017 PQIA VOA of GTX 5W20
http://pqiadata.org/Castrol_GTX_5W20.html

It shows
TBN = 8.68
KV100 = 9.20 cSt
Ca = 2646 ppm
Moly = 86 ppm
Boron = 195 ppm
Zinc = 817 ppm
Noack Volatility = 11.6 %

This agrees well with the above UOA, and for a base level Dino oil, that Noack is nice and low. The detergent package is Calcium only, so not ideal for DI engines, but for a budget oil, I think GTX offers good value for your money.

 

[researcher]

Originally Posted By: JLTD
So am I reading this right that you only went 1793 miles on this fill? Seems mighty short was there an issue identified earlier?


Yes only 1793 miles on this fill.. As I noted before the fuel injectors were dumping fuel into the cylinders, and I dumped this early to make sure all of that was gone. So yep it was short.

Originally Posted By: SR5
Thanks Researcher. We can see that nice GTX add pack of Boron and Moly. You know your GTX, so I assume this was the earlier non-UltraClean version, but with the newer add pack.

BTW I just picked up some. GTX 15W40 UltraClean semi-synthetic (API SN & ACEA A3/B3), it was only $15 for 5 L, that's about $11.53 in your money for 5.28 qt., which is about as good as it gets in Australia. Yes, my car owners manual says I can use 15W40, for those concerned.

I look forward to giving it a run with one of my $4 Cooper filters (60% off) for a sub $20 oil change.

Thanks for posting the UOA.

.


Hey SR5! Nice to hear from you again.

And yup you're right, this is the conventional, last batch before the semi-synthetic GTX Ultraclean went in. Yup it's the latest add pack, the PQIA link is exactly what was in there.

Even the Ultraclean is basically the same add pack (newer) just semi-syn now. I haven't really noticed a difference between the Conventional and Ultraclean. Just seems smooth, not a lot of cranks to start it, etc. Oh one thing I did see was popped the oil fill cap and looked in, just curious to see what I could see. WOW! Before the GTX there was a slight varnish to the valve train and the valve cover underside, now?? That varnish is gone! That really surprised me, guess the claims that it cleans well wasn't an understatement. I thought that was cool, truth for once?!

That's a screaming good deal you got on the Ultraclean! Thanks for converting that into US dollars.. But even at $15 it would've been cheap around here! And you got a good deal on the filter too! Cool!

I thought it might spec a thicker oil where you are, a bit warmer than here!

and hey you're welcome for posting this UOA. Thought people would like to see what it did do, I think it's a good budget oil, nothing to complain about. I think the semi-syn will do as good or better as what I had in there, this time around.

Oh and the Noack/volatility % went up with the Ultraclean. For the 5w20 I think it went up to 13.7%. Doesn't really matter with this port injection/non-DI engine, but thought I'd mention it.

EDIT: the KV100 when I had mine tested came out at 9.0. Only went down to 8.15, a lot better than the TGMO 5w20 I had that was shearing quite quickly. And that was before the fuel injectors began to leak.

 

[SR5]

Hey Researcher,
Yes the GTX held it's viscosity better than the TGMO.

Interesting how the new 5W20 GTX Ultraclean semi-synthetic has a higher Noack volatility than the older regular mineral GTX. Normally adding some Group III to a Group II oil should reduce the Noack and reduce the piston deposits.

I'm no expert, but I've heard here that adding more ashless dispersant to an oil, as is often done for soot loading in diesel engine oils, increases the ability of the oil to clean and hold contaminates in solution, but at the cost of increasing the Noack.

Maybe Castrol made their UltraClean, by adding more dispersants to clean, but this raised the Noack too much. Then they lowered the Noack back down a bit by making the oil a semi-synthetic.

Just guessing.

Either way, great budget oil as you said.

 

[JLTD]

Thanks...yeah I saw that but wasn't sure which of the OCIs it was referring too. Thanks for the report.

 

[researcher]

Originally Posted By: SR5
Hey Researcher,
Yes the GTX held it's viscosity better than the TGMO.

Interesting how the new 5W20 GTX Ultraclean semi-synthetic has a higher Noack volatility than the older regular mineral GTX. Normally adding some Group III to a Group II oil should reduce the Noack and reduce the piston deposits.

I'm no expert, but I've heard here that adding more ashless dispersant to an oil, as is often done for soot loading in diesel engine oils, increases the ability of the oil to clean and hold contaminates in solution, but at the cost of increasing the Noack.

Maybe Castrol made their UltraClean, by adding more dispersants to clean, but this raised the Noack too much. Then they lowered the Noack back down a bit by making the oil a semi-synthetic.

Just guessing.

Either way, great budget oil as you said.


Wow SR5!

I really like your theory/guessing! I was wondering why the NOACK would go up when they were supposedly going semi-synthetic. But adding ashless dispersant would increase the NOACK and increase the oil's ability to clean. It makes sense. Sure, someone else with more experience like Molekule can always explain more, but I'm going with your theory for now.

What is really interesting is that the NOACk for the 5w30 didn't change much at all when they switched from conventional to semi-synthetic formulation. But the 5w20 increased its NOACK. The 96 Civic doesn't really have a problem as long as it's within the accepted range. I know my scion tc (camry engine, 4 cylinder) has shown oils that above 13% will lead to a loss of oil when reading the dipstick. That engine does run much hotter than the civic, thinking it has something to do with it.

One other thing that has happened as I did mention before.. Just looking down into the oil fill hole the valvetrain is much cleaner than it was before using the Castrol! I was shocked! I didn't expect it to look so clean. There was a slight varnish color before but that's gone. Guess the "cleaning" claims they weren't lying.

Originally Posted By: JLTD
Thanks...yeah I saw that but wasn't sure which of the OCIs it was referring too. Thanks for the report.


hey JLTD, no problem! Yeah both of the last 2 recent oil changes were because of the fuel injectors leaking. The first one 11/1/2017 you can see the flashpoint was down. Then with this recent oil change 3/19/2017 I went short just to make sure any fuel dilution was gone. Which is looks like it was.

The next UOA will be the GTX Ultraclean that's in there now. Be interesting to see how that goes.

 

[SR5]

Researcher,

Where do you get your Noack figures ? Just out of interest.

From the recent Castrol GTX 5W30 UltraClean PDS they publish a Noack of 12.7 %
For the GTX 5W20 UltraClean they list the Noack as 13.7 %
But Castrol no longer provide the Product Data Sheet for the older (non-UltraClean) products in these grades.

BTW the regular GTX 10W40 has Noack of 11.5%, while the GTX 10W30 has a Noack of 10%, both of which look good to me.

For comparison the semi-synthetic Magnatec 10W30 list Noack at 6.95% which shows you the sort of improvement you would expect in Noack when going from a mineral to a semi-synthetic. (All above are Castrol PDS figures).

It's good to hear that you have observed a good cleaning effect with the GTX. I assume you mean the regular one you have just used. So the UltraClean should be even better (we hope).

 

[researcher]

Originally Posted By: SR5
Researcher,

Where do you get your Noack figures ? Just out of interest.

From the recent Castrol GTX 5W30 UltraClean PDS they publish a Noack of 12.7 %
For the GTX 5W20 UltraClean they list the Noack as 13.7 %
But Castrol no longer provide the Product Data Sheet for the older (non-UltraClean) products in these grades.

BTW the regular GTX 10W40 has Noack of 11.5%, while the GTX 10W30 has a Noack of 10%, both of which look good to me.

For comparison the semi-synthetic Magnatec 10W30 list Noack at 6.95% which shows you the sort of improvement you would expect in Noack when going from a mineral to a semi-synthetic. (All above are Castrol PDS figures).

It's good to hear that you have observed a good cleaning effect with the GTX. I assume you mean the regular one you have just used. So the UltraClean should be even better (we hope).



I kept some of the old spec sheets from Castrol and that's why I knew those NOACK numbers. I didn't know they scrubbed their website of them. And I agree, that 10w30 and 10w40 look awesome! Very good numbers indeed! Magnatec numbers for the 10w30 is definitely the kind of Noack numbers that should be expected going full synthetic. That's why I really like your idea that they just added more ashless dispersents into the 5w20 and that caused the Noack % to go up.

Yup you're right, the regular GTX I just got done using was what cleaned very well under the valve cover of what I could see just looking in the oil fill hole. I know what it looked like in there when the valve adjustment was done just two or three years ago. That oil was only in there 6 months! Wow.. In the back of my mind I always thought that was marketing hype, the cleaning ability. Guess I had to actually see it for myself.

I'll be the test subject for the 5w20 GTX Ultraclean and we'll see how it goes. I'm curious to see how it works too. So far, nothing really odd about the engine's operation, seems just as smooth. Be interesting to see if my fuel economy improves at all. I actually had that happen in the past between motor oils. I thought it was coincidence until I tried it on other family member's cars. I changed their oil and didn't tell them

Then when they got all excited about the fuel economy numbers I told them what I had done when I changed the oil.. At first they were upset but I didn't want them changing the way they drove. I never changed the weight of the oil just the brand. so yup, be interesting to see how the civic responds to the ultraclean.