Another little test........

[BOBISTHEOILGUY]

I just pulled my oil sample, Schaeffers supreme 7000 15w40, from my hot engine through the dipstick tube. I immediatly shot a temp reading(using my raytec temp gun) on the hot oil on the dip stick 147degs, then shot the temp on my sample bottle, 144 degs. I had just come back from running around and pulled up on some ramps and left the car idling with the a/c going while I got the hood up and everything in place, then shut off, pulled the stick,shot temp,placed tube into the oil down the stick hole, pulled sample with plunger unit, and shot the temp directly in the bottle. So there was very little time for the temp to drop by much if any.

The reason I deceided to do this was I have always wondered what is the sump temp on my oil and interesting enough I find it is actually lower than I would have expected. You'd think that if the engine is producing such high temp's throughout, it would be much higher. I believe this kinda shows that the high noack that so many people worry about is really not near as much of a concern with the oil in an engine as the temps do not cause the oil to get no where near the noack #'s. Oh I know you amsoil boys will jump all over this, but I see this as pushing an oil to an extreme in bench tests and that it doesn't corelate to actual temps an engine maintains in an engine cause if an engine was producing oil temps up to and over 300degs, you'd see a lot more engines not holding up with all these lower grade oils with lower noacks.

Just food for thought.

Another thing I now have done is taken out my supreme blend with the PAO and M1 filter, and replaced it with Schaeffers straight moly bond mineral based 15w40 oil without the PAO and with a (get this) FRAM filter.

... Ok, why? Thought maybe I'd see just how well the oil analysis reports come back on 4k drains between the two since both use basicly the same additive package and I want to see if this oil can do like the blend and produce simular wear #'s. This is to produce a result based on base oil changes only and by going with a fram filter instead of m1's is to see how it does on the oils merit moreso than the filters.

nuff said.

 

[Ken4]

Is that in celsius or fahrenheit?

 

[con carne]

If you want a more accurate temperature reading of the sump oil, shoot the oil pan after a good run - mine reads 200F+. Your dipstick will alway be cooler than the oil temperature in the sump.

Regarding NOACK - the sump is not the hottest place in the engine.

[ September 02, 2002, 11:50 PM: Message edited by: con carne ]

 

[RB Shannon]

Drive like the wind Bob, I can barely wait.

 

[BOBISTHEOILGUY]

temps where in F.

As for oil pan temps, You are getting the metal temps not the oil. I shot the temp of the oil while draining, it too was the same. I understand that is not the hottest point in an engine, just that the oil circulates and with just a four qt sump capacity, it doesn't take much for the oil to flow completly through and bring back the hotter temps. So if you are getting 200+, I'd suspect your oil isn't seeing anything close to the noack #'s of the oils. Even though the ring area is one of the highest temp areas You have to remember, the oil doesn't just sit there, it is under constant pressure and is flowing all the time, not leaving it there long enough to get to those extreme levels. This is how the engine can maintain it's constant cooling, from the constant flow and return to the sump, carrying the heat away. Again, point is, if the oil was exposed to those high temps for such a period of time allowing the oil to get upward of 300+deg F, you'd seem more engines with sludge problems due to this. This doesn't seem to be the case.

I have a trip to central fl on the 28th, and a trip to St Loius in Nov, so it wont' take long to produce the 4,000 miles. Even get some cold weather pumpabilty in on the 15w40 on this little 4cly engine I run.

 

[con carne]

Bob,

The metal at the bottom of the pan is in constant contact with the sump oil. Another place to measure off is the oil filter with the engine running.

Did you try taking a reading off either of these locations after your engine was run long and hard enough for the oil to come up to temp.?

 

[OneQuartLow]

I like tests.

Bob, did you pre-heat the plunger? How much heat-sink effect do you think it contributes?

Wouldn't it be better to connect an accurate in-line sensor?

Which model of Fram? Let us know if you run into anything interesting regarding oil pressure, especially at startup.

David

 

[BOBISTHEOILGUY]

Con,
I think you missed my point. I did in fact shoot the temp of the actual oil from out of the sump.

Shooting the temp on the outside of the pan would not be representative of the oil temp. Why? because it acts like a heat sink for the rest of the motor as well as it is exposed directly to the air flow from the moving of the car.

Temps on the inside will be different from the outside. Case in point, Take the bulkhead of a ship, on one side, the direct sunlight on the bulkhead, gives you a hot as hell reading as it is absorbing the heat from the sun. The otherside is in the shaded area and is considerbly less in temp.

Same in the lower areas, water is constant on the lower bulk head, but inside, you have a different enviroment that effects this side. Yes, each are being effected but both do not always represent the same temp from the other side, same for an oil pan on an engine. you have the heat from the engine being transferred though the metal and outside temp's being a factor and the inside the oil being a factor against the oil pan. Also, the oil at the metal would be representative of the pan temp, whereas the oil more on top inside of the engine would vary the further from the pan it is and how long it was to stay in the pan.

To prove this point,(i can't remember the actual temp #s but, I had taken a cold engine, sitting with the hood closed, shot the temp mid day, it read some thing like 100 degs that day on the hood, opened the hood, the temp on the engine valve cover itself was like 98 or 97, then opened the oil cap on the valve cover, and shot inside the engine and it was from the out side to the inside almost 10degs different.

 

[BOBISTHEOILGUY]

The type of plunger I use takes a plastic tube, inserts directly to the bottle with a oring seal, there fore the metal part has no direct contact with the oil. Also remember I took temps on the dipstick with the oil on it and the oil sample and were near the same, so I don't think the heat transfer was that much of a loss between the two.

Sure it would be better for an inline, but you know me, out of the box and into the frying pan with my little tests with what I have handy.

I just thought it would be interesting to see just how hot the oil coming out of the pan would be after driving it around town. Obviously nothing scientific but definatly got me to thinking.

 

[Patman]

ACK not a Fram!

How can you sleep at night knowing that ticking time bomb is on there?

You should have at least tried an AC Delco or something that is at least well built and doesn't use cardboard endcaps.

I just hope the Fram doesn't do this to your car:

 

[Patman]

By the way, your oil should be way hotter than this. With most cars the oil temp will be at least what the coolant temp is, and in your car the coolant temp would most likely be over 200F all the time once warmed up.

With every car I have ever owned and changed oil on, I know the oil coming out when I drained it was way over the temp you found on yours. At only 144F or so, it would not burn my hand nearly as much as 200F+ does!

Plus any car with an oil temp gauge will show that the temps run as high as 250F when a car is driven hard or if you are stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on a 90F+ day.

 

[TooSlick]

Bob,

The reason for running the Noack test @ 250C, is to get data in a reasonable amount of time. If you were to run the test at a lower temp, the relative rates of evaporation would be roughly the same, ie a synthetic would still show significantly less evaporation than a Group I or Group II petroleum oil. It would just take much longer to get any significant evaporation in a controlled lab test.

One of the primary goals of both the API SL and CI-4 specifications was to set stricter Noack volatility limits to control oil consumption in actual use ...

TooSlick

 

[BOBISTHEOILGUY]

I totally understand the higher testing limits and agree that with the noack test how it correlates with the burn off but only for extended periods. The point here I'm making is that for people that are doing normal oil drains, not trying to extend to such a point like what you and many others do, the noack in most all oils are more than adequate and those numbers are not anywhere near representative of what an actual engine would produce EXCEPT in extended drain situations and even then, that also would vary on each car as each one is in a different situation, ie, engine in tight compartment or big open truck(more air flow across engine), oil capacity(the more oil,the longer it will be before the same oil is re exposed to the same exceeding temps) where as small 3 or 4qt system would put more demand on the oil, ambient temps, and many other conditions not taken into account when applying these test results.

It's like any other part of the tech data sheets, you have to really look and put an importance level on different aspects of these tests and this cannot be factor'd as a go or no go for if an oil is good or not as it is demanding more on that oil on the bench test that most oils will never see unless going extreme extended miles without refreshing the oil in some way like filter change in the middle of drain interval and even then, just how high does a noack # have to be before it is what I'd call at a break even point, or when good enough is good enough? TBN levels for example, the higher the tbn the better the oil? This is not true. How much barrier additive is suffecient before you actually have too much? You only have so much surface area and to load up too much barrier additive has no positive effect, so question is, just how high does a noack # need to be before it becomes qualified as adequate and for what application(s)?

 

[satterfi]

"just how high does a noack # need to be before it becomes qualified as adequate and for what application(s)? "

For me I'd say 10% is max. It's just a warm a fuzzy number. I don't do adequate very well.

[ September 03, 2002, 04:29 PM: Message edited by: satterfi ]

 

[Patman]

Schaeffer 10w30 blend has a Noack of 12% though, and that doesn't seem to be a problem whatsoever.

 

[satterfi]

I'd make an exception for Supreme 7000 15w40.

This year Shaeffers might bump Mobil for Christmas gifts so I can make the $250 order minimum.

 

[jason07-1zzfe]

Well...with just this first run of Red Line 10w-40 my consumption went down by OVER half of M1 TS 15w50.
I had about 1.5qt consumption in 5k miles with M1 (have been running M1 for long time)and I'm now looking at less than 3/4qt in 5k miles with Red Line 10w40. I suspect it will go down after next change after all residual old oil in engine and oil cooler is out. I would guess it may go down to .5qt. So ~70% less consumption with Red Line over M1!!

So...either Red Line is somehow sealing the combustion chamber better...
OR... high temp performance DOES matter.

And my engine runs pretty cool by the way.

Also I doubt that is your real sump temp. It cools pretty quickly.

 

[Jay]

Bob, you might try verifying your Raytec reading with a food thermometer. The IR guns can be tricky to use and may not take an accurate reading on a small object. The smallest diameter circle of area that the Fluke IR gun that I use can read is about 2" and you have to hold the gun 8" away to read that small. If you hold the gun any further back it will average temperature readings over a larger area. That may explain your low oil temperature reading. Con carne's method of shooting the whole pan is probably more accurate.

 

[BOBISTHEOILGUY]

I ran a check on this again, it was again, the same reading on the stick.

As for checking the gun, I put it up on my hand, took a reading, pulled away, temp drop 1 deg, pulled away further went back up 1 deg to original temp. Did the same with a hot light bulb. Same results.

Not only did I shoot the stick, but Also shot the oil analysis bottle full of this oil, not much chance of missing that.

So, to those that say it isn't possible to be that temp, OK, I beleive you, I'm wrong, your right.

not going to argue with anyone about it.

[ September 03, 2002, 10:29 PM: Message edited by: BOBISTHEOILGUY ]

 

[Bror Jace]

Jason, it took me about 6 months before I saw Red Line drop my consumption from about 1/2 quart in 4,000 miles to practically zero. But when it did, the change was obvious. I wouldn't discount the ester's ability to condition old seals, though. The problem is, when a motor is using oil, rarely do we know where 100% of it is going and how it is leaving (leak, burn or boil-off). For some of us, we can make a pretty good guess ... but that's about it.

Still, I think high temp volatility matters. My car used a significant amount of Valvoline Synpower (Group III oil) versus Mobil 1 or Red Line (Group IV & V) which didn't move on the dipstick at all ... even after 4-5,000 miles.

I plan on going 4,000 miles with the Schaeffer 10W30 blend ... if it ever gets here.

--- Bror Jace