Best oil for Alusil cylinder lining?

[wings&wheels]

After way too much research incl. the PCA and LSJr vids, etc. I settled on Redline 10w-50 for our 9x6 cars which are susceptible for bore scoring. That plus careful warm ups and regular Techron use to keep injectors happy. Quality oil, generous 'moly', Zn & Ph levels, etc. May not matter, but I feel better YMMV.

 

[RooflessVW]

The Macan uses Alusil cylinder lining and there are cases of bore scoring. While it's not an epidemic, I am wondering if there is a better oil than the current Edge 0w40 that I'm using to protect from this happening?

Oil won’t fix or prevent it.

 

[RooflessVW]

After way too much research incl. the PCA and LSJr vids, etc. I settled on Redline 10w-50 for our 9x6 cars which are susceptible for bore scoring. That plus careful warm ups and regular Techron use to keep injectors happy. Quality oil, generous 'moly', Zn & Ph levels, etc. May not matter, but I feel better YMMV.

You either get a good M96/97 or a bad one.

 

[wings&wheels]

You either get a good M96/97 or a bad one.

What are your thoughts on the cause(s) of the scoring, or out of round? Imperfect metallurgy? Uneven cooling on individual cylinders? All the above exacerbated by harsh driving when cold? Curious.....

 

[RooflessVW]

What are your thoughts on the cause(s) of the scoring, or out of round? Imperfect metallurgy? Uneven cooling on individual cylinders? All the above exacerbated by harsh driving when cold? Curious.....

All of the above. Should have never been an open deck engine, or should have at least had more support.

 

[97prizm]

Not Alusil but a similar alloy called A380. However the well-known problems with the Vega engine were not related to the alloy. GM had difficulty during development of the 2300 when they were working out the etching and honing of the blocks, but that was resolved prior to the first production vehicle. That alloy was one of the best parts of the engine.

The major problem with the production Vega engine was inadequate cooling which resulted in warping and coolant leaks.

Grom reading and people posting you had to be religious about changing your oil as well.

 

[kschachn]

Amazing all these pretty much $30K and up, throw away german car engines with Al bores. Perfect engineering to sell either engines or cars.

This is utter nonsense and should be disregarded.

 

[Exhaustgases]

This is utter nonsense and should be disregarded.

What the engines should be disregarded?
If you have a massively scored aluminum cylinder the shop manual will say to "replace the engine block".
That pretty much makes them disposable. Just the facts.
I've seen prices higher than 30K for Mercedes engines, I think the Utah shop fellow (Dave) on youtube mentioned it.

 

[scrllock]

These V6s are $7-10k, not $30k.

Flat-sixes out of a 997, sure, that's $30k. But they can be re-sleeved.

 

[Hohn]

Not Alusil but a similar alloy called A380. However the well-known problems with the Vega engine were not related to the alloy. GM had difficulty during development of the 2300 when they were working out the etching and honing of the blocks, but that was resolved prior to the first production vehicle. That alloy was one of the best parts of the engine.

The major problem with the production Vega engine was inadequate cooling which resulted in warping and coolant leaks.

A380 is the most abundantly die-cast alloy on earth. It's superb for die casting. I suspect every Honda engine block is very similar to A380 if not identical since Honda die casts their blocks and heads (instead of sand casting).

 

[kschachn]

What the engines should be disregarded?
If you have a massively scored aluminum cylinder the shop manual will say to "replace the engine block".
That pretty much makes them disposable. Just the facts.
I've seen prices higher than 30K for Mercedes engines, I think the Utah shop fellow (Dave) on youtube mentioned it.

You can sleeve the block. It’s not an issue.

But as someone who has owned an engine with an Alusil block I can tell you that if it is bored and etched properly it will not be necessary. It is an extremely durable and hard surface.

 

[Exhaustgases]

You can sleeve the block. It’s not an issue.

But as someone who has owned an engine with an Alusil block I can tell you that if it is bored and etched properly it will not be necessary. It is an extremely durable and hard surface.

Maybe so, sleeve the block. That is a ticklish thing if its staying open deck though. And at what cost? For a DIY project maybe.
For something that will need a warranty I doubt it.
Anything hard enough will scratch it properly etched or not.

 

[Stumpalump]

The problem with Porsche bore scoring is two fold. The temp gauge looks like a regular analog temperature gauge, but it is not. It really works more like an 4 position idiot lite. You have cold, a little warm, operating temp and over heat. It looks like a regular gauge, but it is only getting one of four signals and the in between temperatures mean nothing. The problem now is that it will say operating temperature but it’s not really warm enough to be beating on the engine. You need to run it at least another 15 minutes after it is warmed up before you get on the gas hard. The next problem is that since it’s a Porsche people do like to beat them. They may wait till it says operating temp, but it’s not warm enough so they chew up the cylinders. I used to run mobile one in mine and add in a tube of Molly. Molly addatives are not the most popular and there is not that much of it in the boutique oils. F1 and nascar guys do not like extra Molly either. The reason they do not like it is because it is black, and they cannot read the color of the oil. They run NEO oil. If you’re OK with turning your clean oil black with Molly, then that is the best. If not, you should probably stick to one of the high-end oils like Driven or Neo. I checked with NEO and was told that adding more molly was OK with their oil so I run that mix. 92,000 miles and no sign of scoring.