Originally Posted By: Mitch Alsup
What you need is an oil temperature gauge and possibly an oil pressure gauge. The combination will tell you everything you need to know about your driving style versus the ending demands on the oil.
If the oil gets hotter than 250ºF then you should consider more oil cooler surface area over a thicker oil.
I do have both, and a high pressure melling oil pump. The hottest I've seen the oil is in the high 250s.
Originally Posted By: OneEyeJack
You might want to consider a couple of UOA's to establish the oil change interval best suited to your driving style and that modified engine.
There are a lot of different brands of oil that will do the job but the question of concern is, how long, how many hours and what kind of margin are you willing to accept. A few extra bucks invested in the UOA's to establish the OCI will be a good investment. The UOA will tell you more about the condition of the oil than the condition of the internals of the engine. Obvious problems will be discovered but you want to do the best you can with keeping good oil running thru the engine.
I am on board with multiple UOA's, its on my list of things to do to establish OCI. The abuse ranges per day, hard street driving, 1/4 trips (per month), or just a cruise.
Originally Posted By: jkasch
If your blower has a by-pass valve similar to my Magnuson's, another consideration might be to avoid too wide a viscosity range. I was running M1 0w-40 and the bp valve was getting sticky from pvc oil vapors. I was advised to try an oil without so much VII by a few BITOGers. I switched to a 10w-30, added a catch can and haven't had a reoccurrence.
This was also on an LS.
It is a Tial-Q before the intercooler, a bit different than the roots style.
Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp
I consider a catch can to be a requirement of any forced induction vehicle, but good call on the VI's.
Maybe this would be a good application for a CK-4/SN oil? A good HDEO meant for a turbocharged diesel in that spec would laugh at the heat of a blown LS, and the lesser 15/40 spread would avoid a heavy VI dose.
Running a -10 AN from the valve cover to a MM PCV boost can
Turbo diesel oil is a good option, they see a lot more heat.
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
The Novi blower is a belt-driven centrifugal unit, so I would worry if it is being lubricated by the engine oil. With the high speed, fine-pitch gears I think about it chewing up VII's in the oil. I would avoid oils with high viscosity spread, like 0w40 and 5w40. Something like Redline 10w40 has little or no VII's and HTHS well in excess of 3.7-ish.
Since the car is meth injected, does that mean there is no intercooler? And if you are going to be boosting very often, will the meth injection lead to oil dilution? Perhaps that's another reason to "go thick". Doing an oil sample after a few days' worth of hard driving would be a good idea.
The Novi 1500 is a self contained unit, it does not share oil with the engine. There is an intercooler and meth injection. I was also curious how the meth would impact the oil, I'll hit the track and send a sample in.
Everytime I have the car out, the meth is used, I love boost haha
