Does oil NOACK volatility really matters that much?

[blingo]

Just what I said, right? Where's your deposits?

The quoted sentence was from a general paragraph on page 56 referencing " 'lubricant stability maps' showing the effect of temperature and oil composition on final deposits from base oils [79] and also formulated lubricants ", nothing specific, just base oil talk.
The general tendency for lower Noack comes with the tendency for better low temperature performance to be had from "better" base oils.
All cheap and coarse hints to help dismiss attitudes and habitudes, habitus and gestus,... but also easily hints to content. Deposition is out there.

Come on, these pathways to the first BITOG million can only make us both sad.

 

[sloinker]

You may also want to factor in any ester content as far as ring land deposits go. The cleaning effect of esters is well known. Low Noack along with better base oils and less VII probably is the ideal in Euro blends for sure.

 

[OVERKILL]

Just what I said, right? Where's your deposits?

The quoted sentence was from a general paragraph on page 56 referencing " 'lubricant stability maps' showing the effect of temperature and oil composition on final deposits from base oils [79] and also formulated lubricants ", nothing specific, just base oil talk.
The general tendency for lower Noack comes with the tendency for better low temperature performance to be had from "better" base oils.
All cheap and coarse hints to help dismiss attitudes and habitudes, habitus and gestus,... but also easily hints to content. Deposition is out there.

Come on, these pathways to the first BITOG million can only make us both sad.

I'm lost

The requirement for lower Noack comes from ACEA, API and OEM's all of which put strict limits on it to facilitate longer drain intervals and prevent burn-off. Better base oils are used to stay within those limits. Heavier base oils have inherently lower Noack, so the requirement for PAO or GTL doesn't exist in grades with narrower spreads like a 15w-40 for example, but does when you are trying to blend say a 0w-40 and keep Noack under 10%.

In-hand with those stricter limits on Noack are stricter limits on deposit control and prevention. This is why these lubricants tend to have both excellent deposit control as well as low Noack.

It's an alignment of properties, not an interdependency. The oils that meet the most demanding approvals like say Porsche A40 are required to have both of those traits, and they do. Hence, you find them together.

That said, the idea is to prevent the base oil from burning off, which in turn prevents it from leaving deposits. The fact a 6cSt PAO may leave more deposits than a 4cSt Group II when burned off misses the point that you are trying to avoid the oil burning off in the first place.

 

[OVERKILL]

Just an example from a series of XOM slides a few years back when they were phasing in VISOM. Oil on the left is blended with PAO, middle includes Group III+ "VISOM" and the 5w-40 on the right is likely Group III/II blend. This is a test run at a higher temp than Noack and specifically designed to yield deposits. Less PAO buggers off so there's less in the way of deposits:

And another slide from the same presentation showing the performance relative to a Group III and a Semi-syn:

Noack for the two 0w-40 oils remained the same:

Now, of course these are fully formulated oils, so this isn't just a test of base oil properties, but it does demonstrate that moving away from a wholly PAO base to one blended with Group III+ did slightly increase deposit formation while Noack stayed the same. This is despite us knowing that when volatized, PAO will leave more deposits. The idea, as I indicated, is to avoid the burn-off in the first place, thereby avoiding the deposits.

 

[blingo]

When sloinker goes fighting, deposits with esters , he may want all the esters he can have on their way to the intake valves where they're meant to wash off deposits. Without an idea of what they are going to do in the combustion chamber ready to be burnt off. He might also enjoy them washing down a piston skirt when returning from the oil control rings back to the sump – a talent the rotating disc thingies could illustrate for us, at best. Without an idea again what the fate of same esters will become when making it further up towards the flames and fuels and gases and circumstances.

Facets of real deposition problems would include the question how soft or hard or brittle for example you'd prefer them to be. Of course it's never been all about an aspect or two. Noack on the other hand doesn't really deal with anything except all too poor oil separators in PCVs. Otherwise no chance judging an oil by looking at its Noack. The more volatile portions tend to be harmless and the less volatile portions could even be exactly the same as in another oil of much lower Noack, when you're looking at the Noack of a finished product. Or much better or much worse.

As mentioned, feel free to really look at things – the most questionable correlations could be a starting point.

 

[blingo]

How do you say, you beat me to them?

 

[blingo]

Don't love 'em, discard them: https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/noack-vs-teost.330986/page-2#post-5511757

 

[madeej11]

On a side note, when I had asked Pennzoil for the Noack of their oils, I had two guys at two different times tell me they can't disclose that due to their additive supplier agreement.

A few things have happened in the last few months I've noticed - Mobil no longer reports HT/HS, Vavoline just gives a "

Seems to always be a problem when Amsoil doesn't disclose their base oils though. At least they're transparent on some of the stuff that majors won't cough up.

 

[wemay]

QS SYNTHETIC 5w20 is 7.1%
QS SYNTHETIC 5w30 is 8.6%

You just can't beat that for a $19.97 jug at Walmart.

 

[buster]

QS SYNTHETIC 5w20 is 7.1%
QS SYNTHETIC 5w30 is 8.6%

You just can't beat that for a $19.97 jug at Walmart.

Looks like they just updated their PDSs too. As of 9.11.

 

[wemay]

Looks like they just updated their PDSs too. As of 9.11.

Yeah, I posted the 5W-20 last week or so but not the 5W-30. Will look for that thread and do so.

 

[sloinker]

When sloinker goes fighting, deposits with esters , he may want all the esters he can have on their way to the intake valves where they're meant to wash off deposits. Without an idea of what they are going to do in the combustion chamber ready to be burnt off. He might also enjoy them washing down a piston skirt when returning from the oil control rings back to the sump – a talent the rotating disc thingies could illustrate for us, at best. Without an idea again what the fate of same esters will become when making it further up towards the flames and fuels and gases and circumstances.

Facets of real deposition problems would include the question how soft or hard or brittle for example you'd prefer them to be. Of course it's never been all about an aspect or two. Noack on the other hand doesn't really deal with anything except all too poor oil separators in PCVs. Otherwise no chance judging an oil by looking at its Noack. The more volatile portions tend to be harmless and the less volatile portions could even be exactly the same as in another oil of much lower Noack, when you're looking at the Noack of a finished product. Or much better or much worse.

As mentioned, feel free to really look at things – the most questionable correlations could be a starting point.

You do realize that Valvoline markets a product licensed by Cummins to specifically remove carbon deposits from the ring lands of their Diesel engines? This oil formulation contains an extreme amount of esters. I read your post(s) a few times but they usually don't make much sense to me. English is my first language and a little Spanish I can discern, but I'm having some sort of comprehension disconnect with your written missives.

 

[blingo]

Well, the patent for this special oil had a table mentioning deposits, but, if I recall it correctly, these deposits were from Teost 33c which emphasizes temperatures but is a single phase test meant for turbochargers (and even as such is up for revision at least, I guess). So, while this oil certainly lends itself for scrubbing those stuck rings of Cummins clean without loading turbochargers in the wet, all this is about solvency / detergency / dispersancy and stability. No focus on cleanliness as in "clean burn", clean decomposition or the like discernible.
The existence and functionality of this product won't tell how acceptable its esters could be in a two stroke, a rotary or even in those diesel engines essentially, as it's only a cure, a treatment, but no inhibitor of deposition as such. While there may be ways of using water to get rid of stalactites and stalagmites, water ain't their perfect inhibitor. Likewise other ingredients of normal engine oils are in for detergency et al. but at the same time themselves can promote or end up as deposition in ring grooves etc.

The Premium Blue Restore obviously can loosen and remove some deposits, but on a tilted panel coker (or should we say inclined after having seen these rotating discs making some base oil look like a winner taking it all with it ;-) similar to the one depicted by the oven chain gang it could still end up unexpectedly. It's job never was to keep thin film coker panels clean, neither those nor oven chains or two strokes and rotaries, not even diesels in the long run actually.
In case it could be expected to perform exceptionally well in those Cummins diesels as a regular oil, the very next competitors engine might experience something else (a narrow range of engines only spans a narrow window of temperatures etc. compared to the total). Finding its ingredients in two stroke oils e.g. could be a hint, but finding them in this tool can only be a general hint to some degree maybe half way up the piston skirt from where it would return effortlessly to the sump.

 

[sloinker]

Well, the patent for this special oil had a table mentioning deposits, but, if I recall it correctly, these deposits were from Teost 33c which emphasizes temperatures but is a single phase test meant for turbochargers (and even as such is up for revision at least, I guess). So, while this oil certainly lends itself for scrubbing those stuck rings of Cummins clean without loading turbochargers in the wet, all this is about solvency / detergency / dispersancy and stability. No focus on cleanliness as in "clean burn", clean decomposition or the like discernible.
The existence and functionality of this product won't tell how acceptable its esters could be in a two stroke, a rotary or even in those diesel engines essentially, as it's only a cure, a treatment, but no inhibitor of deposition as such. While there may be ways of using water to get rid of stalactites and stalagmites, water ain't their perfect inhibitor. Likewise other ingredients of normal engine oils are in for detergency et al. but at the same time themselves can promote or end up as deposition in ring grooves etc.

The Premium Blue Restore obviously can loosen and remove some deposits, but on a tilted panel coker (or should we say inclined after having seen these rotating discs making some base oil look like a winner taking it all with it ;-) similar to the one depicted by the oven chain gang it could still end up unexpectedly. It's job never was to keep thin film coker panels clean, neither those nor oven chains or two strokes and rotaries, not even diesels in the long run actually.
In case it could be expected to perform exceptionally well in those Cummins diesels as a regular oil, the very next competitors engine might experience something else (a narrow range of engines only spans a narrow window of temperatures etc. compared to the total). Finding its ingredients in two stroke oils e.g. could be a hint, but finding them in this tool can only be a general hint to some degree maybe half way up the piston skirt from where it would return effortlessly to the sump.

So If I'm reading this statement correctly, you think that esters may sometime aid in the inhibiting of coking in some applications but could otherwise be detrimental in the functionality of motor oils? I disagree but will profess to not being above changing my mind if the evidence is forthcoming. I don't like the inclusion of two strokes in the discussion as oil as purposely introduced into a combustion process is a different animal than what this discussion is about. My understanding that in specialty two stroke oils that esters are commonly what is used by anyone serious about performance, cleanliness and longevity.

 

[blingo]

The special Valvoline product would be of unknown performance as a regular engine oil and on the other hand is not just special in its high content of esters – we didn't get very far but the ester of choice there seemed somewhat atypical according to this other thread. Ordinary Motul or Redline or else associated with "ester oil" don't have much in common with it and while they could be fine for a gas engine's turbo or intake valves there'd remain more severe and more interesting feats to be accomplished before one of them should be seen as advantageous beyond some intake cleanliness or whatever. Often their ester content should be too small to care much about it, but I think it became clear that from only the well known traditionals about "esters" "cleaning" no cleanliness regarding the hotter sides of things can easily be expected. Jet engines relying on some ester products (in my imagination) have more in common with a turbocharger's oil fed bearing area (TEOST 33C) than with some ICE's ring grooves or apex seal grooves etc. (TEOST MHT). Even so there was data from jet oil testing more helpful than any TEOST would be.
The Cummins-NASA article over there dealt with the more demanding end of things and could illustrate that looking at TEOST MHT (or Noack volatility or even TEOST 33C) is worthless. No rules of thumb for esters, no rules of thumb for Noack. I'm also open minded to learn about such, but see them as imaginary, false friends.
2T oils can contain esters, but the racing flavors tend to not even be JASO/ISO FC, FD, EGC, EGD oils, sometimes their cleanliness may extend over just an afternoon. Streetable flavors containing esters are common, with and without PIB I think, but their ingredients probably should be carefully chosen. Once more I'd not want people to pour in some ester for being some ester. In that sense the two strokes came in. When reading up on aspects of cleanliness, clean decomposition.., some of that is found in polymeric esters and alternatives it seems. And cheap paragraphs about 2T oils (or oven chains ;-) can have it where paragraphs about 4T oils tend to fall short of it. Like a book we skim for oxidative stability can have nebulously overwhelming oxidative stability in PAO, then a second book we skim puts it into perspective when it has the entire oil's oxidative stability in the additized PAO and neither the additized nor the whimpy unadditized performance any longer looks that rewarding.

Regarding esters and cleanliness the judgement may be especially dependent on the the right focus. Some at least seem to have some talent for further polymerization and whatnot. I'm the wrong person to even really phantasize about it, I'm just no believer in the big pictures of most people buying ester oils. Big pictures don't necessarily focus on the most interesting or important topoi.
The other thread's last link was http://www.lube-media.com/wp-conten...tersinchallenginglubricantingapplications.pdf
Highly branched structures could be one more part of the answers making up the next bigger picture (whether they could or could not fit into an ester engine oil).