4WD
$50 site donor 2025
I’m still not gonna watch this - maybe next time with a more comprehensive lubricant or engine story to tell …
LSJr- Do “Film Strength” Testers Tell The TRUTH?
- Thread starter fantastic
- Start date
4WD
$50 site donor 2025
1st chink in armor
The test is valid to show EP qualities of a lube.
Rat540? Did you mean 540Rat? Unlike many that think they are experts, he is an engineer with some special patents.
Only reason folks like him get a bad reputation is because he says things that others don't like to hear, and goes against some belief system.
I know who he is. He's not some kind of expert as claimed. When it comes to oil, he's no more knowledgeable than Project Farm. Most of that blog is pseudo-science disguised as real science. It's just some off the wall theories with no basis.
This aside, the film strength measurements are bogus. There's no machine that can give that accurate of measurement on film strength, at least not that he'd have access to. What he's doing is using a scar rig (like in Lake's video) and back calculating a film strength number based on the scar. This is horribly inaccurate as not only is there already a wide margin of error with that machine, the two variables of film strength and scar size aren't even related. You'd stand a better chance of hitting a 500m target with a blunderbuss.
Clearly.
I think it was an excellent video. It clearly explained that the testing machine, commonly used to show the "superiority" of one oil over another, is simply false.........
.......Which, is what the video was supposed to be about.
Explained in Lehman's terms, for most of us non god-like holders of knowledge here at BITOG.
.......Which, is what the video was supposed to be about.
Explained in Lehman's terms, for most of us non god-like holders of knowledge here at BITOG.
Agreed. Worked for me and I have a better understanding of why these aren't intented for testing oil even though my new oil testing video colab with PF and LSJR will use one to show Liquimoly's superiority.
All in all a decent vid. We’ve been talking for years here about how useless the scar testing is for engine oil. A little dig at PF yet LSJR ranks oils based on UOA wear numbers..
I enjoyed the camshaft wear testing. Great info there!
I enjoyed the camshaft wear testing. Great info there!
Glad to see this video reappeared.
How anyone reads that blog and doesn’t come away thinking the guy is a loon is beyond me. Let’s look at some fun snippetsThe test is valid to show EP qualities of a lube.
Rat540? Did you mean 540Rat? Unlike many that think they are experts, he is an engineer with some special patents.
Only reason folks like him get a bad reputation is because he says things that others don't like to hear, and goes against some belief system.
“The details of the specific test equipment set-up I developed, as well as the details of the specific test procedure I developed, that provide the accuracy and repeatability that I demand, are Proprietary Intellectual Property.”
Not sharing the details of your experimental setup is about as unscientific as you can get. So right off the bat he’s doing worse than any freshman physics lab report I’ve ever had to grade.
He used the phrase “EXACTLY MATCHES” 23 times almost always in all caps yet doesn’t provide a single graph showing the correlation between his measurements and real world measured engine wear. He doesn’t even try to make up a graph he just says it matches so it must be true!
“But, all their failed efforts show just how wrong they are, and intelligent people everywhere simply ignore them. It is the critics’ loss, because they continue to believe and follow bad information, while the rest of us make use of, and benefit from, the FACTS. So, I have a question for those critics, “What have they ever written about motor oil that has been read OVER 1 MILLION TIMES?“”
Aside from the fact that this guys writing sounds an awful lot like that quacks who spam my .edu email addresses telling me quantum physics is a lie and Einstein was wrong, he offers zero proof his measurements correlate to engine wear data, ignores the pile of other jobs an engine oil is responsible for, and wraps up his one of many rants with the classic logical fallacy of argumentum ad populum
Actually he does a little argumentum ad verecundiam before that quoted section when he lists off his engineering background, patents, and society memberships. It’s a special blog that’s for sure.
This is a monumental load of ignorant crapola on so many levels.
I wonder if anyone has found his real identity...I tried and found some things but I couldn't make it all connect.
Scotty Kilmer
I don’t see it as a dig at Todd of PF. For one, Todd is just repeating the “testing” he’s seen others do. It’s only a correction to anyone who thinks oil assessment is so easy you can do it at home using inappropriate tests. That’s about everyone on YouTube without access to an expensive lab.
I hope Lake makes a video debunking four ball testing next, since Amsoil and a couple other companies like cite that. It’s a form of the same error as using the Timken test.
There's an ASTM spec D4172 that lays out how the 4-ball test is used to do "preliminary evaluation of the anti-wear properties of fluid lubricants in sliding contact by means of the Four-Ball Wear Test Machine". D4172 is meant for things like engine oils, and D2266 is used in the four-ball test machine to evaluate greases. The four-ball test method is basically and updated version of the Timken test. Doubt that the four-ball test correlates any better than the Timken to real engines ... but who knows for sure without data.
5. Significance and Use
5.1 This test method can be used to determine the relative wear preventive properties of lubricating fluids in sliding contact under
the prescribed test conditions. No attempt has been made to correlate this test with balls in rolling contact. The user of this test
method should determine to his own satisfaction whether results of this test procedure correlate with field performance or other
bench test machines.
Amsoil hasn’t used the 4 ball on finished motor oil data for awhile now
Last edited:
Similar threads
- Sticky
- Sticky