LSJr video about vis, wear, viscosity, etc

[dnewton3]

Here's his most recent video:


Here is my summary of the content and my own comments:

- first of all, his production of videos continues to get better. He is more "on point", doesn't yell as much, gets to the details quicker, etc. This improves the "watch-ability" of his videos.
- clearly he's using a new source of data analysis; he's not good at statistical processing himself. He's displaying some tools which are more factually based; true data processing. Someone is helping him, and that's a good thing.
- the first part of the vid is about Porsche engine wear, but the second part speaks to viscosity
- he makes a point (one I've been saying for years) that once an appropriate level of hydrodynamic boundary is present, "more" doesn't return any improvement statistically (adding vis is only important to some level for any application, and past that, it's moot)
- he notes that "moly" does have a significant effect on wear

Probably the most important thing he discusses (which I also have been stating for years) is that the oil itself is only one part of a whole "lubrication system". The "system" takes oil content, volume, viscosity, flow rate, sump capacity, etc all into account to reduce wear.



One of his better videos; this one is reasonable in its presentation and information.

 

[Zee09]

Wow you are evolving

 

[rstsco]

- clearly he's using a new source of data analysis; he's not good at statistical processing himself. He's displaying some tools which are more factually based; true data processing. Someone is helping him, and that's a good thing.

Lake has been working with Chip Hewitte(sp?), a former engineer with Afton. Chip has taken over a large piece of his analysis.

There are two videos which he refers, but didn't provide links. Here they are:

Oil pressure doesn't matter... and The Science Behind Million Mile Engines.

Reader's Digest versions:

Once you have enough oil pressure, more isn't better (usually).

Engines at operating temperatures have less fuel dilution and wear. Cold starts and getting up to operating temperature is bad. The study referenced found the type of oil was less important.

 

[Urshurak776]

Appreciate your thoughts @dnewton3. For me, until he rectifies, one way or the other, his wild claims on oil filter efficiency, against ISO standards, I just can't take anything he says seriously. 99.9% of anything else he puts out could be accurate, but that 1% is a huge problem for me. Greatly takes away from being reliable in my opinion. YMMV.

 

[scrllock]

Until he rectifies, one way or the other, his wild claims on oil filter efficiency, against ISO standards, I just can't take anything he says seriously. 99.9% of anything else he puts out could be accurate, but that 1% is a problem for me. YMMV.

To me the largest falsehood is he claims to be doing all of these oil analysis, but speediagnostix is just a whitelabeled reseller for a lab in Ohio. They do their best to obfuscate this on the website, but it's the same model every other influencer out there uses.

 

[doverlabs]

Appreciate your thoughts @dnewton3. For me, until he rectifies, one way or the other, his wild claims on oil filter efficiency, against ISO standards, I just can't take anything he says seriously. 99.9% of anything else he puts out could be accurate, but that 1% is a huge problem for me. Greatly takes away from being reliable in my opinion. YMMV.

Isn’t it less scientific to cast all opinions in a negative way because of one goof? Who is 100% right anyway? Because I suppose, I shouldn’t listen to anyone, ever.

 

[Hootbro]

Appreciate your thoughts @dnewton3. For me, until he rectifies, one way or the other, his wild claims on oil filter efficiency, against ISO standards, I just can't take anything he says seriously. 99.9% of anything else he puts out could be accurate, but that 1% is a huge problem for me. Greatly takes away from being reliable in my opinion. YMMV.

You can find fault in anybody in something they say given enough time to include, you, me and LSJr, but I tend to judge people on a running average short of some crime against humanity.

 

[4wd]

I watched it - good video !

 

[rollins.]

I watch his videos and say "Thank you , Lake Speed Jr."!

Well, he sure could have made better progress in departing form all that pointless dramaticism and grimacing .
He should be more careful in presenting the data (charts,graphs etc) .

Example :

Some people may not care that much whether/which oils stayed in grade or dropped after KRL (he failed to mention the duration of the test this time) . They might be more interested in 1.the PVL for each oil and 2.where they start (oil A can start somewhere around the upper end of the visc.grade that happen to be quite wide by j300, lose some good % and still be in grade. Oil B can start around the lower end of the narrower frame of a different grade,score half the PVL of oil A... and drop out of grade).

It is not that hard to make a ranking list and put it on the screen for the watchers.

Viscosity Loss Ranked Best to Worst

Driven DI40 5w-40: 3.52% *
Mobil 1 C40 GT 0w-40: 3.60% *
M1 Supercar 0w-40: 7.69%
Motor Milk 5w-30: 9.32% *
Mobil 1 Euro 0w-40: 11.19%
Motor Milk 5w-40: 11.76%
Castrol Edge 5w-40: 13.48%
Mobil 1 Supercar 5w-50: 17.82%
Motor Milk 5w-50: 18.09% *
Motor Milk 10w-60: 24.38%
Liqui-Moly 10w-60: 24.89%

* -oils that stayed in grade


https://pakelo.com/templates/yootheme/cache/93/Tabella_SAE_J300_-_HT-HS-93cdd5be.jpeg


Instead the watcher got this :

 

[johnmyster]

- he makes a point (one I've been saying for years) that once an appropriate level of hydrodynamic boundary is present, "more" doesn't return any improvement statistically (adding vis is only important to some level for any application, and past that, it's moot)

It's almost like once the parts aren't touching, the parts aren't touching and other things begin to matter more.

He also perpetuated a generalization that is not always true regarding stribeck curve MFT with his reference to diesel engines requiring higher viscosity purely due to engine speeds being lower and/or loads being higher. Typically the larger bearing surfaces distribute said load over more area while larger bearing surfaces and piston strokes increase relative velocity at a given RPM. RPM doesn't tell the whole story. It's almost like specfic engine dimensions matter more than a generalization about gas vs diesel.

Well, he sure could have made better progress in departing form all that pointless dramaticism and grimacing .
He should be more careful in presenting the data (charts,graphs etc) .
...
Instead the watcher got this :

View attachment 347683

Yeah, that chart will be the misused by the smooth brains on bitog for the next 10 years. It doesn't really matter that Mobil 1 FS 0w-40 "instantly becomes basically a 30wt" when the host motor stayed together just fine on the factory specified 20 or 30wt (with the non-euro 30wts tending to be at the low end of the 30 range) which also tended to shear down with use.

 

[Urshurak776]

Isn’t it less scientific to cast all opinions in a negative way because of one goof? Who is 100% right anyway? Because I suppose, I shouldn’t listen to anyone, ever.

That’s a huge goof though. Especially when his tag-line is “Science not speculation.” I just want to see the science. He has been asked a million times and nothing…..that’s not someone I trust going forward. If you and @Hootbro are okay with it, that’s great for you guys. Not for me though.

If it was a mistake, he needs to admit it and say he messed up. Nothing wrong with that. He has chosen to ignore it.

 

[cheesepuffs2]

I just watched this after having not watched any of his videos for some time. I must say, excellent production quality. His skills as a presenter are improving and he’s very natural in front of the camera now with much smoother editing. Really well done.

I love what he said about oil pressure and viscosity hitting a point where more isn’t better. We see on BITOG this trope that thicker viscosity cannot be bad. But that leaves out an important element that more isn’t necessarily a benefit either. In reality, oil should be “as thick as necessary, as thin as possible”.

Once you get thick enough to keep parts separated, there’s no point in chasing more. If that is achieved with a 20 grade oil, then a 50 grade is not going to keep those parts separated “better”. All that does is create parasitic drag (except in a case where the rings are worn out and a thicker oil can act as a Band-Aid to promote ring seal). Going thicker and thicker is futile.

 

[JunkdrawerDog]

Once you have enough oil pressure, more isn't better (usually).

I've rationalized that this is why my air cooled Beetle ran on for years after the oil pressure light began flickering at idle. It was delivering oil to the bearings. Hydrodynamic wedge was indeed being formed. It was all just happening at a lower pressure than the design intended.

 

[kschachn]

Once you get thick enough to keep parts separated, there’s no point in chasing more. If that is achieved with a 20 grade oil, then a 50 grade is not going to keep those parts separated “better”. All that does is create parasitic drag (except in a case where the rings are worn out and a thicker oil can act as a Band-Aid to promote ring seal). Going thicker and thicker is futile.

All of which is fine as long as it isn’t being diluted by fuel, which is very common these days.

The only downside if you don’t need it is a slight increase in the fuel consumption. So I guess I’m willing to take that risk.

I’m not capable of knowing on a daily basis what is happening inside my engine, so out of caution I’ll always use an oil with a higher HT/HS than “required”. I also keep my vehicles for a very long time so that might have something to do with it. 1% to 2% increase in fuel consumption doesn’t make a significant difference to me.

 

[kschachn]

That’s a huge goof though. Especially when his tag-line is “Science not speculation.” I just want to see the science. He has been asked a million times and nothing…..that’s not someone I trust going forward. If you and @Hootbro are okay with it, that’s great for you guys. Not for me though.

If it was a mistake, he needs to admit it and say he messed up. Nothing wrong with that. He has chosen to ignore it.

And there are multiple glaring instances of this.

Regardless of how spiffy he’s becoming on his presentation. He’s putting that marketing degree to good use.

 

[ZeeOSix]

- he makes a point (one I've been saying for years) that once an appropriate level of hydrodynamic boundary is present, "more" doesn't return any improvement statistically (adding vis is only important to some level for any application, and past that, it's moot)

Going up a grade to obtain more MOFT is giving more headroom before metal-to-metal contact can occur, and it ensures there is adequate MOFT when the engine might be pushed harder for whatever reason. Don't need to do an oil change on the side of the road before hooking up a heavy trailer or deciding to push the car really hard. And what about people who lug their engines under load. In that case you've lost the RPM factor and the MOFT will decrease more due to low engine speed and high loads in the rod bearings.

He also mentions oil pressure impact on engine wear, but most know that oil pressure doesn't always correlate to proper lubrication. All oil pressure does is supply oil volume to all the part of the engine that are fed oil from the oil pump. Oil pressure really doesn't add any more hydrodynamic wedge pressure because the pressure in the journal bearing oil wedge naturally produced during operation in the 1000s of PSI range, so adding 50-60 PSI on top of that is negligible. It's the oil viscosity that does the lubrication and what results in the MOFT between moving parts. If the oil volume is too low and/or the viscosity too low, then lubrication can suffer and engine wear or damage can result.

 

[cheesepuffs2]

Don't need to do an oil change on the side of the road before hooking up a heavy trailer or deciding to push the car really hard. And what about people who lug their engines under load. In that case you've lost the RPM factor and the MOFT will decrease more due to low engine speed and high loads in the rod bearings.

People do that…?

Regarding MOFT when an engine is lugged under load, any remotely modern automatic is not going to allow the engine to be dangerously lugged under load. If people are driving manual and lugging the engine under load, then that’s a problem stemming from behind the wheel, not in the sump.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Once you get thick enough to keep parts separated, there’s no point in chasing more. If that is achieved with a 20 grade oil, then a 50 grade is not going to keep those parts separated “better”.

Going thicker is mostly about adding some MOFT headroom. No engine has a real-time MOFT sensor on every moving part to warn when parts are about to go into metal-on-metal contact mode.

 

[ZeeOSix]

People do that…?

That was sarcasm. The point was if you had say a 5W-30 in the sump instead of a 5W-20, then you wouldn't have to think as much about all the different use conditions you might run into while using the vehicle.

Regarding MOFT when an engine is lugged under load, any remotely modern automatic is not going to allow the engine to be dangerously lugged under load. If people are driving manual and lugging the engine under load, then that’s a problem stemming from behind the wheel, not in the sump.

Not every vehicle on the road has an automatic transmission, and not everyone has the same driving skills.

It's amazing how much push back there is about going up a grade.

 

[kschachn]

That was sarcasm. The point was if you had say a 5W-30 in the sump instead of a 5W-20, then you wouldn't have to think as much about all the different use conditions you might run into while using the vehicle.


Not every vehicle on the road has an automatic transmission, and not everyone has the same driving skills.

It's amazing how much push back there is about going up a grade.

Yes, I’m still a bit fuzzy on the compelling technical reason not to go up a grade or two.

Like I’ve said before, if your one and only goal is to obtain a small reduction in fuel consumption, then go for it. After that, why again am I doggedly sticking to thinner oils?