Making a good oil - (Amsoil, RL, RP, JG)

buster · Dec 9, 2006

http://www.automotiverebuilder.com/ar/eb60652.htm

Quote:

Amsoil's Ed Newman agrees, "Most racing oils are formulated to provide better anti-wear protection and shear stability than standard American Petroleum Institute (API) quality oils on the shelf. Our racing oil was designed specifically with these two protection and performance characteristics in mind."

Quote:

Cameron Evans of Red Line Oil says there are definitely differences to be aware of. "It may seem to be a pretty simple equation when you're making a racing oil. Everyone knows that you change race oil frequently, so you don't need detergents in racing oil. But blending oil is a bit like making a cake: you may have a quart's worth of ingredients to blend into the batter, and if it didn't need to be sweet then there would be more room to blend in something else. In passenger car oil the detergents allow the deposit to be either suspended in fluid or picked up by the oil filter. With race oil it's a bit different because you don't have that same ability. When you look at racing oil, you can remove the detergents that take up much of the room in the additive package of a passenger car oil. It leaves more room for lubricity additives this way."

Quote:

Formulating oil is a balance, and, as Red Line's Evans pointed out, many compare it to cooking. A little bit of cinnamon may taste good but a whole lot of it tastes terrible, so finding the right amount of spice requires a lot of skill.

"You have to find just the right amount of the various additives - friction modifiers, anti-wear agents, detergents and dispersants - all of this stuff the chemical engineers are playing with to get just the right mix for that particular application," explains Joe Gibbs Racing Oil's Lake Speed, Jr. "We have been playing around with our mix for some time and the oil we race with today is not the same thing we ran 6 years ago. We've perfected the recipe since then, and now we run a 5W20. But there are still some NASCAR NEXTEL Cup teams that run 15W50 motor oil because that's what they've always run."

Base oils are an important ingredient in motor oil but what sets one oil apart from another is the additives.

Quote:

According to Royal Purple's Martin, oil really doesn't become what it is until you add the additives.

"All of the benefits are in the additives," says Martin. "Even in terms of racing oils most oil companies purchase additive packages. There are only a handful of additive suppliers globally. So in many cases the oils are basically the same with the only differences being the marketing. We actually manufacture our own additives. We aren't a refinery so we buy our base oil but that's the flour in the cake. The two major characteristics of our additives is the film strength, which is the load carrying characteristics of the oil not just the wear, and the oxidation resistance."

Quote:

"There are several different types of base oils," explains Royal Purple's Martin. "In automotive applications there's Group 2 and lower, then Group 3 and Group 4 (Group 4 being synthetics). Really, if you have a Group 4 from BP/Amoco vs. Exxon/Mobil there's not going to be much of a difference. The refinement process is identical, and the tech specs will be virtually the same. Where you gain your benefit and tell the difference between any two branded oils is your additives. That's how you enhance and tweak the performance of the oil. The base oil is only going to do so much, just like the flour in the cake."

Lonnie · Dec 9, 2006

Is all this a good arguement for not mixing oil?

Cicero · Dec 9, 2006

Quote:

Is all this a good arguement for not mixing oil?

I have no expertise in decidiing that. Sorry.
But here's a thought...
If one changed from dino to synthetic there would be a certain amount of old dino in the enigine creating new "blend". Does that ruin your engine?

boxcartommie22 · Dec 9, 2006

on the contrary mixing oils is a must now in racing

427Z06 · Dec 9, 2006

I agree that it's foolish to think that home blending is going to produce something better than what the Chemist, ChemEs, and Tribologists cooked up and supported with extensive testing.

However, it's also foolish to think that all oils on the market are given the very best additive packages. In many cases, they may be balanced to achieve a certain level of performance and no more.

And the day RL, RP, JG, etc, start using only Group I/II/II+ basestocks for their racing oils, that'll be the day you will be able to convince me that basestocks don't matter.

buster · Dec 9, 2006

Quote:

However, it's also foolish to think that all oils on the market are given the very best additive packages. In many cases, they may be balanced to achieve a certain level of performance and no more.

And the day RL, RP, JG, etc, start using only Group I/II/II+ basestocks for their racing oils, that'll be the day you will be able to convince me that basestocks don't matter.

Agree. JG's played around with all the different base oils and found Group IV/V to work best.

I posted this article bc I thought it was interesting hearing from each company their thoughts on racing oil.

Mixing is fine, even with different chemistry. It's not ideal but we've seen enough UOA's that it really doesn't hurt anything.

427Z06 · Dec 9, 2006

Quote:

Mixing is fine, even with different chemistry. It's not ideal but we've seen enough UOA's that it really doesn't hurt anything.

In short OCI street vehicles? What kind of stress test is that? You'd have to stick a home brew mystery concoction through a minimum of the API sequences of tests before I would accept it as evidence of any good being done.

buster · Dec 9, 2006

Quote:

In short OCI street vehicles? What kind of stress test is that? You'd have to stick a home brew mystery concoction through a minimum of the API sequences of tests before I would accept it as evidence of any good being done.

I agree. I'm not a fan of mixing or adding anything to oil as most know. I'm just basing my observation off of guys like Al and TallPaul who have yet to ruin an engine bc of their urge to brew some crazy concoction.

Same can be said with LC/FP. I've seen some reports though where the oil thinned down quite a bit and fuel dilution was nonexistent. I think in some cases they are simply thinning it out with LC.

Quote:

Should Oil Additives or After Market Products be added to AMSOIL Motor Oils?

No, they are not necessary! AMSOIL Motor Oils are properly formulated under the strictest Quality Control procedure to provide superior lubrication performance

toocrazy2yoo · Dec 9, 2006

Quote:

I'm just basing my observation off of guys like Al and TallPaul who have yet to ruin an engine bc of their urge to brew some crazy concoction

Not to mention Ray H's whacky combo of 4 or 5 bottles of leftover this and that which produced the UOA of his young life..

JohnBrowning · Dec 9, 2006

427Z06 Wrote

Quote:

I agree that it's foolish to think that home blending is going to produce something better than what the Chemist, ChemEs, and Tribologists cooked up and supported with extensive testing.

However, it's also foolish to think that all oils on the market are given the very best additive packages. In many cases, they may be balanced to achieve a certain level of performance and no more.

And the day RL, RP, JG, etc, start using only Group I/II/II+ basestocks for their racing oils, that'll be the day you will be able to convince me that basestocks don't matter.

I agree with this 100%! I also think it is silly to think that a homebrew is going to buy design out perform some of the better formulated products. I also think that it would be diffacult to reproduce great results doing home brewing even with detailed notes due to product variation or formula change. Now with that said we already know that outside of anyone blending anything other then fully formulated oils together no harm is ever done!

buster · Dec 10, 2006

If that is what you believe, then LC is a big waste of money.

JohnBrowning · Dec 10, 2006

No, LC is not a big waste of money. I think we have seen LC improve some UOA and hurt others. It is not always needed and I do not think that an expensive synthetic should ever need any additives. I like LC for use as a cleaner that does not adversly affect wear when used for extended time frames. I did not have any luck with it in terms of an oil extender. I did though find that LC worked great for cleaning dirty engines. It does not cause extreme wear like you would find if you ran a motor flush or solvent in the oil for the duration of the oil change.LC also works great for soaking pistons over night and for shock treating fuel system. I do not think youwould catch me useing it as directed now days unless I went back to a GII based oil. My point was that we have never seen the mixing of different brands and viscosities of formulated oil hurt anyting. We have seen some home brew's where two many different additives were added to the crankcase and then when the numbers did not look good we had no idea wich product did the oil/engine combo in.

bruce381 · Dec 10, 2006

Quote:

If that is what you believe, then LC is a big waste of money.

you are probably right.

Where is this article from?
a Lot of vauge nonsensical info reading the quotes is like a political add a lot of talk and nothing much said.

bruce

bruce381 · Dec 10, 2006

check that I see reference at top of post

Making a good oil - (Amsoil, RL, RP, JG)

Similar threads