NASCAR teams use off the shelf oil?

GeorgeCLS · May 1, 2004

A recent "official" Mobil tech note indicated that of the 126 NASCAR cup, truck and Busch series vehicles, 119 were using Mobil 1R 0W-30. And in an 'unnoficial' chat with one of the Mobil engineers who is assigned to the series, he smiled seeing a keg of beer in a motel room and 10 guys pouring "brand X" out of quart bottles into pails and then re-fiilling with Mobil 1R pW-30... He smiled in that he had seen that happen 20 someyears earlier at Indy.. Deja Vu again for him..
George Morrison

XS650 · May 1, 2004

quote:

Originally posted by GeorgeCLS:
10 guys pouring "brand X" out of quart bottles into pails and then re-fiilling with Mobil 1R pW-30... He smiled in that he had seen that happen 20 someyears earlier at Indy.. Deja Vu again for him..
George Morrison

You would think those racers woul be aware of the superiority of Amsoil by now.

Chris142 · May 1, 2004

Don't most race teams lease their engines? I know many do. They don't build them themselves. I mwould think that the engines come to them ready to be put in the car and full of oil.

If they had a reason to add oil to finish a race (which is rare)I can see them putting in whatever was nearby just to get the car back out on the track.

mracer · May 2, 2004

The super teams all build their own engines and lease or sell engines to smaller teams. A lease engine would not be delivered with the oil it will race with because these cars all use a remote tank, dry sump system with a very large capacity. The oil cannot be added until the engine is installed in the race chassis and all the oil lines are hooked up to the remote oil coolers and tank.

Some of the teams that build engines in house:

Dale Earnhardt Inc.
RCR
Hendrick Motorsports
Roush Racing and Robert Yates Racing (joint engine venture)
Joe Gibs Racing

[ May 02, 2004, 02:33 PM: Message edited by: mracer ]

97tbird · May 2, 2004

if you look carefully at the area on the bottle where the oil grade is normally printed,, it looks like a longish white blur(letters?) followed by a shorter white blur(2-digit number?)

so can it be a straight "SAE" and "30" or "40"?

G-MAN · May 2, 2004

quote:

Originally posted by 97tbird:
if you look carefully at the area on the bottle where the oil grade is normally printed,, it looks like a longish white blur(letters?) followed by a shorter white blur(2-digit number?)

so can it be a straight "SAE" and "30" or "40"?

If you look at this pic I found of the old synthetic bottle, I think the only difference is in the color of the writing of the grade. SAE is on the end of the blur and then the grade. If we ever do find out what grade it is I suspect it will be 10w30.

Pablo · May 2, 2004

I think if a team was desparate enough to have to dump oil in during a race, they could give a flying rat sheet if it's 0W-20 or 20W-50, synthetic or group 1, R or Redline.....they had some oil. They dumped it in. Get over it.

I wonder in the days of restrictor plate roundy round boring racing if 10w30 vs. 0w30 would make a heck of of a lot of difference.

Demanding engines and teams use synthetic oil, Amsoil wisecracks aside.

buster · May 2, 2004

Pablo, Amsoil's popularity is growing in the amature NASCAR world. Amsoil gets knocked bc they set themselves up by exagerating and making claims based on "we can't tell you but it's true" type talk. When AJ decides to spend the money and sponsor a big team, they will maybe start to get the recognition they deserve. If a little company like Redine can sponsor big teams, I'm sure Amsoil can.

Regarding the Pennzoil, they probably don't care what oil goes in if they are trying to finish. These guys go through engines pretty quickly I imagine so who knows.

[ May 02, 2004, 05:10 PM: Message edited by: buster ]

brad_d · May 2, 2004

IIRC Pennzoil "color codes" the viscosity grade on their bottles, and I believe they're pretty consistent across their various product lines.

5w30 is written in blue, and 10w30 is green (like in the ad G-Man II posted). Other grades have other colors. Last time I happened to notice, these colors were the same for the conventional, the synthetic blend, and the full synthetic*.

The grade label on those bottles looks white to me. Can't recall off the top of my head what grade, if any, is printed in white OTC.

'Course, there are enough other possibilities to make your head spin. Yes, it could be a "private label" oil. It could be just about anything dumped into those bottles by the team. Or it might not.

I didn't realize I was going to lose sleep over this - I just thought it was interesting - but I'll try to "get over it."

* - Chime in to mention it again if you feel you must: I know the "synthetic" is a group III.

The_Jeff · May 2, 2004

I find it incredibly hard to believe they would use "any old oil to finish the race." The pit crews are like Boy Scouts, prepared with everything. I saw a car's nose get smashed in; they had a patch panel for *that exact spot* that was preglued and went on in a hurry.

Of course that body patch panel had no sponsors and in fact covered some up. So if the oil was "in-a-pinch-oil" it won't 100% corollate to sponsorship.

To armchair racer me, losing 3.5 qts out of 22 isn't enough reason to pit; who knows, with all the telemetry they've got the crew probably told the driver he'd be getting some oil at the next stop.

GoHeels1981 · May 2, 2004

Back in the 70's it was fairly common for race teams to use 40 w during the summer and 20w-50 in the cooler monthts. Synthetic wasn't popular with race teams until the 90's.

My current listening is several teams are using Mobil 1 0w30 during the race and Mobil 1 0w-20 during qualifying.

I was watching the race when this happened and immediately recognized the oil as Pennzoil synthetic. My guess is 10w30.

tmorris1 · May 2, 2004

quote:

who knows, with all the telemetry they've got the crew probably told the driver he'd be getting some oil at the next stop.

There is no telemetry allowed in NASCAR. The crew chief has little or nothing to do with the oil choice, it is the responsibilty of the engine builder to spec the oil used. And they don't change to oil on a pit stop. I think some of these people need to watch a race before commenting on this. I'm sure the people building these $75,000 engines know a heck of a lot more about oil than anyone here.

[ May 02, 2004, 06:59 PM: Message edited by: tmorris1 ]

KW · May 2, 2004

I hate to ask the obvious, but why not use an off the shelf oil?

I do in my bikes and I spin them up over 11,000 rpm all the time.

sbc350gearhead · May 2, 2004

quote:

Originally posted by KW:
I hate to ask the obvious, but why not use an off the shelf oil?

I do in my bikes and I spin them up over 11,000 rpm all the time.

For 4 hours straight?

sbc350gearhead · May 2, 2004

quote:

Originally posted by tmorris1:
[ I'm sure the people building these $75,000 engines know a heck of a lot more about oil than anyone here. [/QB]

I doubt it. I would imagine that they hire people (like terry or oil company chemists) that know more about oil than anyone else here.

I would imagine that most engine builders know as much about oil........as an oil company chemist knows about building a winston cup engine.

[ May 02, 2004, 07:58 PM: Message edited by: sbc350gearhead ]

Pablo · May 2, 2004

per TMorris:

quote:

I'm sure the people building these $75,000 engines know a heck of a lot more about oil than anyone here.

I agree with the other stuff you wrote but I must take exception with you on this. Most if not all engine builders are quite ignorant of tribology....even with more expensive engines.

buster · May 2, 2004

quote:

You would think those racers woul be aware of the superiority of Amsoil by now.

Superior, no. On par, yes, to Mobil's OTC oils. Some grades are a bit better. Mobil 1 R wasn't an OTC oil until now so prior to that, Mobil's special blends were most likely used by race teams as indicated by Rusty Wallace.

Mobil has chemists working with these guys making 0w-5 wt oils to qualify with. Mobil 1 R is used the entire race, not the 50wt oil.

Where are all the Redline users in NASCAR?

74% using Mobil 1

[ May 02, 2004, 12:50 PM: Message edited by: buster ]

Patman · May 2, 2004

quote:

Originally posted by Pablo:
per TMorris:

quote:

I'm sure the people building these $75,000 engines know a heck of a lot more about oil than anyone here.

Click to expand...

I agree with the other stuff you wrote but I must take exception with you on this. Most if not all engine builders are quite ignorant of tribology....even with more expensive engines.

Exactly, it seems around here in Toronto that every engine builder tells people that synthetics are no good and they recommend using 20w50 conventional oil! But yet they do zero oil analysis to back up their recommendations.

metroplex · May 2, 2004

He still won the race.

tmorris1 · May 2, 2004

quote:

I agree with the other stuff you wrote but I must take exception with you on this. Most if not all engine builders are quite ignorant of tribology....even with more expensive engines.

You probably are correct in saying they might not know as much about the chemistry of the oil, but that is why they have engineering support. They for sure know what oil will last and perform the best in their engines.
They run these things constantly on computer controlled dynos to test reliabilty and power. I saw a show on Speed Channel where they talk to some of the crew cheifs and they answer questions. There was a question asked about oil, none of them would say exactly what weights they used. They did say that they have computer controlled dynos that put the engine through identical conditions that they would see at the different tracks. About all they said is that they are constantly experimenting with different oils to try and get the best performance reliabilty ratio. They also said that some of the oils they use are off the shelf products and some are special "test" blends that they get.
If they could gain 2hp from switching to another brand of oil (which probably wouldn't happen) I'm sure they would do it in a heartbeat. I didn't mean to tick anyone off.

NASCAR teams use off the shelf oil?

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