New Porsche race engine. Checking on suggested oil.

[SHARKYTOOTH]

LSJ did a YT video where in he talked about the Joe Gibbs breakin oil, and how it lays down the required coating on internal parts of high HP engines to protect them. It made a huge differance and protected their engines when other racers were having their engines fail. It actually helped them win many races. It's very good breakin oil. Probably the best that's made for that. Run it as prescribed. No less, and no longer, acording to LSJ.

Thanks. I'm sold on the break in oil and we have that at the ready for the dyno. I'm still sort of confused about break in for a race motor on a dyno but the experts will be doing this rather than me!

 

[SHARKYTOOTH]

Just one (diesel) engine engineer's opinion, but I'm going with LSJr's recommendation of the GP1 20w50. Especially with an aluminum block, the static clearances are only a part of the picture. As @Cujet highlighted, it's the dynamic clearances that matter when you start yanking on those main and rod caps with literal tons of force. Who cares what the clearances are on a cold engine that's not moving? That's just a starting point. Add some heat and a couple bar of boost and a couple thousand Gs of acceleration on the reciprocating assembly and your running clearances will be triple or quadruple.

I think you want the higher film strength of a thicker base oil that reduces temporary shear.

IMO the question isn't whether to run 20w50 or thinner. Rather, it's whether to run 20w50 or a straight SAE 50 or SAE 60. I think the GP1 20w50 is probably the sweet spot for you in the Driven line.

I'm a valvoline guy at heart, though, so Black bottle VR1 20w50 synthetic is where I'd start as it's the safe option. It might not be the "best" choice but it's almost always a solid one.

Grey bottle VR1 SAE 50 would be an excellent choice as well and probably offers slightly higher MOFT in the bearings and on the stressed valvetrain parts. I think Valvoline have good distribution in Oceana too, so Aussies can source these oils quite easily at reasonable cost.

The ultimate choice would be the BARO from our friends at HPL, but I know shipping to Australia can be brutal, and it's already pricey oil.

PS: those head studs are sexy as it gets. Straight out of the NASA Fastener design manual.

Thanks a bunch for your input.

Yes, I'm happy with the choice of GP-1 20w/50 and will almost certainly go for that. Interestingly we always used to run VR1 in either 20w/50 or 25w/60. I've never heard of anyone losing a motor due to running that oil.

I guess the one thing I haven't mentioned so much is the way that the engine will be used. Mainly Time Attack. Bearing in mind it's usually pretty warm down here in Sydney. Hell, I've never seen snow! So oil heaters aren't really necessary for us. The motor is started. The car idles for short time before heading off down pit lane. We head around for 1 outlap and then from the last corner you blast down the straight and into 1 hotlap. Then a cool down lap before heading into pits. It's a strange concept and probably not ideal for many motors. It's a reasonably long main straight into a long 90o left hand turn. Our aim is to go through T1 flat out with no braking. It's pretty hairy and puts a fair bit of stress on the oiling distribution. So far we've gone through T1 at about 140mph min. We mean to up the ante with new aero.

Obtaining the studs was secret agent stuff. Accompanied by very detailed installation instructions. Which I forwarded to the machinist who said they read them. Not being in the room at the same time....my fingers are crossed!

 

[JimPghPA]

Gots to admire the machine shop work that went into the making of all of those parts.

Good machinest are worth their weight in gold. It's a highly under-apreaciatee skill set. Sure some things are made with CNC nowadays. But even then there is a lot involved. Materials, setup, tool maintance, insection of made parts. It's as much art as skill. It takes people dedicated to quality to make it all happen properly.

 

[SHARKYTOOTH]

Gots to admire the machine shop work that went into the making of all of those parts.

Good machinest are worth their weight in gold. It's a highly under-apreaciatee skill set. Sure some things are made with CNC nowadays. But even then there is a lot involved. Materials, setup, tool maintance, insection of made parts. It's as much art as skill. It takes people dedicated to quality to make it all happen properly.

The machine shop who basically put the car together is largely one guy. Paul McKinnon @ Evolution Motorsport. He has also been the main driver of the car. Ex Australian Karting champion. Went to the World titles in Italy some years ago. Very hard to compete against the top big money Europeans even in Karting. It was just him and his Dad. He could have been a pro driver with ease. Turned his hand to fabrication. Well regarded down here.

The electrical engineer who works on this car also runs his own team in the support series to the Aussie V8 Supercars if you guys know about that. The cars that you see racing around our most famous circuit, Mt Bathurst. So the support series caters for up and coming drivers and some on the slide. Made up of older V8 Supercars. One day when they were at my local track giving sponsor lap days, Paul took me around the track in the car. On pretty old slicks. Hung the tail out and blasted around in a pretty high hp n/a V8. Very different to our turbo i4. We pulled into the pits and I started to take my helmet off. Robbo, the engineer and owner of the car said hold on. You're getting in the driver's seat now. Somewhat shocked, in I got. The seat was non adjustable and a little too far from the pedals for me. Anyway, off we go. I'd never driven a stick shift sequential gearbox before. Flat upshifts, clutch downshifts. Took a little bit of getting used to. But the bigger problem was not being able to depress the brake pedal fully. So we almost ran off the track at one point which was a bit nerve racking. Nevertheless, there's not too many who can say they've driven one of these racecars. It was fun, but as mentioned, very different to my car. They basically ran similar lap times at that stage but my car will be quicker again when we're next up. Not to forget that we're still on road legal tyres. Yokohama Ao50 which I don't think you can get in the US. Pretty fast tyre to be fair but not as fast as a slick. Shown in pic.

 

[oliver88]

Wowza !! We raced 944's for 20 years in various series here...alweays used the NA motor though, 2.5 and/or 2.7. The 944 was one of the very best handling cars I've ever raced, very forgiving and predictable...Won a lot of races with my GTS1 NASA 944 2.7 liter. Nice job, I am eager to see how it goes ! BTW, i used both Redline 10w40 or Valvoline VR1 20w50 and did extensive oil analysis and rod bearing inspections ! Have fun !!!!

 

[SHARKYTOOTH]

My car, mostly when it was still street registered was at a different shop We always used to run VR1 20w/50 or 25w/60. I wouldn't have a problem with running that oil in the new motor. But the machinist did recommend the Joe Gibbs/Driven brand and from what I have seen, it is a very good product. So I'll start with them and monitor.