Redline 5-20 Oil Report

[buster]

TBN is generally very low. Al is high quite often. We can discuss all day why this is, but we only have opinions.

I think RL excels at making racing oils, but not street oils. Just not worth the cost.

They are also using racing level ZDP in their street oils. Not quite that high, but SL+ levels.

 

[martinq]

Originally Posted By: A_Harman
Their standard recommendation is to change the oil when TBN gets down to 35% of new, so with the virgin TBN of 8.6 that they measured, they recommend changing at 3.0 or below.

As a first-run guesstimate that's not a bad idea. I'm pretty sure it's very safe to run Red Line engine oil (street) to a TBN of 1.0. You need to do more than one run/UOA before you'll get the full picture.

 

[martinq]

Originally Posted By: buster
They are also using racing level ZDP in their street oils. Not quite that high, but SL+ levels.

But not the "2200ppm of zinc and phosphorus" (ie 'racing level') in their racing oils?

 

[martinq]

Originally Posted By: buster
I'm aware, but the performance of theis street oils is not that great.

I'd like to see a test result that shows this.

 

[buster]

Just browse the UOA section. I've seen many many Redline UOA's. Fantastic oils built for extreme high temperatures and engines that could benefit from higher levels of ZDP (flat tappet cam engines). But as a daily driver oil for longer drains, it's not that great.

 

[A_Harman]

Originally Posted By: martinq
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
Their standard recommendation is to change the oil when TBN gets down to 35% of new, so with the virgin TBN of 8.6 that they measured, they recommend changing at 3.0 or below.

As a first-run guesstimate that's not a bad idea. I'm pretty sure it's very safe to run Red Line engine oil (street) to a TBN of 1.0. You need to do more than one run/UOA before you'll get the full picture.


I'm on my second OCI using Redline 5w30. The first one was 7400 miles, and TBN was down to 2.4 at the UOA. Redline starts out with a high amount of Calcium, indicating a lot of detergency, but its TBN retention doesn't seem to be very good.

 

[05LGTLtd]

Amsoil sig 0w20/5w20 is looking like a better fit for a DD Honda, at about the same price. Unless you want the big shot of moly or the exceptional flashpoint is really what your focused on..

PU 5-20 or M1 would save some coin, and either should go 7.5k easy as well.

 

[martinq]

Originally Posted By: buster
Fantastic oils built for extreme high temperatures and engines that could benefit from higher levels of ZDP (flat tappet cam engines). But as a daily driver oil for longer drains, it's not that great.

I agree that it's probably not king of long-drain oils but if that's what you're after then you should probably look elsewhere. Performance, endurance and racing all have different requirements and I think Red Lines engine oils are in the performance category. I'd like to see some consistent UOA on Red Line to 1.0 TBN to verify it's durability though.