Originally Posted By: HKPolice
Wow, total lack of comprehension.
My comprehension is just fine, perhaps you need to work on yours?
Originally Posted By: HKPolice
I'm not replying anymore after this post because obviously you can't read.
That is probably for the best, since I am sure you won't like my answers to your bullet points below. Though I find it amusing that you've resorted to insults at this point. You are frustrated and nothing I posted should have incited that sort of reaction from you. I wasn't rude, I didn't call you names...etc. I am trying to have a civil discussion, something you are apparently incapable of
Originally Posted By: HKPolice
1) I NEVER said that the sky is going to fall using a thicker oil, in fact I said TWICE that it'll run fine. Just that hot spots WILL get hotter & mpg will decrease. No one understands how engine cooling works it seems.
You don't appear to understand that the effect on fuel economy is next to immesurable unless you are an OEM who can benefit from CAFE credits on millions of vehicles. You've claimed several times that "hot spots will get hotter", yet this flies in the face of the fact that every high performance car under the sun specifies a heavier oil. Also, Ford specifies 5w-20 and 5w-50 FOR THE SAME ENGINE in the Mustang depending on whether you have the track pack or not.
Originally Posted By: HKPolice
2) 8.5 cST vs 13.3 cST is 57.6% thicker that is a fact, DO THE CALCULATION YOURSELF.
Yes, and you've done that calculation to make the number look scary. Oh my, 57%!!!! How much thicker is the 0w-20 30 degrees cooler, by percentage? That's a point I made that you appear to have breezed right past.
Originally Posted By: HKPolice
3) I said that RACE CARS & TRACK CARS have oil coolers to keep the oil temps in check in order to provide adequate cooling for hot spots inside the engine. Yes, cooling the oil increases viscosity but RACE CARS run so hot that the oil will overheat without them.
My M5 has an oil cooler. The Mustang GT Track Pack has an oil cooler, the BOSS 302 has an oil cooler, many regular Mercedes, BMW, Audi...etc cars have oil coolers. Nissan G-cars have oil coolers, my Expedition, has an oil cooler. A Crown Vic with the tow package has an oil cooler, many trucks, have oil coolers. The list is quite extensive. This is not reserved simply for race cars and the purpose of the device is twofold:
1. It brings oil UP to operating temperature quicker because the coolant gets up to temp faster than the oil does.
2. It keeps the oil temperature under control (this has to do with bulk oil temperature, as we've both acknowledged, part of the oil's role is cooling) to maintain adequate operating viscosity.
Member Shannow recently did a little test with his GM 3.8 engine (no oil cooler) and he was able to bring his oil temperatures up by a massive amount just by running in a lower gear. He wasn't towing or anything, just running the engine at 4K.
On the other hand, with my own vehicle (which has an oil cooler), once I get engine oil temperature at around 90-95C, that's where it stays. I can beat on it like a red headed step-child and it may only move a few degrees. Get on the highway, it drops down to 85-90. And the oil gets up to temperature much faster because the cooler acts like a heater when the oil is cold.
Originally Posted By: HKPolice
You guys have no concrete proof of any advantage for running 5w40 over 0w20, all opinions.
I never said there was an advantage, I said he likely wouldn't notice anything other than perhaps the engine being a bit sluggish when cold as a disadvantage.
Originally Posted By: HKPolice
I have math & thermodynamics to support my claims. Again, I NEVER said that using a thicker oil will blow up your engine, but hot spots will run hotter & other quirks like valve timing MIGHT not work causing a check engine light.
The valve timing thing has been proven to be a farce. If it was true, in the winter, it wouldn't work at all when the oil is thousands of cP. Also, BMW has spec'd everything from 5w-30 to 10w-60 for the same variable cam timing systems. Ford has done the same with 5w-20 an 5w-50.
Regarding the hot spots, do you have any data that shows just what type of increase we are talking about here? I mean it obviously can't be the issue you think it is otherwise OEM's designing high performance engines wouldn't continue to use heavier oils.... but they do
Originally Posted By: HKPolice
Want more proof? How about Valvoline engineers?
http://youtu.be/FXqkOZAkXZw?t=10m20s
Question for you: When is the last time Valvoline designed an engine? They are a blender buying base oils from Mobil/SOPUS/CP/BP and additive packages from Infineum (XOM/SOPUS), Lubrizol....etc.
Only the big boys work hand-in-hand with the OEM's on engine development for lubrication like Exxon-Mobil, SOPUS, BP...etc.
Also, from that video:
The guy from Valvoline is a "Supervisor for the Valvoline Product Support Team". He is not an Engineer. He is the one making the claims about not being able to mix 5w-30 and 10w-30 because you might end up with the wrong viscosity
The woman (who actually is a lubricant engineer) makes an interesting claim "We are the only
oil marketer to have a full set of engine tests, these are the tests you have to pass in order to meet API certifications." Which sounds impressive until you realize that she intentionally used the term oil marketer, because they are not an oil manufacturer; they do not refine oil. Exxon Mobil has massive facilities where they actually test entire CARS, not just engines. And have the ability to run all of the API, ACEA and much of the OEM testing in-house. I imagine the same can be said for SHELL.
But back to the viscosity thing:
Engines are designed to run on a broad range of viscosities, they have to be if they are going to be sold all over the world. They have to be if they are going to be operated in Alaska and never see the same oil temperature they are going to see in Texas. To imply that an engine is designed to run on ONE viscosity is dubious at best. The grade on the bottle is representative of the product inside falling within a range of viscosities measured at 40 and 100C and meeting a given cold temperature performance target via MRV and CCS to gain its Winter rating.
THIS is why "back in the day" the manuals had charts showing the appropriate viscosity for a given temperature. And up until very recently, those charts still existed in the manuals of many OEM's selling their products in North America. They key part of that is that when the charts went away and the manufacturers (in North America) went to a single viscosity recommendation, the engines did NOT change. Ford recommended 5w-30 one year for the Modular and 5w-20 for the same engine the next.
AND, those charts persisted outside of North America. This is why you can look up the same car in the USA and in Europe and, with the same engine, note that they have very different viscosity recommendations. It isn't that one oil is necessarily "better" than the other (though you will see that argument being made from both sides of the fence), simply that the engine is indeed designed to be tolerant of a wide range of viscosities due to what I mentioned above and the fact that for certain operating conditions, there is going to be a more appropriate viscosity. A thinner oil is more appropriate for the winter. A heavier oil may be more appropriate for operating on the Autobahn.
CAFE is indeed a driving factor behind lower viscosity being pushed in North America, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. In order to actually NEED a heavier oil, one needs to be able to elevate oil temperatures, because, as I've noted, actual operating viscosity is based on oil temperature. That is why I recommended you play around with Widman's visc calc and see how little change in temperature is required to negate that 57% difference of yours
With the push for lighter lubricants we have seen changes in bearing design, changes in oil pump design, changes in sump capacity (to control bulk oil temperatures), the addition of oil coolers on some vehicles to keep sump temps down, the addition of thermal castration mechanisms to cut/reduce power when oil temperatures get too high. These things are all done to ensure that an engine will live a long and healthy life on a thinner lubricant.
We've had plenty of talks about operating viscosity on here before and how it can be controlled through sump size, sump material (finned aluminum pans for example), via oil coolers....etc. This is something that has gained more focus in recent years with OEM's because of the push for lower viscosities to gain that fraction of a MPG in fuel economy, which, over millions of vehicles, adds up to be something significant.
At the end of the day the spec oil is likely the most appropriate choice for the conditions the OP's vehicle is going to encounter. Perhaps if he was running down the Autobahn or tracking it he would benefit from a slight viscosity increase.
