Well most of you have seen my post asking if the 5w50 was overkill. i decided based on reccomendations from AMsoil, Redline and Mobil that a good 5w30 would be good for me. After the redline rep was most communicative and helpful to me I decided to try their product.
A few days back I was making sound clips of my car and noticed after revving it to 2000, then 3000, there was a little smoke, when i stomped on it to 4000 if blew smoke out he pipe like it was a fire extinguisher!! Okay that may be a bit of an exxageration but the car was COld, and was only running for approximately 20 seconds before that because I moved it out of the garage. it was definitely oil, a bluish gray smoke.
2 weeks before on a Mustang dyno with the Mobil 5w50 in the car at redline (7850) when the operator let off the pedal i do have video clips showing a very slight wisp of smoke coming out of the exhaust, absolutely nothing compared to what's coming out when I rev her up at idle now.
What I do know is the oil was very very thin compared to the Mobil in the bottle. the redline felt like water vs the mobil which felt like it was filled with ketchup. I also know the clearances for my motor on the mains and rod bearings.. .0025 thou. Sounds a little on the wider side from what i've researched. I also read that Forged pistons require more clearances etc So perhaps the thicker oil better suits my purpose?
Now to make you all laugh here's an email from my builder...
[QUote]
Mike,
I don't mind your smart [censored] remarks at all.
All you need to keep in mind is that you have the most powerful LT1 engine that anyone has seen with production heads & intake manifold. Then you need to understand that some "real smart [censored]" put this whole engine combination together. Now to put it bluntly, I know more about this oil & ring seal stuff than all these so called experts that you keep talking too. The oil tech guys are not too familiar with special hone processes that are more advanced than current low quality production line hones that are produced at the factory.
Case in point, we built a 406 cid small block chevy for a guy in Indianna who wanted to put this engine in a 95 F-body. He wanted to get rid of the LT1 and build a 406 cid engine with Brodix heads and a Dart block. Anyway, he went to dyno test the motor with the oil that we put in the engine and it made 650+ hp on pump gas. That's 1.6 hp per cid. The dyno operator though that it was a race engine so he suggested that they put in some high horsepower oil to make more power and when they changed the oil the engine lost 30+ hp. They thought that there was something wrong with the motor, but it was the oil.
Another case in point, we build a turbo charged engine for a "tech guy" who did the install himself etc and then called to complain that the motor was not machined properly because there was oil blowing through the engine. I told him to bring the car down to check it out and when he did there was oil literally blowing through the car at idle. I told him to go to Wal Mart and get the 20/50 Mobil 1 and he argued that it was not the oil and the machining was not done properly etc............When he finally changed the oil he was "SHOCKED" that there was NO BLOW BY.
Just another guy who got a Neducation.
In reference to the oil consumption, we need to diagnose the problem properly in order to effectively determine the cause and the solution. ........but keep in mind that if you see oil going through the tail pipes, it's oil going through the tail pipes, which is oil being processed by the engine because you are not following the engine builders oil recommendations LOL.
Now why would you say that you got a 1960's hone job. Why not consider that the high tech side of the equation which is that there is less friction in the ring and cylinder wall and that the oil helps it to seal........I know why this was not considered, it's because this info was not available on the Net and some tech guru at a fortune 500 company did not provide this info either.
[QUOTE]
First of all he made NO reccomendation to me at all. And second it sounds to me like He's using a thicker oil to mask their problems.
thoughts ?
As for your ring seal issue, I'd not use an xW-30 in that power plant.
427 i agree with you fully. He's an interesting person to deal with. I respect him alot for building what I wanted but I couldn't agree with you more. He mocks me sometimes and it frustrates me that he thinks he knows everything about everything.
here is an email he just sent me..
[QUOTE] Mike,
First, I think it's important for me to mention that I like your passion towards your car and your ongoing efforts to improve performance. This is what it takes to set new standards in high performance, which is what we are all about.
Back to the oil issue, the Mobil 1 5W-30 weight oil is specified for most GM vehicles for clean engine operation and gas mileage purposes. The Mobil 1 performance oil is the 50 weight stuff, so why the thicker grade oil?
The thinner oils are designed for regular driving conditions where regular day to day operating develops deposits that this oil helps to clean. It also helps get better gas mileage since it is thinner.
The high performance oils are designed for high rpm, high cylinder pressures and high ring load pressures. Specifically, when an engine is designed to operate at 2000 rpm, which is the normal cruising rpm for most domestic V8 engines, the thinner oils are what is used. So technically, at 2000 rpm a V8 engine may produce 100 horsepower at 2000 rpm, which is approximately 12.5 horsepower per cylinder at .55 revolutions per second. Half a revolution per second.
Basically, an engine producing 12.5 hp at 2000 rpm can run with a thinner oil viscosity which is adequate for this level of performance.
However, for a racing engine that revs to 7800 + rpm and makes nearly twice the power of a normal engine the oil requirements are different. The tech side of this equation is that 7800 rpm you are spinning the piston rings 2.16 revolutions per second and generating approximately 70+ horsepower per cylinder.
Now let's compare the two engines in reference to regular use.
Regular production LT1 engine - 2000 rpm & 100 hp. Revs .55 per second
Modified LT1 engine - 5800 to 7800 rpm - 550 to 570 hp. Revs 2.1 per sec.
The point is that an engine that normally operates at 2000 rpm and produces 100 hp at that rpm operating range does not generate much heat. The heat that we are referring to comes from two different sources, through friction and through combustion. The heat from combustion is directly determined from the combustion process and the more power you generate the more heat energy you create as a by-product of the combustion process.
So when your engine is idling and you see high oil pressure and cooler operating temperatures, remember that this is not what the 50 weight oil is designed to do. The 50 weight oil is designed to run under high rpm, high horsepower conditions that generate higher cylinder pressures.
The thicker oils work better under high horsepower and high rpm conditions and the best oil that Mobil produces is the 5W-50.
Mobil 1 5W-50 is the most advanced engine oil produced by Exxon/Mobil, which is the largest oil company in the world. They have more engineers and resources to determine what oil is best suited for high performance street engine applications since they have been actively developing and testing synthetic oils for more than 30 years. Mobil 1 is also the factory fill for Corvette, Viper, Porche, Mercedes and many other exotics, which means that the SAE engineers that work for these companies want this oil to be used. This is the oil to use. [QUOTE]
I'm going to email him and ask him why 20,000 rpm race motors use 0 wt oils 
