Too much Moly a problem?

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Oil analysis of Redline oil shows it has up to 5 times the Moly content of other brand name oils. Is this a blessing or curse?
 
From what I understand there are dozens of different moly compounds that are available lubricant formulators. We've seen here from oil analysis that moly can be an effective additive. We can see elemental moly in UOAs, but have no idea what the moly compound that's used in a give oil. Some moly compounds are higher performing than others and some cost much more than others. The only way to tell if the moly compound in your formulation is effective, is to observe the performance in UOAs or bench testing. Unfortunately, we don't see the results of bench testing, only UOAs.
 
Redline has been on the market for what 40 years with the same additive package and the internet hasn't shown us and problems.
 
Works great in this oil, have a look at this
 

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Toyota likes Moly. I'm sure they know more than other car/engine manufacturers ... However, you also have to deal with point of diminishing returns.
 
Redline specifically. No issue or concerns. Japanese manufacturers love moly in their respective brand oil and have higher counts than a lot of other brand oil. Just because Brand A has a higher count than Brand B with a certain additive, it doesn't necessarily mean there is "too much". Just means that's their choice of additive. Of course we are talking about respected Brands.
 
So long as there's still synergy with other additives, there's really no such thing as too much.

HPL Bad Ass Racing 5w-30 rerun.jpg
 
I assume you can add bunch of moly (additives) to a cheap dino but that's not necessarily going to make it a good oil. It's all about the formulation and the final product.

Is there any Euro a3/b3 a3/b4 (0W40 or 30) oil meeting the following requirements:
  • Reasonable approvals (e.g. MB, BMW, VW, Porsche , etc.)
  • Reasonable price like M1 Euro 040 or Castrol Euro 0W40. both are $24.xx / 5 qt.
  • High(er) amounts of Moly. For example Castrol is into Titanium and not much moly.

This maybe too much to ask given the price range ... Anything even under $6 per quart?

I recently bought some Castrol Euro 0W40 the store was out of M1 but it's nice to know if any oil meets the requirements I listed above.
 
Oil analysis of Redline oil shows it has up to 5 times the Moly content of other brand name oils. Is this a blessing or curse?
Neither.

The new form - moly trimer is more effective at lower doses.
Basically the highest you tend to see is 150-200ppm and there is no/little benefit beyond that based on literature (actually literature suggests you don't need more than ~100ppm).

For the dimer that's where you see levels in the 600-800ppm range.
And that would be the effective dose for that type of moly.

Redline may know something more, but in regular service higher than these levels won't do anything beneficial, but won't hurt either.
 
There's many more moly-based additives out there than just MoDTC. The oil I posted above is a blend of multiple moly-based additive all working in synergy with each other. Most oils that contain high amounts of moly (300+ ppm) are using a blend of multiple moly-based additives, not just one additive.
 
Adds to deposits.... not an issue in a well maintained engine.

Notice how certain Asian automakers demanded that the 16 and 20 grades exempt from high temp deposit test, and tend to use a wallop of moly


High Temperature Deposits, TEOST 33C (ASTM D6335)
Total Deposit Weight, SAE XW-16, 0W-20 Not Required
All other viscosity grades 30 mg max


Too much politics with API/ILSAC
 
There's many more moly-based additives out there than just MoDTC. The oil I posted above is a blend of multiple moly-based additive all working in synergy with each other. Most oils that contain high amounts of moly (300+ ppm) are using a blend of multiple moly-based additives, not just one additive.
Right, the moly trimer is the latest state of the art.
I'm not sure I have seen anything showing the benefits of multiple types being employed. Do you have a reference to that?

Just because a formulator does it and claims it does not make it so.
 
Right, the moly trimer is the latest state of the art.
I'm not sure I have seen anything showing the benefits of multiple types being employed. Do you have a reference to that?

Just because a formulator does it and claims it does not make it so.


Also, the small blenders top treating their oils with more moly additives aren't just doing so because they feel like it. For the VOA I posted earlier, the chemist who patented a few of the additives in that oil was personally involved in the synergistic testing for that oil. It's not just dumping it in to pretty up a VOA. It's a lot of live engine testing, teardowns, and analysis to find what works.
 
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Also, all MoDTC is trimer. What you're referring to is tri-nuclear which isn't the same thing. It's not that new or state of the art. It's been around a couple of decades.
 
Also, all MoDTC is trimer. What you're referring to is tri-nuclear which isn't the same thing. It's not that new or state of the art. It's been around a couple of decades.
The article you posted is contradicting this.
It lists "Moly 1: molycarbamate trimer"
Moly 2/3: molybdenum dialkyldithiocarbamate (MoDTC)

Trimer/Tri-nuclear are the same things. It was invented ~15 years ago by XOM/Infineum and started showing up in Mobil 1 around ~10 years ago.
One is a technical chemical name, the other a bit of marketing.

Molybdenum Additive Technology

There might be data to suggest more is needed in certain situations (racing). But not in everyday use. And even then I would have to see the data to justify over 1000ppm.

Back to the OP, I can't find specifically what type of Moly Redline is using, and I have searched a bit. My guess is still that it is the dimer and comparing its ppm to that of an oil using the trimer version is comparing apples to oranges.
 
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