Canola Follow-up

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Originally Posted By: MolaKule
Quote:
Some of the uses canola has seen (military service -- and not for cooking -- and as a heavy machinery lube) are much more demanding than the inside of your typical engine. These are constant-use, minimal-maintenance scenarios, which seems to coincide with my experience; this oil seemed like it was gonna last dang near forever until I stopped using it for a while.


Maybe so, but I am pretty sure these are additized oils with special anti-oxidant packages, not virgin Canola oils.

It will be interesting to see your baseline VOA, UOA's, and observation on the visual properties of this mix.

I suspect what you are now seeing is a polymerization of the Canola oil mix.


The only references I find to the military using canola was to lube steam engines.

Castor oil is an excellent lubricant for internal combustion engines, the best that could found up until the '70s. It could keep the 400 gross hp/L Alfa Romeo F1 engine alive in 1951. The downside to the use in internal combustion engines was that it was a one shot deal. Everyone using castor had to drain the oil hot at the end of each race as the oil would gel when it returned to ambient temperatures.

Ed
 
Originally Posted By: edhackett

Castor oil is an excellent lubricant for internal combustion engines, the best that could found up until the '70s. .


Could some of those secret oil additives be castor oil?
 
Originally Posted By: KeMBro2012

My (inconclusive) analysis, at this point, is that canola is a good (I'd like to say excellent, but won't without numbers to back it up) additive for a daily driven vehicle


Remind me again, what were the benefits? Any noise change, MPG gain, etc?
 
Oh brother, here we go again. Those with no interest in this EXPERIMENT are going to ruin it for those who do.
09.gif
 
Good to see you back.
We all know the potential downside risk, so there's no need for anyone to post about it.
Most of us want to see how this blend does in your engine.
If you'd wanted to run straight T6, you would have.
You wanted to try something unique and you did.
We'll all learn more from this than we would from another boring UOA of some Honda run 5K on T6/M1/PP/PU/Syntec/Synpower/G-Oil/RP/Edge/SSO or whatever.
Good for you that you did some research and are putting it to practical trial.
I'm really interested in seeing your UOA.
 
Originally Posted By: edhackett
Castor oil is an excellent lubricant for internal combustion engines, the best that could found up until the '70s. It could keep the 400 gross hp/L Alfa Romeo F1 engine alive in 1951. The downside to the use in internal combustion engines was that it was a one shot deal. Everyone using castor had to drain the oil hot at the end of each race as the oil would gel when it returned to ambient temperatures.

Ed



Didn't they use castor oil in airplane engines during world war one? If so, did they drain them after every mission? Just curious.
 
And lets agree to be civil in this discussion. If you're not interested in the experiment, don't comment on the "insanity," "craziness" or "stupidity" of what the OP in trying to do. Let's keep in mind he's not asking any of us to fund this experiment and it happens to be on his dime. He wants to share the results with us and I think that's pretty cool. Let's all be cool as well.
 
Originally Posted By: GreeCguy
Originally Posted By: edhackett
Castor oil is an excellent lubricant for internal combustion engines, the best that could found up until the '70s. It could keep the 400 gross hp/L Alfa Romeo F1 engine alive in 1951. The downside to the use in internal combustion engines was that it was a one shot deal. Everyone using castor had to drain the oil hot at the end of each race as the oil would gel when it returned to ambient temperatures.

Ed



Didn't they use castor oil in airplane engines during world war one? If so, did they drain them after every mission? Just curious.


They used it. But there was nothing to drain.

http://www.century-of-flight.net/new site/frames/rotary engines_frame.htm

There are other reasons that would have tended against the use of the rotary into more modern times and the greatest of these would be its enormous appetite for oil. The fuel was mixed with air as it was introduced through a primitive "carburettor" - usually in the tail end of the crankshaft. Via this route it made its way to the crankcase where is picked up all of the oil that was loose. When the fuel mixture was introduced to the combustion chamber it was very much a mix of fuel, air, and castor oil.

The imperfect combustion of any engine is not equalled by that of a rotary. The castor oil, being the least combustible of the two liquids, was spewed out into the atmosphere. It would be but a short time before the whole of the slipstream area of the aeroplane would be well coated with castor oil. The pilot would be soaking up oil at a fairly rapid rate as well. It is arguable that the reason for cowling the engine had as much to do with trying to control the wildly spewing oil as it was to do with the concepts of streamlining. The usual practice was to direct the oil underneath the fuselage by opening up the bottom of the cowl.

Total Loss Oil system. Centrifugal force throws lubricating oil out after it's first trip through the engine. It was usually castor oil that could be readily combined with the fuel. (The romantic-looking scarf the pilot wore was actually a towel used to wipe the slimy stuff off his goggles!)
 
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Originally Posted By: friendly_jacek
Originally Posted By: KeMBro2012

My (inconclusive) analysis, at this point, is that canola is a good (I'd like to say excellent, but won't without numbers to back it up) additive for a daily driven vehicle


Remind me again, what were the benefits? Any noise change, MPG gain, etc?


It halves your OCI.


I'm fine with experimenting, but lets see some numbers. I'm interested in that.
 
So I'm a tool for asking "why" but you are not?

Originally Posted By: friendly_jacek
Originally Posted By: KeMBro2012

My (inconclusive) analysis, at this point, is that canola is a good (I'd like to say excellent, but won't without numbers to back it up) additive for a daily driven vehicle


Remind me again, what were the benefits? Any noise change, MPG gain, etc?
 
Originally Posted By: kschachn
So I'm a tool for asking "why" but you are not?


For starters, you said crazy (twice) in your first post.
Then you followed it up by delusional and summed it up as some random idea. Some people might find it insulting.
But you are right, I forgot to say please.
I apologize.
 
Originally Posted By: Trajan
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/ncnu02/v5-029.html

Has data, but no pictures of engine internals, so be warned
smile.gif



And let us not forget the context:

Quote:
The canola-based motor oil project was initiated in 1996 in response to a need for a motor oil compatible with, and nontoxic to, fragile ecosystems. The oils are composed primarily of high oleic canola as the base oil. This oil is combined with sources of hydroxy fatty acids and wax esters or estilides. Additional modifications include the inclusion of bio-based pour-point depressants and supplemental antioxidants.


Italics are mine for emphasis.
 
Originally Posted By: MolaKule
Originally Posted By: Trajan
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/ncnu02/v5-029.html

Has data, but no pictures of engine internals, so be warned
smile.gif



And let us not forget the context:

Quote:
The canola-based motor oil project was initiated in 1996 in response to a need for a motor oil compatible with, and nontoxic to, fragile ecosystems. The oils are composed primarily of high oleic canola as the base oil. This oil is combined with sources of hydroxy fatty acids and wax esters or estilides. Additional modifications include the inclusion of bio-based pour-point depressants and supplemental antioxidants.


Italics are mine for emphasis.


Yup, exactly. The patent referenced in that work, US 5,888,947 which covers specific compositions of vegetable based oils even references this problem:
The percentage of long chain fatty acids also responds to
the function of time. After 25 hours, the percentage of long
chain fatty acids changes from an estimated 95 percent of the
oil composition to 90 percent. At 40 hours, the long chain
component measures 80 to 85 percent of the oil composition.
What is suspected to be occurring is a mechanical fracturing
or dimeriZation of the polyunsaturated fatty acid compo
nents of the invention. This fracturing may be due to a loss
of antioxidants or a loss of antioxidant function at the
unsaturated sites.


Specifically canola oil which contains high percentage of unsaturated fatty acids is highly susceptible to oxidation, especially at elevated temperatures. Without a highly tuned concentration of antioxidants the oil will be likely to break down easily. While the temperatures of storage in an engine will cause very slow breakdown, the elevated temperatures of a running engine will speed the process.
 
Originally Posted By: MolaKule
Originally Posted By: Trajan
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/ncnu02/v5-029.html

Has data, but no pictures of engine internals, so be warned
smile.gif



And let us not forget the context:

Quote:
The canola-based motor oil project was initiated in 1996 in response to a need for a motor oil compatible with, and nontoxic to, fragile ecosystems. The oils are composed primarily of high oleic canola as the base oil. This oil is combined with sources of hydroxy fatty acids and wax esters or estilides. Additional modifications include the inclusion of bio-based pour-point depressants and supplemental antioxidants.


Italics are mine for emphasis.


Ahhhh.
smile.gif
 
Wow, so... I don't know where to start...

I guess a good place to start would be "why is this in the additive section" since there seems to be at least one person in this thread who says 25% does not an additive make. AutoRX comes in 12oz bottles and the company has recently been pushing a "fast track" dosage of two bottles; 24oz is 25% of the oil capacity of a Prius, within reasonable margins of error. Marvel Mystery Oil advises that 25% is the most you should use and, in fact, advises a replacing a quart of oil with MMO in some cases (of course, observing the 25% guideline and reducing the substitution accordingly), which just so happens to be 25% of most sumps. Those are just two examples, but there are more; and those are additives. Since I am adding Canola to motor oil, it is also an additive; were I using mostly Canola and shoring it up with a little bit of motor oil, I would agree, this would not belong in the additive section.

There seem to be a few here who insist that all I've managed to do is shorten my OCI. There are a few others who ask what I hoped to gain by doing this. Well, the short version is "go find the original thread". The slightly longer version is: knowledge. I hope to learn from this. Does Canola, being an ester stock, provide any benefit when mixed into a non-ester oil? Does it clean up carbon, sludge, or varnish? Will it decoke or unstick piston rings and restore compression? Will it extend, shorten, or not affect my OCI? Will my engine explode or will it not even notice the Canola at all? I really didn't know what to expect from this, and I still don't, other than being fairly certain that the last question wouldn't be answered with a bang.

Regarding shortening my OCI, I'd like to point out that I have seen an increase and evening of compression on all 4 cylinders, across several tests, done both warm and cold, which indicates to me that the stuck rings (caused by clogged oil return holes in the pistons of this generation of the 1ZZ-FE) have been unstuck, which likely means the oil return holes have been cleared, as well. This is further backed up by the reduced oil consumption (also caused by the clogged return holes) I have seen over the course of this experiment. That's good enough for me to say it's had a positive effect, but if someone wants to insist on a teardown, I have a local shop who I trust to do the work and get the engine back together in working order without ripping me off; you're welcome to foot the bill. Is it not typical for an additive that increases cleaning performance of an oil to also decrease the OCI when used in an engine that needs a bit of spring cleaning? I think it is and I think you all know that.

So I know now that the Canola has at least helped to clean up some carbon and varnish that were causing my engine to burn oil and lose compression, so that answers the first 3 questions. The 4th is yet to be answered, and I'll explain why shortly. The 5th is a resounding "neither", as it hasn't exploded but it certainly did notice the Canola.

I've only been adding gas to my tank for the last few months, since I wasn't driving it much (well, before yesterday's 160 mile romp) and filled up yesterday, after a little over 550 miles; 27.25MPG averaged over 20.213 gallons with the AC on. My mileage had gotten down to about 20MPG while it was still cool enough out that I didn't need AC. Compression can do that, cleaning out oil passages (better lubrication) can do that, a change in driving style (trust me there was none) can do that. What can't do that? Pure chance. If it was a 2-3MPG change, I'd go ahead and chalk it up to differences in traffic, but a 7MPG (that's 35% ignoring the fact that I typically lose 10% when I run the AC) or 9MPG (50%, accounting for the 10% loss I typically see when I run the AC) increase indicates that some situation within the engine has been corrected.

Over the last week of driving the vehicle regularly, I noticed the oil losing its rancid smell and dark color and becoming less sticky; my engine also stopped sounding like it was begging me to change out this oil. I then recalled that esters absorb water from the surrounding air, which would certainly cause all of those issues. After yesterday's 160 mile romp, the oil is back to the light amber color it was before I parked the car for 2 months, feels just as slick as I remember it, and once again smells like motor oil.

As originally planned, I'll be sending a sample in at 3k.

Until then, it's been fun.
 
Originally Posted By: Clevy
Awesome.
Thanks for giving this a shot.


You're quite welcome. All of you (even those who would rather belittle what I'm doing than just ignore me).

There was one user who said they'd like to see the inside of my oil filter. I've got good news for you! Since my filter sits vertically, that's how I plan to retrieve my oil sample when I send it in. When I drop the filter to take that sample, I plan to replace it with a new filter, so I should have no problem tearing the old one down.

As for the user(s) asking for valvetrain pics, those will come too. I pull the VC at every OCI.
 
Originally Posted By: KeMBro2012
There was one user who said they'd like to see the inside of my oil filter. I've got good news for you! Since my filter sits vertically, that's how I plan to retrieve my oil sample when I send it in. When I drop the filter to take that sample, I plan to replace it with a new filter, so I should have no problem tearing the old one down.


That was me. I wouldn't belittle you, but I do have concerns seeing how veg oil messed up some simple hair clippers. Maybe in additive form is a diff story. Good luck!
 
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