Porsche 911 (air cooled) oil suggestions?

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ringmaster

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Hello oil guys and gals!

I need to find the best oil for my '90s 911 with it's air-cooled (and oil too
wink.gif
)3.6L engine.

After doing some research on this site and finding a favorable UOA I am inclined to use Redline 10W40, however many of the guys over on the Porsche forum swear by the Brad Penn oil ( http://www.bradpennracing.com/ ). Appearantly many of the new API approved synthetic oils are low on ZDDP while the Brad Penn is good for these old engines?

I have been a synthetic oil convert for the past fifteen years so the Brad Penn doesn't look very exciting to me but maybe there is something special about it that I am missing?

Thoughts?
 
RL 10w40 will work well...Give Redline a call and talk with Dave...They are Porsche fanatics over there. Doug Hillary may chime in and he knows both Porsches and lubes very well.
 
I am partial to synthetic 5W40. Redline makes a 5W40 but they did not make it when I was still around a lot of Porsches! So I have no idea how it will perform. To be honest I would start with Rotella-T Synethic 5W40 do a UOA after a few oil changes and see where youa re at. To be far you should do an Auto-Rx treatment to it with some dino oil and rinse with dino etc......This way your UOA will be accurate and will not reflect the previous owners maintence protocol.
 
Hi,
ringmaster - This engine falls into the Porsche Approved List (>MY84) and as such Porsche calls for a minimum of a Group 3 synthetic. Any Approved lubricant will perform very well indeed

The viscosity should be as per the list - 0w-40 (30% of List), 5w-40(70% of List) or M1 5w-50. This is very important considering the valve train arrangement of your series engine(s)

You should not use ANY ILSAC GF-4 compliant lubricant

Using a mineral lubricant or one that is too viscous will slow the internal component cooling tasks and may inhibit performance

For me I like what I am using in my Boxster (D1 5w-40) for these engines as it is robust with great flow characteristics

All the emotive issues on "the" Porsche Forum are caused by a serious lack of understanding of Tribology and the API, ACEA and Porsche's test protocols. As well an individual has based his testing on seriously flawed techniques and one or two on there want to sell Brad Penn lubricants. Sad that as about 95% of the information is in reality - mis-information!

Pre MY84 engines perform best on a modern 15w-40 HDEO - that's what Stuttgart uses!
 
Last edited:
RM,

Check out the LN Engineering website. There is a great article on oil recommedations for air cooled Porsches.
 
I recently went over this with someone who bought an older air-cooled 911. I checked the enthusiast forum for 911s and we came to the consensus that 10W-40 is a good choice for the northern summer climate.
 
If by 'North' you mean Canada, you might want to check out Canadian HDEO's - Esso XD-3 0W-40, or one of the many 'Duron' products from Petro-Canada - the latest being their Duron 'E' 0W-40, which looks pretty good.

Another one that hasn't been mentioned is the factory Porsche standby - Mobil 1 0W-40.
 
Doug, your advice seems to make a lot of sense. FWIW, this is a fresh engine that needs to go through a full break-in.

My plan is to run a dino 15W40 HEDO for the first 1500 miles and then change to Redline 10W40.



Originally Posted By: Doug Hillary
Hi,
ringmaster - This engine falls into the Porsche Approved List (>MY84) and as such Porsche calls for a minimum of a Group 3 synthetic. Any Approved lubricant will perform very well indeed

The viscosity should be as per the list - 0w-40 (30% of List), 5w-40(70% of List) or M1 5w-50. This is very important considering the valve train arrangement of your series engine(s)

You should not use ANY ILSAC GF-4 compliant lubricant

Using a mineral lubricant or one that is too viscous will slow the internal component cooling tasks and may inhibit performance

For me I like what I am using in my Boxster (D1 5w-40) for these engines as it is robust with great flow characteristics

All the emotive issues on "the" Porsche Forum are caused by a serious lack of understanding of Tribology and the API, ACEA and Porsche's test protocols. As well an individual has based his testing on seriously flawed techniques and one or two on there want to sell Brad Penn lubricants. Sad that as about 95% of the information is in reality - mis-information!

Pre MY84 engines perform best on a modern 15w-40 HDEO - that's what Stuttgart uses!
 
Originally Posted By: Doug Hillary
Don't baby it too much during run-in - treat it like Ferry intended



Or Walter
wink.gif
No worries, this motor will get a proper break-in!
 
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