Good job for a hacker!
Lubrication Engineers has a proprietary aditive (several really) called Monolec, which acts at the mon-molecular level, hence its name. Reminds me of the "liquid ball bearings" Pennzoil marketing used for a few years. But I think that the amines are at work ehre, and that they indeed effectively raise the film strength of the base stocks. As boundary lubrication fails, the asperities tend to be about 15 microns apart, and the resulting friction is enough to melt them - the amines work in the "lands" between the asperties, to help reduce the friction in the first place, and to "replace" instantly a break in the mono-molecular film, helping reduce wear dramatically. It is this kind of engineering that has allowed oils like the 5w20's to do so well, and in fact has allowed so many "non-exotic" mineral oil or synblends perform equally or BETTER than the synoils of 10 years ago, let alone 20 years ago. Yea, technology! I have been using the LE 8130 in my old Subaru beater, and plan to use it in my Honda S2000 when i get enough miles on it (Honda says to wait 10k before "synning"), since the cylinder liners are a metal/carbon fiber hybrid. But I think 5k is plenty, since the best mineral oils today (HC'd) are close enough in friction reduction to the synoils that the 10K admonition makes little sense.
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Ping to Molakule:
Molakule, you have expressed some fascinating speculations on why POE-baed oils like RL sometimes result in odd UOA's in Hondas. I assume you do not see anything worrisome in that, just unusual based on the theory of esters "releasing" sleeping dogs into the oil (copper, iron, etc.). Am I right in interoreting your posts, or should I be wary of using RL in my S2000? I go back many years with them, but nothing is written in stone. I had planned either to use the 10w30 LE 8130 with 5-7k OCI's, a quality minoil like Maxlife 10w30 with 2-3k OCI's.
What would you recommend for my 2004 S2000 to keep its lifeblood sound? (This is the 8200 redline 2.2L engine, not the 9k redline 2.0L engine).
Overall, we feel that the Redline products, while exhibiting good wear protection in the Falex Test, are not well balanced products and would have difficulties performing in long drain service due to their susceptibility to oxidation and degradation. The high calcium chemistry does not give the total base number longevity that is seen in the predominantly magnesium chemistry of the LE 8800 and the Moly may also be a source of potential corrosion and thermal instability in these Redline engine oils.
