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P.S. Does anybody know of a good retailer for Amsoil? Online or store is fine.
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P.S. Does anybody know of a good retailer for Amsoil? Online or store is fine.
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I have a Porsche Boxster but am thinking about acquiring an s2000 at some point so I lurk at s2ki quite a bit as well. In regards to the oil life monitor, to my knowledge, it began in the 2006 model year and isn't terribly helpful if you are using synthetic and thus are running an extended OCI since its algorithm is based off of the assumption of dino oil.
With that said, I have a question of my own for the BITOG community. The recommended viscosities for the S2000 are 10w-30 or 5W-40 if the car will see sub 0F temps. Why the 30 to 40 jump? Why not just recommend 5W-30 for cold temp use? Then if that is the case, why not just recommend 5W-30 year round and be done with it? One poster seemed to think that honda was afraid that people would use 5W-30 mineral that would shear down too far below a 30 weight due to the viscosity enhancers inherent in mineral oils having to maintain such wide viscosities. Honda wanted to maintain at least a 30 weight oil consistently, but did not want to ask people to buy synthetic, so settled on 10w-30, which does not shear as much in dino form, and recommended 5w-40 for colder temps, which is such a wide viscosity range that only synthetics are capable of maintaining it, thus insuring that people must buy synthetic 5W-40 without directly asking them to.
Sounded like decently sound logic to me, but I am far from knowledgeable on oils compared to most of you guys, so help me out. What is the reason for the discrepency?
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I have a Porsche Boxster but am thinking about acquiring an s2000 at some point so I lurk at s2ki quite a bit as well. In regards to the oil life monitor, to my knowledge, it began in the 2006 model year and isn't terribly helpful if you are using synthetic and thus are running an extended OCI since its algorithm is based off of the assumption of dino oil.
With that said, I have a question of my own for the BITOG community. The recommended viscosities for the S2000 are 10w-30 or 5W-40 if the car will see sub 0F temps. Why the 30 to 40 jump? Why not just recommend 5W-30 for cold temp use? Then if that is the case, why not just recommend 5W-30 year round and be done with it? One poster seemed to think that honda was afraid that people would use 5W-30 mineral that would shear down too far below a 30 weight due to the viscosity enhancers inherent in mineral oils having to maintain such wide viscosities. Honda wanted to maintain at least a 30 weight oil consistently, but did not want to ask people to buy synthetic, so settled on 10w-30, which does not shear as much in dino form, and recommended 5w-40 for colder temps, which is such a wide viscosity range that only synthetics are capable of maintaining it, thus insuring that people must buy synthetic 5W-40 without directly asking them to.
Sounded like decently sound logic to me, but I am far from knowledgeable on oils compared to most of you guys, so help me out. What is the reason for the discrepency?
Cmon, with all of the smart people here surely someone can explain this to me.
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This 10W40 High Mileage stuff is REALLY thick. I wonder how much the oil pressure goes up using this oil??
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It looks like the HTSC for the High Mileage 10W30 looks to be about the same as 0W40 M1 but flows better at colder temps. I think I am going to give the HM 10W30 stuff a try. At $20 a change, running it at the Race Track new and changing it immediately after is pretty ---- cheap.
FYI I don't run a S2000 but I do have a K20a2 RSX-S 8400rpm 2liter that specs out 5W30 M1 and 10W30 M1 as well. The Base model RSX, K20a3 lower compression motor actually specs out 5W20!
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This 10W40 High Mileage stuff is REALLY thick. I wonder how much the oil pressure goes up using this oil??
I think you're reading way too much into the data-sheet tea leaves...
"Really thick?" Naw. The cold pour is at -38F/-39C which is lower than pour points for most conventional 5W-30s...
I run the 10W-40M1HM in my Saturn with 143K on it. Recently, it sat in an airport long-term park for over a week. I finally found it when I returned, and started it up - and the engine snapped-too like a German Army infantry company on parade...
No hesitiation. No misfire or funny noises at start up.
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Honda Europe recommends to use ACEA A3/B3 oils only. As I could notice Mobil1 is the most popular with Honda dealers, though many of them also use Aral and Castrol (in fact they are parent companies). Grades: 0W-40, 0W-30 and 5W-40.
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I think I would use Amsoil ATM 10w-30.
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A few things to keep in mind here, there will always be lots of oil recommendations on BITOG but only a few people here have ever owned (or will own) the S2000. While I like and respect this site it has become more and more riddled with fan boys and "couch tribologists". Keep this in mind when viewing some of the oil recommendations given here.
INDYMAC has posted some very informative UOAs on his S2000, he's also a knowledgeable owner of the vehicle. I too own an S2000 (2003 AP1 w/21k miles). My current fill is PP 5w30. Unlike many other AP1s my car doesn't consume a noticeable amount of oil (I never have to add any) and it recently put down 207.8HP to the rear wheels, it is 100% stock. Maybe I got a strong one from the factory....who knows. I went on a local "canon ball run" of sorts yesterday covering 180 miles of backroads, the entire time the car never dipped under 6000RPM. The oil level is still at the full mark and the car never missed a beat, I was tailing (and passing) an E46 M3 whos owner swore up and down that I must have done some sort of modification to my S2000 in order to keep up. I'm not saying that PP made all this possible, but it certainly is up to the task of keeping the engine running well even under extended stress (as are most synthetic oils).
I do not entirely agree with Honda's recommendation of 10w30 or 5w40. However, keep in mind Honda also specs that any SJ or better oil can be used, clearly an outdated spec for motor oil. I think the S2000 oil debate is partly because Honda has failed to update their oil recommendation based on newer formulations that are available on the market. Because of this, I think it is OK to run an oil that isn't specified in the manual. If you've lurked on S2ki for any period of time you've also seen the thread where someone ran M1 5w20 in an S2000 and produced a normal UOA. I think the evidence is there showing that the S2000 will respond just fine to thinner oils. There are also UOAs from SpitfireS, another S2000 owner who posts on S2ki.com, he runs a very thin 0w30 oil, almost as thin as some of the "thick" 5w20 oils available. His UOAs also look just fine, in my mind this rules out any need to run a 10w30 from a performance perspective. I think Honda continues to recommend 10w30 SJ because of cost, availability throughout the world, and pure laziness.
Last but certainly not least, if I knew 2 years ago what I know now, I would be more focused on the differential fluid than worrying about engine oil. The S2000 isn't hard on oil, it has average fuel dilution and the oiling system is very advanced for the car. As a result, it won't stress the oil nearly as bad as people like to believe. Instead, the weak link on the S2000 is the differential, if anything I'd splurge and spend the extra $$$ on a good diff lube, run whatever oil you can find on sale in the engine and don't worry about it. I run PP because I found a bunch during the BOGO at AAP, otherwise I'd probably be running some other synthetic that happened to be on sale this week.
All this advice is worthless without a UOA on YOUR S2000 (whenever you do decide to get one), try a few oils and get them analyzed after 5000 miles of use. Figure out what works best for your application, I think you might be surprised to find that more expensive oils don't always translate into better wear numbers, especially when concerning a street driven car.