Corvette UA0 with Redline 5w30: High Lead

[Dirty_Howie]

Originally Posted By: Gokhan
I probably wouldn't worry too much about the oil pressure being maxed out during warm-up. Just drive gently until the engine is at the normal operating temperature and this is so for any oil and engine.

Bearings are never supposed to have metal-to-metal contact (as they are hydrodynamically lubricated); so, antiwear additives are of minimal concern for the bearings, except at very low speeds (or start-up) or very high loads. Perhaps, thicker oil will help keeping the oil film from collapsing in your bearings and prevent metal-to-metal contact.


I understand your point. Why do you think GM recommends the much thinner Mobil1 5w30.

DH

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: Dirty_Howie
Sorry, I'm not sure what your point is and what your advise is concerning the Mobil1 0w40

My point basically was that a Red Line 5w-30 isn't anything like grabbing a Quaker State 5w-30. It has a much higher HTHS. Some here have suggested going "thicker" to a 0w-40. By going to a 0w-40, you might be increase your KV, but you're not likely to increase your HTHS, since most of the PCMO 0w-40 offerings have an HTHS of 3.7 anyhow, which will give you the same operational viscosity.

If it really is necessary to increase viscosity, to compare apples to apples, you'd want to do so within the Red Line realm of things, or, alternatively, find something with an HTHS of significantly over 3.7 from another manufacturer.

 

[Dirty_Howie]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: Dirty_Howie
Sorry, I'm not sure what your point is and what your advise is concerning the Mobil1 0w40

My point basically was that a Red Line 5w-30 isn't anything like grabbing a Quaker State 5w-30. It has a much higher HTHS. Some here have suggested going "thicker" to a 0w-40. By going to a 0w-40, you might be increase your KV, but you're not likely to increase your HTHS, since most of the PCMO 0w-40 offerings have an HTHS of 3.7 anyhow, which will give you the same operational viscosity.

If it really is necessary to increase viscosity, to compare apples to apples, you'd want to do so within the Red Line realm of things, or, alternatively, find something with an HTHS of significantly over 3.7 from another manufacturer.


Okay thanks for the clarification. The reason I picked Redline was due to its better base stock and additives while providing a similar viscosity to the Mobil1 0w40 I was previously running in my last LS7

Some have suggested that the Redline forumulation is a contributing factor to the elevated lead ?????!!!!

DH

 

[Gokhan]

Originally Posted By: Dirty_Howie

Okay thanks for the clarification. The reason I picked Redline was due to its better base stock and additives while providing a similar viscosity to the Mobil1 0w40 I was previously running in my last LS7

Some have suggested that the Redline forumulation is a contributing factor to the elevated lead ?????!!!!DH

You don't know whether it has a better base stock. In fact, you don't even know if it has the claimed HTHSV. That's because neither are required to be tested for API certification. (HTHSV is but the limit is 2.9 cP.) Especially with boutique oils like Red Line, you really don't know what you are getting.

Mobil 1 is recommended for virtually any high-performance car, including Porsche and Nissan GT-R. If its base stock wasn't of good quality, it wouldn't be.

Which OEM recommends Red Line?

I am not saying that Red Line is a bad oil -- perhaps it's really good -- but I wouldn't be too concerned about base-stock claims.

As Garak just said and I said earlier, try a much thicker oil, such as the cheap Mobil 1 15W-50 you can find at Walmart. You live in California; so, it's OK. Sure, GM recommends 5W-30, but that's when the engine doesn't have any problem. 15W-50 will work just fine and hopefully reduce wear.

 

[Clevy]

B
Originally Posted By: Gokhan
Originally Posted By: Dirty_Howie

Okay thanks for the clarification. The reason I picked Redline was due to its better base stock and additives while providing a similar viscosity to the Mobil1 0w40 I was previously running in my last LS7

Some have suggested that the Redline forumulation is a contributing factor to the elevated lead ?????!!!!DH

You don't know whether it has a better base stock. In fact, you don't even know if it has the claimed HTHSV. That's because neither are required to be tested for API certification. (HTHSV is but the limit is 2.9 cP.) Especially with boutique oils like Red Line, you really don't know what you are getting.

Mobil 1 is recommended for virtually any high-performance car, including Porsche and Nissan GT-R. If its base stock wasn't of good quality, it wouldn't be.

Which OEM recommends Red Line?

I am not saying that Red Line is a bad oil -- perhaps it's really good -- but I wouldn't be too concerned about base-stock claims.

As Garak just said and I said earlier, try a much thicker oil, such as the cheap Mobil 1 15W-50 you can find at Walmart. You live in California; so, it's OK. Sure, GM recommends 5W-30, but that's when the engine doesn't have any problem. 15W-50 will work just fine and hopefully reduce wear.


Have you ever used a redline product. Their label clearly states it's an ester and pao formulation,so unless you've got some kind or insider knowledge how about sticking to what you actually know.

 

[Gokhan]

Originally Posted By: Clevy
B

Have you ever used a redline product. Their label clearly states it's an ester and pao formulation,so unless you've got some kind or insider knowledge how about sticking to what you actually know.

Isn't ester a highly problematic base oil, showing high wear in most applications?

Even PAO by itself is not a good base oil, unless it's balanced with carefully selected Group V base oils.

Once again, too much concern is being given on base oils, without even knowing what they do and what they don't.

 

[Dirty_Howie]

Originally Posted By: Gokhan
Originally Posted By: Dirty_Howie

Okay thanks for the clarification. The reason I picked Redline was due to its better base stock and additives while providing a similar viscosity to the Mobil1 0w40 I was previously running in my last LS7

Some have suggested that the Redline forumulation is a contributing factor to the elevated lead ?????!!!!DH

You don't know whether it has a better base stock. In fact, you don't even know if it has the claimed HTHSV. That's because neither are required to be tested for API certification. (HTHSV is but the limit is 2.9 cP.) Especially with boutique oils like Red Line, you really don't know what you are getting.

Mobil 1 is recommended for virtually any high-performance car, including Porsche and Nissan GT-R. If its base stock wasn't of good quality, it wouldn't be.

Which OEM recommends Red Line?

I am not saying that Red Line is a bad oil -- perhaps it's really good -- but I wouldn't be too concerned about base-stock claims.

As Garak just said and I said earlier, try a much thicker oil, such as the cheap Mobil 1 15W-50 you can find at Walmart. You live in California; so, it's OK. Sure, GM recommends 5W-30, but that's when the engine doesn't have any problem. 15W-50 will work just fine and hopefully reduce wear.


Thanks for the explanation I totaly understand what you are recommending and why.

My concern would be the cold start lubrication of the 15w50 getting into the bearing space.

Also as I stated earlier my oil pressure is still pretty high and my understanding is that oil pressure over 80psi causes the oil to by pass the filter which obviously should be kept to a minimum.

DH

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: Dirty_Howie
Some have suggested that the Redline forumulation is a contributing factor to the elevated lead ?????!!!!

I don't think any of the Red Line stuff is API certified at all, with respect to Gokhan's comments, so you have to decide whether or not you trust Red Line. I do, and I wouldn't be quick to blame it.

Nonetheless, if you are going to go thicker, it'll be up only somewhat in the Red Line formulation, if you prefer to stay with Red Line. If you want to try a different brand, you're likely going to have to go to a significantly thicker SAE grade, as Gokhan indicates.

I really don't know what the answer is. All I really know, unfortunately, is that every purported solution has its own pitfalls. If it were me, I'd be tempted to stay with the same product or a bit higher within Red Line, so not to skew the trends. But, if the Red Line is for some reason leaching out lead and that's really not a problem, it's still going to show up, which changes nothing. If you change oil chemistries, and the lead disappears and it was still just Red Line somehow leaching out lead harmlessly, then you've only addressed a cosmetic issue. Of course, going much thicker brings out its own pitfalls, as you already indicated.

These are the problems with chasing UOA results, unfortunately.

 

[DeepFriar]

Originally Posted By: Gokhan

You don't know whether it has a better base stock. In fact, you don't even know if it has the claimed HTHSV. That's because neither are required to be tested for API certification. (HTHSV is but the limit is 2.9 cP.) Especially with boutique oils like Red Line, you really don't know what you are getting.


OK I will play fanboy here. Redline is a very well known quantity on this board and by me personally. It's HTHS and Vis numbers generally are easily found in both the literature and in the tests done by board members down the years. It's OK to disagree but blanket negative (or positive) statements are almost always suspect.

 

[Gokhan]

Pressure - viscosity coefficient is also an important factor in oil-film thickness. I don't have this coefficient for ester base oil at hand but I suspect it is low and this maybe the reason for your high wear. I know some ester-based oils have performed ridiculously poorly in wear department.

If oil is the reason for high wear, you have all the reason to change not just the viscosity but even more importantly the brand. Don't fix something that is not broken but also don't insist that something broken will fix itself.

 

[Gokhan]

Originally Posted By: Gokhan
Pressure - viscosity coefficient is also an important factor in oil-film thickness. I don't have this coefficient for ester base oil at hand but I suspect it is low and this maybe the reason for your high wear. I know some ester-based oils have performed ridiculously poorly in wear department.

If oil is the reason for high wear, you have all the reason to change not just the viscosity but even more importantly the brand. Don't fix something that is not broken but also don't insist that something broken will fix itself.

The culprit is likely the ester base oil. See Table 1 in the following link:

http://www.skf.com/caribbean/products/be...oils/index.html

Ester base oils have the lowest pressure - viscosity coefficient among all base oils. This translates as your ester-based Red Line is actually performing more like a 5W-20 or perhaps a 5W-10 as far as the oil-film thickness is concerned. This is because the oil-film thickness is not only proportional to the viscosity but also the pressure - viscosity coefficient.

Once again, switch to a proven mainstream oil.

 

[Dirty_Howie]

Originally Posted By: Gokhan
Originally Posted By: Gokhan
Pressure - viscosity coefficient is also an important factor in oil-film thickness. I don't have this coefficient for ester base oil at hand but I suspect it is low and this maybe the reason for your high wear. I know some ester-based oils have performed ridiculously poorly in wear department.

If oil is the reason for high wear, you have all the reason to change not just the viscosity but even more importantly the brand. Don't fix something that is not broken but also don't insist that something broken will fix itself.

The culprit is likely the ester base oil. See Table 1 in the following link:

http://www.skf.com/caribbean/products/be...oils/index.html

Ester base oils have the lowest pressure - viscosity coefficient among all base oils. This translates as your ester-based Red Line is actually performing more like a 5W-20 or perhaps a 5W-10 as far as the oil-film thickness is concerned. This is because the oil-film thickness is not only proportional to the viscosity but also the pressure - viscosity coefficient.

Once again, switch to a proven mainstream oil.


Well this seems to be the most coegent explanation of whats going on.

Unless further developements evolove I will most likely go back to the Mobil10w40. I have experience with it and feel it's viscosity performance for my driving conditions will be very similar to the Redline. I'm not comfortable trying a thicker oil like 15/w50.

When that UAO is taken I will be sure to post it and you guys can hopefully answer some of the questions that were raised here.

Again, I want to thank everyone for their input. It has been very helpful !!!!!!!!!!

DH

 

[Garak]

Gokhan, do recall that Red Line does have some very high levels of AW compounds, and it's certainly not a pure ester base. In fact, if I recall correctly, there is substantially more PAO than ester in it.

Personally, if it were me, I'd run Delvac 1, but you already knew that.

 

[Gokhan]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Gokhan, do recall that Red Line does have some very high levels of AW compounds, and it's certainly not a pure ester base. In fact, if I recall correctly, there is substantially more PAO than ester in it.

Personally, if it were me, I'd run Delvac 1, but you already knew that.

AW/EP/FM additives don't help much in the bearings once you have metal-to-metal contact. They are more effective in the valvetrain, where you always have metal-to-metal contact.

PAO's pressure - viscosity coefficient is also on the low side, second worst, second worst only to ester, although not nearly as bad as ester. That's why you need some Group V with a high pressure - viscosity coefficient, or some Group III (or II) when you have a PAO-based oil.

I know you would run Mobil Delvac 1300 Super 15W-40.

 

[Garak]

Yep, the Delvac conventional would probably work just fine.

In any case, the Red Line base stocks, like anyone else's, are simply hard to quantify. I don't know what their ratios are like, but I don't think we tend to see a lot of problem with Red Line UOAs, all things being said.

As I noted, the pitfall here is we don't know what's going on here. Is this simply nothing? Is it coincidental? Is the Red Line giving us a strange result for no reason, or for a bad reason?

 

[CT8]

Originally Posted By: Clevy
Originally Posted By: Dirty_Howie
Gokhan and Memphis

If I was still road racing I would consider one of these choices. But my car is a daily driver and gets at least 2 cold starts every day. Shouldn't I be worried about a thicker oil during the startups? And as I have indicated before the car has to be driven very hard to get the oil up to 200* so during the first 5-10 minutes of operation the rpm must be kept under 3K or the oil pressure exceeds 80psi and thats with the Redline 5/30. With either of the oils you are sugesting my pressure would be too high.

DH


Cold starts aren't the problem. Warm up is.
When oil is cold it's thick and creates a hydrodynamic wedge keeping parts separated. When the oil starts heating up it thins,and that's when wear potential is at its peak because the additive package hasn't activated yet.
Once the oil is hot the additive package is operational.
So start up isn't the problem. Warm up is. So a thicker grade oil will keep parts separated better than a thinner one during warm up.
If a short tripper I'd go thicker personally and considering where you live thicker won't cause any issues whatsoever.
I am really having a hard time with all this thin oil on startup. Thin oils are for CAFE standards. You only need a certain viscosity oil to keep the parts separated that is what the oil does. The additives are for when the oil film is smooshed away. For some use, a thicker oil may be beneficial. When an engine is cold and started the oil pump creates a vacuum then the oil hopefully flows into the pump the proper viscosity is important for the temperature. There are viscosity temp charts to help us out. With a cold engine there is much more friction and the engine "carbureted, port fuel injected or direct injection" needs a richer mixture to compensate for the poor vaporization of the gasoline I'll leave out heating up the cats quicker. And yes the oil is thicker and needs more power to pump .RICHER AIR FUEL MIXTURE AND HIGHER IDLE SPEED. But the clearances are engineered to work at operating temps. so the cold engines clearances are looser than when at operating temps. But whoa! The pistons are not only looser cold but the clearances depend on if the pistons are forged, cast or cast hyperutectic are not round they are oval! measure a cold piston in fact the piston manufactures tell how to measure the pistons properly. So there is more blow by and gas washing of cylinder walls from the richer mixture cyl oils. All the parts are clearanced for operating temps the valve stems/ guides crank rods everything, the valve lash on a solid lifter cam etc. Warm up way more than just the oil.

 

[Dirty_Howie]

Originally Posted By: CT8
Originally Posted By: Clevy
Originally Posted By: Dirty_Howie
Gokhan and Memphis

If I was still road racing I would consider one of these choices. But my car is a daily driver and gets at least 2 cold starts every day. Shouldn't I be worried about a thicker oil during the startups? And as I have indicated before the car has to be driven very hard to get the oil up to 200* so during the first 5-10 minutes of operation the rpm must be kept under 3K or the oil pressure exceeds 80psi and thats with the Redline 5/30. With either of the oils you are sugesting my pressure would be too high.

DH


Cold starts aren't the problem. Warm up is.
When oil is cold it's thick and creates a hydrodynamic wedge keeping parts separated. When the oil starts heating up it thins,and that's when wear potential is at its peak because the additive package hasn't activated yet.
Once the oil is hot the additive package is operational.
So start up isn't the problem. Warm up is. So a thicker grade oil will keep parts separated better than a thinner one during warm up.
If a short tripper I'd go thicker personally and considering where you live thicker won't cause any issues whatsoever.
I am really having a hard time with all this thin oil on startup. Thin oils are for CAFE standards. You only need a certain viscosity oil to keep the parts separated that is what the oil does. The additives are for when the oil film is smooshed away. For some use, a thicker oil may be beneficial. When an engine is cold and started the oil pump creates a vacuum then the oil hopefully flows into the pump the proper viscosity is important for the temperature. There are viscosity temp charts to help us out. With a cold engine there is much more friction and the engine "carbureted, port fuel injected or direct injection" needs a richer mixture to compensate for the poor vaporization of the gasoline I'll leave out heating up the cats quicker. And yes the oil is thicker and needs more power to pump .RICHER AIR FUEL MIXTURE AND HIGHER IDLE SPEED. But the clearances are engineered to work at operating temps. so the cold engines clearances are looser than when at operating temps. But whoa! The pistons are not only looser cold but the clearances depend on if the pistons are forged, cast or cast hyperutectic are not round they are oval! measure a cold piston in fact the piston manufactures tell how to measure the pistons properly. So there is more blow by and gas washing of cylinder walls from the richer mixture cyl oils. All the parts are clearanced for operating temps the valve stems/ guides crank rods everything, the valve lash on a solid lifter cam etc. Warm up way more than just the oil.


Interesting point that the motor/bearing clearances are set for operating temps and should therefore be larger accomodating a thicker oil. These LS7 motors are notorious for premature valve guide wear. I wonder what the expected result would be for this part of the motor with a thicker oil ?????

DH

 

[CT8]

you will not know unless you try thicker oil. You don't need the 0W part unless you are starting up in below 0*f temps. If you want to Stay with redline try 10w-40. 15w-50 M1. Maybe 20w-50 Mobil1 motorcycle oil. You want to run the thinnest oil as not to cost you horse power yet thick enough to protect the engine when you pound on it. The hard part is finding out what is the truth.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: CT8
you will not know unless you try thicker oil. You don't need the 0W part unless you are starting up in below 0*f temps. If you want to Stay with redline try 10w-40. 15w-50 M1. Maybe 20w-50 Mobil1 motorcycle oil. You want to run the thinnest oil as not to cost you horse power yet thick enough to protect the engine when you pound on it.


Whether he needs the 0w-xx part of it or not I believe GM runs M1 0w-40 in their own Track Program Corvette's so I don't think recommending it for this application is unusual.

 

[Gokhan]

Originally Posted By: Dirty_Howie
Interesting point that the motor/bearing clearances are set for operating temps and should therefore be larger accomodating a thicker oil. These LS7 motors are notorious for premature valve guide wear. I wonder what the expected result would be for this part of the motor with a thicker oil ?????

DH

I think the only negative effect of thicker oil is increased fuel consumption and a slight loss in engine horsepower. Bearings especially always benefit from thicker oil. When you mention the bearing clearances, I guess you are worried about the oil pressure (too high) or oil flow (too low) not being right when the oil is too thick but I wouldn't worry too much. Engines can tolerate a rather wide viscosity range.

Valve guides operate in the boundary-lubrication (metal-to-metal contact) regime. In this regime, thicker oil is always better. Valve-stem oil seals are made to meter the oil flow, which depends on the viscosity, but again, I wouldn't worry too much about that.

I, myself, used very thick oil in the past (no UOAs) then very thin oil (OK UOAs). I will give the thicker oil a try in the next OCI and report how it differs from thinner oil.