What oil for supercharged Lotus Exige?

Joined
Jun 30, 2020
Messages
2
Location
CT
1. What kind of vehicle you have
2006 Lotus Exige with aftermarket BOE 300 Supercharger

2. What your owner's manual says -- not just viscosity, but certifications (look for acronyms like API SM, ILSAC GF-4, etc.) and change intervals as well
Viscosity: 5W/40
Quality Standard: API SJEC, ILSAC, ACEA A3
Normal driving oil change interval: 7500 miles
With vigorous driving: 4000 miles

3. Where you live
Coastal CT

4. How you drive (easy? hard? fast? slow?)
All driving in this car is either weekend drives (usually 20-100 miles at a time), autocross, or track days. All driving is fairly aggressive. The oil has to stand up to track days. The car is driven about 1000 miles per year.

5. What your daily drive is like (short trips? long trips? city? highway?)
The car is not a daily driver.

6. Whether your car has any known problems
The car does have known issue with cams wiping. A lot of theories around this, and some think it's because the oil is not warmed enough to circulate. These cars have the odd problem of TOO MUCH oil cooling and it's difficult to get them up to temp, even on the track.

http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f25/camshaft-cover-defect-causing-rocker-arm-breakage-p1302-50594/

I have seen a few oils recommended. Mobil 1 0w40, not sure if appropriate for track?

Have also seen Redline HP 5w40 suggested. As well as Redline 40W Race Oil. I have no cats. Straight through exhaust.
 
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SuperTech 5w40, change annually.
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Any 5W-40 on the shelf today will meet those specs.

Since you do weekend driving and tracking, totaling 1K miles a year, you'll be fine with any oil that is 0W/5W-40, really. Because you won't be shearing the oil hard enough in 1K miles anyway. Now if you were tracking and daily driving, it'll be a slightly different story.

If you really want good track oil top tier stuff, check out Motul 300V and change that every year. Since you have a Lotus, $100 oil changes once a year would do well for a track vehicle, but it is overkill.
 
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Originally Posted by BucDan
Any 5W-40 on the shelf today will meet those specs.

Since you do weekend driving and tracking, totaling 1K miles a year, you'll be fine with any oil that is 0W/5W-40, really.

If you really want good track oil, check out Motul 300V and change that every year. If you have a Lotus, $100 oil changes once a year would do well for a track vehicle.

I do change yearly, or after 3-4 track days.

Last oil used was Motul 8100 X-cess 5W-40.
 
Originally Posted by mkiv808
Originally Posted by BucDan
Any 5W-40 on the shelf today will meet those specs.

Since you do weekend driving and tracking, totaling 1K miles a year, you'll be fine with any oil that is 0W/5W-40, really.

If you really want good track oil, check out Motul 300V and change that every year. If you have a Lotus, $100 oil changes once a year would do well for a track vehicle.

I do change yearly, or after 3-4 track days.

Last oil used was Motul 8100 X-cess 5W-40.


Then stick with Motul 8100 then. Since they partner with car sports, they know what they are doing.
 
Hi,

Redline "High Performance" Series 5w-40 in my '05 Elise w/ the Lotus factory supercharger kit. No evidence of any cam issues either from oil analysis or opening the filter.

My early Elise also has the dual oil coolers and some say that they may not get the oil hot enough, but I am not sure I believe that. Given that Lotus increased the engine's redline in these cars (vs. Toyota) I'd guess that coupled with the way many owners use the cars, and maybe inadequate warm up, all figure into the cam problems.
 
I would run the Redline 40W myself. Especially if you're open exhaust. It is not like you're putting a lot of miles on the oil, you're just beating the [censored] out of it when you do drive it. Get the oil made specifically for that usage.

https://www.redlineoil.com/40wt-race-oil-15w40

Is the vehicle equipped with an air to oil cooler?
 
Originally Posted by MacManus99

Is the vehicle equipped with an air to oil cooler?

It has dual oil coolers in the front of the car, with the associated rather long oil lines.

That's why some think some cars develop cam issues. The oil doesn't get hot enough. I'm very careful to let it warm up for about 15-20 minutes before getting on the next cam.

I've also read that thinning of oil can be an issue.
 
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So my track day is coming up too soon to wait for delivery so I wound up going with Motul 300V 5w-40 this time, because I was able to find it locally. Because of my extra oil capacity with my wet sump oil pan, it was about $130 worth of oil!

I've read consumption can be worse on 300V? And without detergents, it's not good to run for a while?

I should only be putting about 1000 miles on it from now until the next oil change, likely next Spring.
 
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