Your experience:Noisiest oils/quietest oils

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: Bruce T
Most people can hear just as well as musicians, but they haven't been trained to isolate and describe the sounds as quickly.


I've heard that before, LOL. Truth is sound is a useful tool in diagnosing problems, or in the decision process of buying a used car. Silence is usually golden.

 

[JOD]

Originally Posted By: Bruce T
Science should indeed be first and primary, but as a musician I have to laugh when someone tells me what I can and can't hear. The human ear can distinguish many complex phenomena that scientific instruments are unable to measure,


While totally OT, this is simply not true. If it can be heard, it can be measured, period. Arguing this point is re-writing the basic laws of physics and shows a complete disregard for the entire concept of sound.

Originally Posted By: Bruce T
Do musicians tend to confuse real and imaginary sounds? No, that would require a severe distraction, drugs, or mental illness. If a healthy musician is properly focused on the sound, it's a non-issue.


Again, this is simply not true. If you want proof, take 10 golden-eared musicians and put them in a room. Blindfold them and have them point to the speakers. Take those same guys and let them look at the speaker, and have them point to where the sound is coming from. Auditory illusion isn't some made up concept, it's very real and has been demonstrated time and time again. I didn't study anything about psychoacoutstics until I was long out of music school, and I realize now that this is a serious shortcoming in my (and most) music educations.

The fact is, you may actually hear a difference in your engine using different oils. OTOH, you could just as easily be deluding yourself. Given how small the auditory differences would be among different brands of oils of the same weight, my guess is that it's most likely the latter in most cases.

 

[Bruce T]

Demarpaint: Exactly, what our head tells us should be first, but it's not wise to ignore our other senses.

 

[J. A. Rizzo]

I don't discount that there could be variability between products as far as engine noise is concerned. It's plausible, I think. What's in question (in my mind) is whether apples are being compared to apples as far as the noise is concerned, and whether noise is correlated with wear. Oregoonian, is that what you were referring to with regard to the "feelings" comment? (and yes, I agree with you)

My brief, unscientific, statistically insignificant overview of UOAs seems to indicate that products sometimes associated with higher noise levels show roughly equivalent wear levels. Anyone have any numbers showing that's not accurate?

 

[Bruce T]

It's actually scientists who tend to disregard the complexity of music. Scientific instruments can't measure all the differences found in psychoacoustics, such as the width, height, and depth of a soundstage or the relative locations of performers on that stage. The human ear can easily "see" these characteristics. I really don't want to get into discussions about speaker radiation patterns, or the weaknesses of supposedly scientific double-blind tests, since this isn't an audio forum.

JA, I don't think anyone would argue that noise and wear are correlated. I think that has been soundly disproven.

 

[GenSan]

Subfreezing temps. and oil filters without silicone ADBV are the only factors that have ever caused my engines to be noisy on start-up.

 

[HangerHarley]

Originally Posted By: Bruce T
Demarpaint: Exactly, what our head tells us should be first, but it's not wise to ignore our other senses.


Finally, some truth!

 

[Ben99GT]

Originally Posted By: Bruce T
Science should indeed be first and primary, but as a musician I have to laugh when someone tells me what I can and can't hear. The human ear can distinguish many complex phenomena that scientific instruments are unable to measure, and the brain functions like a supercomputer in analyzing sensory input. Do musicians tend to confuse real and imaginary sounds? No, that would require a severe distraction, drugs, or mental illness. If a healthy musician is properly focused on the sound, it's a non-issue.


I agree completely.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: J. A. Rizzo
I don't discount that there could be variability between products as far as engine noise is concerned. It's plausible, I think. What's in question (in my mind) is whether apples are being compared to apples as far as the noise is concerned, and whether noise is correlated with wear. Oregoonian, is that what you were referring to with regard to the "feelings" comment? (and yes, I agree with you)

My brief, unscientific, statistically insignificant overview of UOAs seems to indicate that products sometimes associated with higher noise levels show roughly equivalent wear levels. Anyone have any numbers showing that's not accurate?



I agree with most of what you are saying. However a $25 UOA tells us nothing about wear levels in an engine. Only tearing down an engine and measuring tells the whole story. I would be willing to bet on a tear down a quiet running engine will show less signs of wear than one making noise, if driven long enough.

BTW I'm not arguing just debating here.

 

[Oregoonian]

Originally Posted By: J. A. Rizzo
I don't discount that there could be variability between products as far as engine noise is concerned. It's plausible, I think. What's in question (in my mind) is whether apples are being compared to apples as far as the noise is concerned, and whether noise is correlated with wear. Oregoonian, is that what you were referring to with regard to the "feelings" comment? (and yes, I agree with you)

My brief, unscientific, statistically insignificant overview of UOAs seems to indicate that products sometimes associated with higher noise levels show roughly equivalent wear levels. Anyone have any numbers showing that's not accurate?

It is exactly what I was referring to....

 

[Ben99GT]

Originally Posted By: HangerHarley
Originally Posted By: Ben99GT
Noisiest I've used: [/b]Mobil 1[/b] non-EP 5W-20
Quietest I've used: Red Line 5w30

Engines: 1999 4.6 2V, 2001 4.6 2V (Triton), 2005 4.6 4V

It's the honest truth. A few of my friends (Mustang guys) have tried RL based on my experiences and have observed the same thing.

 

[JOD]

Originally Posted By: Bruce T
Scientific instruments can't measure all the differences found in psychoacoustics, such as the width, height, and depth of a soundstage or the relative locations of performers on that stage.


Sure they can. I realize this seems OT, but it really isn't, since it goes into what you can hear versus what you can measure. ALL of the above can be measured, easily, since the path lenghts are different. Sound is nothing more than a mechanical wave. Nothing more. It's not magic. Mechanical waves can be measured. The fact is though, your auditory perception will not be the same if you can see the performers versus if you can't.

Likewise, if you keep reading on the interwebs that M1 is noisier, the chances are pretty good that you'll find it to be noisier as well. If you measured the sound coming from both engines, you'd be able to tell what is reality.

That said, I think we both agree--noise and wear aren't correlated, so it's pretty moot anyway.

On the noise issue, I think a thicker oil is almost always going to both dampen and block sound waves and hence reduce noise. That doesn't tell you much about wear, though.

 

[HangerHarley]

Originally Posted By: Ben99GT
Originally Posted By: HangerHarley
Originally Posted By: Ben99GT
Noisiest I've used: [/b]Mobil 1[/b] non-EP 5W-20
Quietest I've used: Red Line 5w30

Engines: 1999 4.6 2V, 2001 4.6 2V (Triton), 2005 4.6 4V

It's the honest truth. A few of my friends (Mustang guys) have tried RL based on my experiences and have observed the same thing.

Thats what i was saying.

 

[J. A. Rizzo]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
I agree with most of what you are saying. However a $25 UOA tells us nothing about wear levels in an engine. Only tearing down an engine and measuring tells the whole story. I would be willing to bet on a tear down a quiet running engine will show less signs of wear than one making noise, if driven long enough.

BTW I'm not arguing just debating here.


I agree completely that a UOA tells us little to nothing about wear in an engine, and that a teardown is the only way to know for sure. But since we lack any teardown data, we mostly rely on reliability and performance information, and even most of that is subject to human factors that probably invalidate most of the data. Personally, I have not heard anybody say that "my engine was noisy and it broke down/performed badly/blew up because of wear that was correlated with the noise." Have you?

And I would take you up on that bet if we had any way to tear down engines that lived similar lives for a fair comparison. Unfortunately, neither of us will ever be able to collect!

 

[Ben99GT]

Originally Posted By: JOD
Likewise, if you keep reading on the interwebs that M1 is noisier, the chances are pretty good that you'll find it to be noisier as well.


There are also reports of M1 quieting engines down, so it's not all in the power of suggestion. Some engines simply seem to prefer different formulations.

 

[tig1]

I had two Ford engines in the mid 80s that was very noisey on M1. A 84 Tempo and a 85 Escort, both were 2.0 Diesels. M1 made them go clack clack clack.

 

[Doug Hillary]

Hi,
aquariuscsm - With modern lubricants I've found semi-synthetic (severely hydro-cracked) lubricants to be quieter than most "fully" synthetic lubricants. I don't use any mineral engine oils

This covers Shell (XHVI) , Mobil, Castrol and Motul products in my case

 

[flatlandtacoma]

In my experience a noisy valve train will by quieted by using a thicker oil.

The right answer is to pull the valve cover and adjust the valves or replace the worn or faulty parts. The alternative is to run a thicker oil or add a can of STP. The audible results are the same, but...

 

[tig1]

So far Castrol Syntes, Amsoil, Valvoline Syn, and M1 are all the noisest oil by differant posters. Also each of those are the quietest to others.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: J. A. Rizzo

And I would take you up on that bet if we had any way to tear down engines that lived similar lives for a fair comparison. Unfortunately, neither of us will ever be able to collect!

True which is why these discussions tend to lead nowhere. Now if the situation could be produced in an unbiased lab it would be very interesting.