Redline vs Motul 300V

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Any thoughts on which would be better for my application?

Redline 10w40
Motul 300V 10w40

'94 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4
modified 3.1 liter engine
forged crank
Crower rods
Ross pistons
King dry-film coated bearings 0.0015" oil clearance
twin Evo 3 16G turbos
revised 8400rpm redline

~550 all-wheel HP @ 20psi

Built for roadcourses, not dragracing so the car sees sustained high rpms and load. (yes the car has braking and suspension/handling mods).

Thus far, I've been using regular Redline 10w40 (the stuff in the blue bottles), but was wondering if there are any potential positives/negatives in switching to Motul 300V 10w40?

I considered the possibility of trying 15w50, but haven't yet since I've read that Redline shows a better HTHS than a lot of other oils and with my 0.0015" oil clearance, I'm not sure if there are potential negatives to going with the higher weight/thicker oil. Oil temps also are typically kept below 225f.

Another thing that might affect the proper selection is that this car is both my weekend track toy and my daily driver.

Any thoughts/advice?


Max
 
Quote:


If your oil temps are below 225 why are you using 10w40 redline not 5/10W-30?



Prefer the extra protection from 10w40. Too many folks have spun bearings on these engines on 5/10w-30 even at lower HP. Not sure if they were using Redline though. I know a few who've spun a bearing on Mobil1.

In general, 5/10W-30 hasn't held up well on these cars when they're pushed hard. If you've ever seen a 6G72 taken apart, the bearings are quite narrow. Not exactly saying that the engine is weak since there are a few people pushing 600+awhp on completely stock factory blocks with 100,000+ miles on them, but these guys dragrace. They only see high rpms for seconds at a time.


Max
 
Mate Redline is now Mobil One. 30 weight Redline with it's additive pack and it's ester basestock can withstand the "heat" and protect those bearings.
 
Either oil would be good. Have you called the tech support for both. For Motul you have to dig up the California distributer to get the tech guys. Sounds like you have the lubrication handled, already.
 
I would say stick with what is working. I do not see where Motul 300V is any better then Redline. They are both ester base stock products with heavy additive packages. It cannot hurt to try it but I wold not expect much difference. I would stick with 10W40 and get a UOA. THen if you want you might try Redline 5W40 if you want. I would not use 5W30 or 10W30 in this engine. 15W50 is popular with people usualy because they do not know that Redline 10W40 will outperform most companies 15W50.
 
The narrow bearings help with high rpm usage. If you make the caps and bearings too wide you have to lower the RPM potenial of the engine.
 
Typical Properties

Mobil 1 Extended Performance
5W-30
10W-30
15W-50
SAE Grade 5W-30 10W-30 15W-50
Viscosity, ASTM D 445
cSt @ 40º C 61 66.1 138
cSt @ 100º C 11.0 10.7 18.0
Viscosity Index, ASTM D 2270 169 148 145
Sulfated Ash, wt%, ASTM D 874 1.0 1.0 1.13
HTHS Viscosity, mPa·s @ 150ºC ASTM D 4683 3.1 3.1 4.6
Pour Point, ºC, ASTM D 97 -48 -45 -42
Flash Point, ºC, ASTM D 92 230 230 228
Density @15º C kg/l, ASTM D 4052 0.86 0.86 0.87


Redline

Typical Properties
5W20 5W30 5W40 10W30 10W40 15W40 15W50 20W50
API Service Class: SM/SL/SG SM/SL/SG SM/SL/SG SM/SL/SG SM/SL/SG SL/SJ/SH/CD SM/SL/SG SM/SL/SG
CF CF CF CF CF CF/CH-4/CI-4 CF CF
Gas/Diesel Gas/Diesel Gas/Diesel Gas/Diesel Gas/Diesel Diesel Only Gas/Diesel Gas/Diesel
Viscosity Grade:
SAE 5W20 5W30 5W40 10W30 10W40 15W40 15W50 20W50
Vis @ 100°C, cSt 9.1 10.6 15.1 10.7 14.6 14.5 19.6 19.8
Vis @ 40°C, cSt 55 62 94 70 93 97 138 148
Viscosity Index 145 162 170 142 164 155 162 155
CCS Viscosity, Poise 50 @-30°C 60 @-30°C 55 @-30°C 65 @-25°C 65 @-25°C 65 @-20°C 65 @-20°C 50 @-15°C
HTHS Vis, cP @150°C 3.3 3.8 4.6 3.8 4.7 4.7 5.8 6.1
ASTM D4741
Pour Point, °C -45 -45 -45 -45 -45 -45 -45 -45
Pour Point, °F -49 -49 -49 -49 -49 -49 -49 -49
Flash Point, °C 251 252 250 250 248 252 252 255
Flash Point, °F 484 486 480 480 478 486 486 491
NOACK Evaporation Loss,
1hr @ 482°F (250°C), % 8 6 6 6 6 6 6 6

So some one tell me the added protection that 15W-50 mobil one has over 10W-30 redline. As long as this young man was not trying do an 10K OCI on his racer.

But if I was with you I would go with the 5W-40 personally. This is a lot of people on here that can give you better advice than I.
 
After reading Tom and Road Rage's posts, I'm not 100% convinced either of these oils would be best. If additives are more important, I'd consider other brands as well. RL should be a good choice but I'll leave you with a summary from a former tribologist on what he thought of Redline:

Quote:


I have posted a lot on RL - I do not consider it the "last word" anymore. Esters of course are also susceptible to hydrolysis, which is an issue with cars not driven much. I think a lot of ester "hype" gets into the rL picture, and that the verbage used 20 years ago may not apply today. Plus, RL's formulations are "old", and while tried and true with lots of Ca and ZDDP, th4ey do not post, as you pointed out, the numbers that indicate spectacular performance. I mean, esters should greatly reduce start-up wear due to their polar affinity, lubricity, film strength, etc. Yet, they are not much better (if at all) in wear reduction numbers than Chebvron/Havoline. I think there is much going on at the nanotribologic level that may be being missed, and that new formulations from companies with deeper R&D pockets than RL may be on to these wear elements. So the amines and other "new age" additives may be more than just an answer to the reduction in "old school" AW's like ZDDP. I thought differently as late as last year, but have amended my thoughts and statements to conform to proof - the UOA's of the latest "thin", min-based GF-4's, for example.

As I said, there may well be something going on at the molecular level (nanotribologic) at the surface level of the metal - I just have not seen the science, and esters in engines are so tiny in the pbig pciture that no one is doing the research. Esters are used in jets because of the temps involved - but that is exploited in RL advertising hyope, IMO. But RL looks so good "on paper" - why would it not "kill" all the others? Most racing oils use some amount of ester, but that can be to offset seal peformance issues of other synoil bases as much as to offer a perf benefit.



 
Quote:


After reading Tom and Road Rage's posts, I'm not 100% convinced either of these oils would be best. If additives are more important, I'd consider other brands as well. RL should be a good choice but I'll leave you with a summary from a former tribologist on what he thought of Redline:

Quote:


I have posted a lot on RL - I do not consider it the "last word" anymore. Esters of course are also susceptible to hydrolysis, which is an issue with cars not driven much. I think a lot of ester "hype" gets into the rL picture, and that the verbage used 20 years ago may not apply today. Plus, RL's formulations are "old", and while tried and true with lots of Ca and ZDDP, th4ey do not post, as you pointed out, the numbers that indicate spectacular performance. I mean, esters should greatly reduce start-up wear due to their polar affinity, lubricity, film strength, etc. Yet, they are not much better (if at all) in wear reduction numbers than Chebvron/Havoline. I think there is much going on at the nanotribologic level that may be being missed, and that new formulations from companies with deeper R&D pockets than RL may be on to these wear elements. So the amines and other "new age" additives may be more than just an answer to the reduction in "old school" AW's like ZDDP. I thought differently as late as last year, but have amended my thoughts and statements to conform to proof - the UOA's of the latest "thin", min-based GF-4's, for example.

As I said, there may well be something going on at the molecular level (nanotribologic) at the surface level of the metal - I just have not seen the science, and esters in engines are so tiny in the pbig pciture that no one is doing the research. Esters are used in jets because of the temps involved - but that is exploited in RL advertising hyope, IMO. But RL looks so good "on paper" - why would it not "kill" all the others? Most racing oils use some amount of ester, but that can be to offset seal peformance issues of other synoil bases as much as to offer a perf benefit.








I read that post a while ago, but as someone else posted in that same thread, the tribologist's post seems mostly conjecture with no real proof. He also doesn't mention whether the UOA's he's seen were from daily driven engines low load or high stress engines.

Any engine approaching the 200HP/liter mark is putting substantial load on the bearings. This is one of the reasons I had the bearings dry-film coated. No one I talked to could definitively tell me if the rod bearings were potentially making slight contact with the crank journals due to the compressive forces of combustion and possibly the high inertial reciprocating forces at higher rpms.

I had heard that once you reach certain power levels (differs from engine to engine), a lot of oils cannot maintain the film due to the huge forces at that split second of maximum cylinder pressure which is where the extreme pressure and anti-wear additives would come in (as well as the dry-film coating).

That's why I'm looking mostly at Redline and Motul 300V oils and not Mobil 1, Royal Purple or Amsoil.

Redline and Motul 300V have high zinc and very high moly levels. M1 and Amsoil have no moly and RP has about 1/5.

What I haven't heard is what other additives there are or aren't in Motul 300V that might make it better or worse than Redline for track and/or daily driving.

If the Motul is better on track but not for street (or some such narrow scope benefit), I may elect to change it specifically for hard track weekends and then replace it with the Redline for street use, but I saw a Motul 300V 5w40 VOA on BITOG that indiicated it might potentially be an excellent long drain interval oil. I was wondering if that applied only to the 5w40 Motul 300V (which it appears might be a different formulation than the other weights) or if it might apply to all their oil weights.

It's not easy to compare oils based on calling the manufacturers since they'll all obviously be recommending their own, but I guess I'll try contacting Motul to see what they have to say about 300V.

I'm assuming folks here haven't really experimented with 300V in high HP applications? Or should I potentially have posted this in the racing forum? The thing is, I don't think the oils I'm asking about are really 'racing' oils since they have additives and aren't straight weight oils.

In any case, I appreciate the discussion so far and hope to read more.


Max
 
I wouldnt worry at all using RL its made for high heat engines and your application. Go with eather one that is cheapest. As far as the WT I would not go with 15/40 you will loose spool time and just lag the motor down you wont get any better protection. Engine damgage us usually from clearance problems not the oil thats used.
If you were going to use 10/40 I would have opened up the bearings a little to .002 over your .0015 you have now. No big deal that oil temp sounds great.
Do you have a cooler??
 
The high HTHS is what is going to keep the parts from touching under sever load. Rod bearings always suffer the most because they hemorage oil at a faster rate as RPM's come up. Your rods should not be makeing contact at all.If the rods are lightly kissing the crank not only will lead be high you can see it on the bearing as well. It will look like a tiny shinny spot about 4 times the size of a pin head. They can touch so lightly that you would not hear the common sound of rod knock.

What is in the dry film coating I ask because this would be useful to know. Like NEO has a ZDDP coating that they can apply to a number of surfaces so if you se huge ZDDP levels and lead together you would know your bearing were comeing apart. If it is atin based or moly etc........

I have never dry filmed a bearing I wounder how that affects boundry flow of the lubricant??? I take it the finish is slightly rough compared to the finish of an oem bearing???

Even most sites do not list Redline 5W40 Redline does make a 5W40 and it has worked well in other HP and daily driver applications. SOme applications that did not have any issues with Redline 10W40 did have some consumption issues with the 5W40 but not many.
 
If you're concerned about the bearings, additives are the least of your worries. Hydrodynamic bearings operate on the principle that the metal crankshaft rides on a film of oil between it and the softer metal bearings, never making contact.

Besides the clearances, you have to take in account surface finishes, run out, out-of-round, etc.

Your clearances are tight enough where I'd hesitate going much thicker without instruction from the engine builder, assuming he knows what he's doing. HTHS is what you want to concentrate on. You want sufficient HTHS with the lowest viscosity to maximize flow through the bearings.

To help optimize your choice of oil you need oil temp and pressure gauges as a minimum.

Use UOAs interpreted by a Professional to help you zero in on the oil choice that insures adequate protection.
 
Quote:


The high HTHS is what is going to keep the parts from touching under sever load. Rod bearings always suffer the most because they hemorage oil at a faster rate as RPM's come up. Your rods should not be makeing contact at all.If the rods are lightly kissing the crank not only will lead be high you can see it on the bearing as well. It will look like a tiny shinny spot about 4 times the size of a pin head. They can touch so lightly that you would not hear the common sound of rod knock.

What is in the dry film coating I ask because this would be useful to know. Like NEO has a ZDDP coating that they can apply to a number of surfaces so if you se huge ZDDP levels and lead together you would know your bearing were comeing apart. If it is atin based or moly etc........

I have never dry filmed a bearing I wounder how that affects boundry flow of the lubricant??? I take it the finish is slightly rough compared to the finish of an oem bearing???

Even most sites do not list Redline 5W40 Redline does make a 5W40 and it has worked well in other HP and daily driver applications. SOme applications that did not have any issues with Redline 10W40 did have some consumption issues with the 5W40 but not many.



Thanks, good info.

The coating is a moly-based oil-holding coating. It's post-coating appearance is a drak gray coating that (under the 30X magnification I examined them with) looks pretty rough in comparison to a normal bearing surface.

The coating however has a couple of interesting properties/behavior. On the one hand, it seems to rub off easily (handling the bearing surfaces left dark gray smudges on my hands, but the coating can supposedly be burnished removing the rough top layer while still retaining it's low-friction anti-wear properties due to supposed bonding to the metal that occurs from appication of the coating.

The 2nd property was also something that I could somewhat confirm as the coater ended up coating the edges and ends of the bearings. To make sure that the OEM crush specs were not affected by the added (albeit minute) thickness of the coating on the bearing ends which might potentially alter the torque specs and clamping of the rod caps over time, I scraped/cleaned off the coating from the ends.

I discovered that after scraping off the initial layer of the coating (which came off like adark gray powder), short of sanding/filing the ends enough to wear the actual metal of the bearing itself, there was no way to remove the dark gray coloration on the metal which was now shiny from the scraping/burnishing.

And interestingly enough, the specs posted above for the Reline oils seem to indicate that the 5w40 might be better overall than the 10w40? I always thought that the further the spread, the more susceptible the oil was to breakdown? i.e. old school thought always advised 10w30 was more stable than 5w30 etc.


Max
 
Time for me to point out one of my pet peaves about Redline.

Industry Standard HT/HS test is ASTM D-4683

Redline Standard HT/HS test is ASTM D-4741

I have yet to have anyone tell me exactly how to compare the HT/HS numbers from these different test procedures.
I do know for a fact that D-4741 results in higher numbers than D-4683.
In otherwords you cant take Redline HT/HS numbers at face value.
 
I threw that post out there bc I wanted to show that not all professionals like RL. When you look at RL on paper, right away you think it has to be the best. I still think it's an excellent oil, but I also have my doubts. Cameron Evans from RL said Nascar loves their gear oils, but they stick with Mobil 1 for the engine. I was surprised to hear him say that. You would think that if RL was better, they would be using it. ?? JG's testing of RL wasn't all that great either which makes me wonder. Bottom line is you can't just assume bc one oil contains a primarily POE base oil that it's superior. That has been the flaw with many on here, myself included. Just bc an oil has Moly and POE doesn't mean anything.
 
Quote:


JG's testing of RL wasn't all that great either which makes me wonder.




I wish you'd stop posting this falsehood. The only testing that was anywhere close to valid, showed RedLine to produce 1.6 less horsepower in a 400+ HP race engine. And neither the viscosity or the HTHS for either oil was specified. Leads one to wonder how fair a test it really was.

Further, there was no mention of any comparison UOAs or tear down wear measurements.
 
When I spoke to these guys they said Mobil 1 was the second best performer, followed by RP. He did not "specify" about engine wear but I'm sure that had to be a major concern when deciding what oil to use. Do your own research and give them a call.
 
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