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How many run 20w50 castrol in their GN??

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20-50 oil + HV oil pump= Blown turbo seal

Had my motor rebuild finished in april. Running VR1 20-50. Turbo had less than 200 miles on it, at the time of initial start up. Car has smoked at start up ever since. Have traced it back to the turbo as my builder initially suspected. Bottom line: 20-50 oil and a HV oil pump don't mix. Cold idle oil pressure 80-85, WOT psi 95 psi:eek: Blew the oil seal on my turbo.

Just a matter of time before I have to rebuild the turbo.
 
Don,

the independant analysis on this oil has the zinc and phos levels much reduced compared to the old SL formulation, which supports the new SM designation thats now on the VR-1 bottles. SM designates the new formulation which requires the reduction of zinc and phos. Thats an old data sheet from the Valvoline website. If you like Valvoline brand switch to the pure race oil "not street legal" for which no API designation is required.

That info sheet is dated 5/23/06 . It also stated that it is an "SM" designation. Something is amiss somewhere. The info suggests that the Zinc and P are still in the formulation and in at least as much wt.% as the "Not Street legal" formula. I used the off road formula but I do have the Racing Street legal that is going in next time since that was readily available. I also picked up several STP oil stabilizer qts on a closeout at Walmart real cheap. I thought I had read that IT has alot of ZDDP in it's formula. I may use 1/2 to 1 qt of that with the Valvoline. BTW, I have used nothing but 20-50 oils since 1986.
 
Castrol 20-50 Syntec. Better gas mileage, better oil pressure......good stuff!
 
off topic

Had my motor rebuild finished in april. Running VR1 20-50. Turbo had less than 200 miles on it, at the time of initial start up. Car has smoked at start up ever since. Have traced it back to the turbo as my builder initially suspected. Bottom line: 20-50 oil and a HV oil pump don't mix. Cold idle oil pressure 80-85, WOT psi 95 psi:eek: Blew the oil seal on my turbo.

Just a matter of time before I have to rebuild the turbo.

John are you sure your return line is not obstructed? Almost all the new turbos use a dynamic oil seal on the compressor side which consists of a piston ring that would be nearly impossible to blow out. The exhaust side uses the same thing only a larger diameter. One thing that can easily happen with high viscosity high volume/pressure when cold is that it can overwhelm the factory ribbed return line and cause the oil to build up in the CHRA of the turbo and leak in to the compressor housing or into the exhaust. This would cause nearly constant smoking until the oil heats up and the viscosity comes down some and drains properly. Over a period of time the turbine shaft will become coked with oil form the poor drainage and cause even more problems with the hot side and oil leaking into the exhaust.
 
That info sheet is dated 5/23/06 . It also stated that it is an "SM" designation. Something is amiss somewhere. The info suggests that the Zinc and P are still in the formulation and in at least as much wt.% as the "Not Street legal" formula. I used the off road formula but I do have the Racing Street legal that is going in next time since that was readily available. I also picked up several STP oil stabilizer qts on a closeout at Walmart real cheap. I thought I had read that IT has alot of ZDDP in it's formula. I may use 1/2 to 1 qt of that with the Valvoline. BTW, I have used nothing but 20-50 oils since 1986.


Bob,

The new SM designtion is for 2007. So if the data sheet is from 06 then its different now. 2007 SM designates the oil must have reduced zinc an phos. The new SM VR-1 has been independantly tested and does indeed show reduced zinc and phos as well. 835 z 936 p respectively. Well below the prior 1200ppm plus levels of the prior SL designation. The red bottle of STP is good choice to up the Zinc and Phos. levels.
 
Okay, so everyone has their seat of the pants evaluation on why one oil is better than another. So here are some numbers to support why imo Mobil 1 is hands down the best:
1) Rate of evaporation of +600 degrees vs. 350 and less for conventional oil...regardless of oil weight. This means Mobil 1 will not be affected by heat up to 600 degrees whereas conv. oil will break down at 350 and start turning to sludge.

2) Film strength of Mobil 1 is about 3000 psi where conventional oil again-regardless of weight, is 400. Film strength is the oils ability to resist being squeezed out from between two surfaces ie bearings. This is the big one-in any high compression or boosted engine, why would you NOT want to use synthetic?

It should be noted that the only oil to surpass Mobil 1 in lab testing was Amsoil and that was only barely. It should also be noted that in the article I obtained some of this info, Royal Purple had not been subjected to the same tests but I feel they would have done very well also. Major race teams and Top Fuel teams run Amsoil by about 70% regardless of their advertisements. Do you actually think John Force ever ran Castrol in his cars? Nope. For the record, Castrol oil in synthetic form is technically classified as a Group III Hydrocracked Carbon oil. This means Castrol Syntec is basically a dino oil with a ton of synthetic additives. Mobil sued them over the term "synthetic" and it's definition because of this but they lost the case. Most people seemed ambiguous as to what a synthetic oil should be or shouldn't be. From my own experience, a heavy weight oil just makes the oil pump and cam work harder-makes no sense to me. Flow control is more important than oil volume. There's no need for a HV pump if you have faster drainback, right? Synthetics give that to you. Reduced wear/tear on the pump means less parasitic drag on the valvetrain ultimately-another point for synthetics. Synthetics also aid in keeping your motor cleaner, quieter and cooler by a few degrees. EXTREMELY HIGH film strength means you can stand on it and have no worries about loss of oil and scorching a bearing or cracking a ring, even under extreme boost. There is no argument that can be made against synthetic oil, just some mis-information, and some synthetics are better than others. Amsol Oil and Mobil are at the top, Royal Purple and Redline I'm sure are up there, Valvoline synthetic is a quality one, Quaker Sludge is still just that and Castrol Syntec is just downright shady. So forget additives-you don't need them-they are bandaids-focus on Fim Strength and Rate of evaporation. If you can get those numbers from your favorite oil company, then you'll see the truth and I'll bet you'll see low numbers oh, but-there will be a lot of additives....yeah, no wonder.
 
Great Post - Excellent information. Thanks. I have always leaned towards Mobil 1. They now have a 15W50 oil for performance cars. I usually use 10W30, what do you think about the Mobil 1 - 15W50?
 
A lot of times various weights of oil are meant to satisfy the major automakers specs on bearing/ring tolerances in new car engines. I have not tried the newer Mobil 1 synthetic weight oil but I have always used the 10w-30 myself. The Mobil 1 SuperSyn oils are a response to the recently released reformulated Amsoil as of about 4 years ago. Those two seem to go back/forth. There really isn't anybody to compete with except themselves for the top quality oil. I don't just use it because somebody else does or because it's cool to use it and spend the money, I know the numbers behind the oil and when you have knowledge backing your opinions and experience, it's hard to debate it. By accident I have overheated three different motors and the latest was my wife's 1999 Blazer and it leaked out about 75% of it's coolant because of a bad intake gasket. I decided to try and limp it home anyway. The temperature on the gauge climbed to 260 and I drove it like that for 25 minutes until the motor started to detonate from excessive combustion chamber heat and then the gauge just fell to zero and would not read the temperature any longer. The Blazer was losing power bad.....it started to sound as if the rod bearings were all banging at once. I would floor it, and the truck would not hardly move anymore. The temperatures were so high that the knock sensor was retarding the timing back due to the cylinder head heat an the truck would not go...so I coasted onto a side street and when I shut the truck off-the remaining coolant in the motor that could not circulate just blew out of the back of the intake, onto the exhaust cross-over pipe and there was smoke everywhere. I thought the motor was smoked. Later that day, after it cooled enough to move the truck, I started it just to put it into position to start pulling the motor, and to my surprise, it started and ran just as smooth as if nothing ever happened. There was no smoke, no knocking, no ring flutter, no wrist-pin rattle-nothing, just a smooth running engine. I went ahead and replaced the intake gakets, changed oil, tranny fluid and added coolant. No problems. This motor had 159K on it at the time and I have used Mobil 1 5W-30 in it since we bought it with 98K. This is the third and most hair raising overheating story but each and every time I've ran Mobil 1 and I think it has now saved a motor three times for me. Knowing what I do about Rate of Evaporation, I don't worry when I lose all of my coolant-I know I have at least 10-15 minutes to drive it somewhere...unless it's computer-controlled...lol. I would not trust ANY conventional oil to give me that kind of protection and very few other synthetics. Again, my observations and opinions are derived from experience supported by facts. Oh, and afterwards I did do a compression check on the motor in the Blazer, all cylinders were between 111 and 114. Crazy.
To answer your question more directly, I would use a 5W-30 in your car because it'll flow very easy and resist the high amounts of heat that turbo will generate. Keep within the oil weight for the motor-going thicker will increase your oil pressure but that does not equate to better flow. Pushing thicker oil can and eventually will lead to easily avoidable problems. High oil pressures are like heart attacks-high is bad-keep it manageable to avoid a breakdown, or attack. Since synthetics flow so easily, it's normal to see 15 psi @ idle at operating temperature. 40-45 is normal on the highway. Anything over that and the pump is overworking itself, or, the tolerances for the pump are super tight. Oil pumps imo have a point of diminishing returns and I'd put the point at 45 psi max. This refers to a highly modified street car-you get into doorslammers and such and the world is quite different for oil flow/control.
 
i'm going turbo, and i started to think that i needed 20w50 from what people were saying. i've always run 5w30 mobil 1. the lower the first number, the quicker it starts flowing after startup...so you want that really low. and the second number is flow at operating temp. i have read that it's related to bearing clearances. and the thicker the oil (than what is required), the more frictional (from shear) power loss. i do believe redline is better oil than mobil 1. and royal purple can be had cheaper than mobil 1.

do the oil change events change with turbos? i understand filter changes must me regular - 3000-4000 km?
 
I used to run Delo/Rotella 15W40 (before I went roller) primarily because of the pressure additives in the diesel oils. I now run 10W30 dino, and change it often. Can't understand the need to pay $7.00/quart to run a synthetic, when the oil gets changed as often as it does.

Since synthetics flow so easily, it's normal to see 15 psi @ idle at operating temperature. 40-45 is normal on the highway. Anything over that and the pump is overworking itself, or, the tolerances for the pump are super tight. Oil pumps imo have a point of diminishing returns and I'd put the point at 45 psi max. This refers to a highly modified street car-you get into doorslammers and such and the world is quite different for oil flow/control.

Factory specs call for approximately 10psi of oil pressure per 1k of rpm- 45psi would be a bit low for anything other than a stocker.
 
By design, you can typically extend the oil change service interval to three times that of dino oil-so it washes out in the end-the question simply becomes how much protection do you want? 40-45 highway oil psi is too low? So going by the 10 psi per 1K RPM that equates to 4500 RPM @ 60 mph. So that must mean you are running 4.56 gears or lower with about 26" tall tires then. I'm sure the factory doesn't factor in synthetics-that's a very loose evaluation of what they would recommend the oil pressure to be. In a very simple way of looking at it, synthetic molecules are all uniform in shape and size so they slide over one another much more easily whereas dino molecules are jagged and all sorts of shapes and sizes. That is a basic reason why oil pressure is deemed lower with synthetics and also why people buy into the hype about synthetics "creating" oil leaks after switching to it-the leak was always there-synthetics just find them easier.
 
John are you sure your return line is not obstructed? Almost all the new turbos use a dynamic oil seal on the compressor side which consists of a piston ring that would be nearly impossible to blow out. The exhaust side uses the same thing only a larger diameter. One thing that can easily happen with high viscosity high volume/pressure when cold is that it can overwhelm the factory ribbed return line and cause the oil to build up in the CHRA of the turbo and leak in to the compressor housing or into the exhaust. This would cause nearly constant smoking until the oil heats up and the viscosity comes down some and drains properly. Over a period of time the turbine shaft will become coked with oil form the poor drainage and cause even more problems with the hot side and oil leaking into the exhaust.


Brian,

Recently switched to Royal Purple 10w30 synthetic. Smoke at start up has almost disappeared. Checked the return line with a coat hanger and didn't find anything. Oil pressure is down to a more tolerable level as well. 80 psi at cold start and WOT 40 psi hot idle. Just putting this out there for others.
 
Bob,

The new SM designtion is for 2007. So if the data sheet is from 06 then its different now. 2007 SM designates the oil must have reduced zinc an phos. The new SM VR-1 has been independantly tested and does indeed show reduced zinc and phos as well. 835 z 936 p respectively. Well below the prior 1200ppm plus levels of the prior SL designation. The red bottle of STP is good choice to up the Zinc and Phos. levels.

Thanks for the additional info. I'll go back to the off road formula next oil change.
 
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