The official THSCC oil debate thread

Neal Harrington · **Joined:** Thu Sep 04, 2003 4:29 pm **Posts:** 106

Corvair -- 43 years!
Fiero --- 24 years. This car has also run over 150 THSCC autocrosses.

Scott Lusted · **Joined:** Tue Oct 27, 2009 9:52 am **Posts:** 215

Just to dig this back up...

Was running QS full syn 10w-30 in the e46 and it was burning about 1 quart every 2k miles. I get it for free from work so I always used it in everything.

So, I took Mike's advice and tried Rotella T6 in it this time. So far 1k miles in, no oil consumption but it is mostly around town miles. I have a few highway trips coming up to see if the higher rpm's have an influence.

$19/gal is just too good to pass up.

-Scott

Scott Lusted · **Joined:** Tue Oct 27, 2009 9:52 am **Posts:** 215

One more thing, anyone ever change the oil and for some reason had it smell like sour ass?

The oil coming out of the Integra after RA chump race smelled nothing like the 100+ other oil changes I have done in my life.
Same QS 5W-30. I saved a sample for blackstone just to see if there is something we should be worried about. Coolant (water) looks good.

-Scott

Bernie Baake · **Posted:** Thu Feb 21, 2013 12:21 am

The oil in the Trans Am smelled like that after it over heated and blew up. I took it down to Carolina Auto Masters and it stunk the entire garage up until I got the engine out of the car and out of the garage. I was using Valvoline syn racing oil.

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

Same experience as Bernie, that sour ass smell seems to come from serious local overheating. I'd definitely get the analysis and/or pull a rod cap or 2 in the off season to see what they look like.

What's the highest you have seen on oil temps during a race, and what oil pressure do you see at speed?

Scott Lusted · **Joined:** Tue Oct 27, 2009 9:52 am **Posts:** 215

MikeWhitney wrote:

Same experience as Bernie, that sour ass smell seems to come from serious local overheating. I'd definitely get the analysis and/or pull a rod cap or 2 in the off season to see what they look like.

What's the highest you have seen on oil temps during a race, and what oil pressure do you see at speed?

At RA. Water temps were 190F. Our oil temp gauge is not working right now but we do have an oil cooler. We typically see right at 60lbs out on track. I don't remember the oil smell after the 24hour.

We have been suffering from excessive oil consumption and we did have a lap or so of lower 30/45 psi during mid corner when we were 2 qts low on oil. Yes, we were burning 2qts every 2 hour fuel stint...
Time for a motor and I'm expecting the dyno results next Tuesday will confirm that.

-Scott

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

Scott Lusted wrote:

MikeWhitney wrote:

Same experience as Bernie, that sour ass smell seems to come from serious local overheating. I'd definitely get the analysis and/or pull a rod cap or 2 in the off season to see what they look like.

What's the highest you have seen on oil temps during a race, and what oil pressure do you see at speed?

At RA. Water temps were 190F. Our oil temp gauge is not working right now but we do have an oil cooler. We typically see right at 60lbs out on track. I don't remember the oil smell after the 24hour.

We have been suffering from excessive oil consumption and we did have a lap or so of lower 30/45 psi during mid corner when we were 2 qts low on oil. Yes, we were burning 2qts every 2 hour fuel stint...
Time for a motor and I'm expecting the dyno results next Tuesday will confirm that.

-Scott

Ha! As long as the oiling problems didn't affect compression rings (not sure how this could happen), I bet that the motor makes good power. We were burning 1-1.5 qts per 2 hrs in Simon when we swapped it, and that motor dynoed at 125HP at the wheels!

Regardless, time for a motor. Trouble is finding a good low mileage donor, or suck it up for the challenges of reringing the block... Heads seem to bounce back regardless of mileage. Ebay rebuild kits are great with the exception of the included head gasket. If you get a good low mileage block, just plastigage a top rod bearning or 2, if in spec, use as is. These blocks respond well to fresh cheap (King) bearings as long as the crank is good, all easy to do in the garage.

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Fri Feb 22, 2013 10:34 am

So the BMW guys are using T6? Any reason to avoid doing so with the newer generation of cars?

The guy who owned my wife's 328i was very proud to point out that he was using Pentosin something or other at double the recommended OCI. Which as with most late model BMWs works out to "whenever the car tells you to." T6 is a good choice for my old Merc, and if it's okay for a late model BMW with an N52 engine, I'd just as soon stick with it for both cars.

This car doesn't show any requirement for that super exotic "German Castrol" or whatever it's called. I detailed a 2008 M6 a couple of weekends ago that had a sticker declaring some such requirement under the hood. I cannot imagine what the oil change bill for that car would be, but then again, brand new that thing was over $100K. :shock:

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

Don't really know unless if you read bobistheoilguy all day, or if you take the plunge and run T6 then get an oil analysis.

Newer motors have much tighter tolerances than cars from the 90s and earlier, so if it asks for magic 0W40 oil or something, I would go look for the magic 0W40 oil.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Fri Feb 22, 2013 11:12 am

Karl, if it doesn't burn any oil, I'd run T6 5w40, else:

M1 0w40
Castrol Syntec Edge 0w30 (important that it's 0w....5/10w Syntec is rubbish)
Bmw 5w30 (same as above basically regardless of the 0w vs 5w).

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Mon Mar 25, 2013 8:56 am

JamesShort wrote:

Karl, if it doesn't burn any oil, I'd run T6 5w40, else:

M1 0w40
Castrol Syntec Edge 0w30 (important that it's 0w....5/10w Syntec is rubbish)
Bmw 5w30 (same as above basically regardless of the 0w vs 5w).

James, it looks like the car goes through half a quart every 2500 miles. The blasted electronic oil checker thing varies a little but that is my best guess. We got the car with the gauge dead in the middle, and 2500 miles or so later, it was down to "MIN." Ivebeen led to believe that range is roughly 1qt, so I added half a quart of some Castrol edge, because it was the best I could find in Asheville on a Sunday afternoon.

I just saw that you can get a 5L bottle of Motul 8100 5w40 for $44.74 on Amazon, and its Prime eligible. I may go that route. I used that stuff in my S2000 for a while until it became harder to find locally and I switched to Amsoil. Or maybe I should become an Amsoil dealer...

MarcusMcRae · **Posted:** Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:16 am

Karl Shultz wrote:

JamesShort wrote:

Karl, if it doesn't burn any oil, I'd run T6 5w40, else:

M1 0w40
Castrol Syntec Edge 0w30 (important that it's 0w....5/10w Syntec is rubbish)
Bmw 5w30 (same as above basically regardless of the 0w vs 5w).

James, it looks like the car goes through half a quart every 2500 miles. The blasted electronic oil checker thing varies a little but that is my best guess. We got the car with the gauge dead in the middle, and 2500 miles or so later, it was down to "MIN." Ivebeen led to believe that range is roughly 1qt, so I added half a quart of some Castrol edge, because it was the best I could find in Asheville on a Sunday afternoon.

I just saw that you can get a 5L bottle of Motul 8100 5w40 for $44.74 on Amazon, and its Prime eligible. I may go that route. I used that stuff in my S2000 for a while until it became harder to find locally and I switched to Amsoil. Or maybe I should become an Amsoil dealer...

It seems crazy to me to use synth on a car that burns oil. Just get something cheap.

Aaron Buckley · **Posted:** Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:27 am

MarcusMcRae wrote:

It seems crazy to me to use synth on a car that burns oil. Just get something cheap.

I'm sort of in this camp that I would move to a good dino oil of proper weight and change it more frequently. - AB

JamesShort · **Posted:** Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:44 am

Yeah, Motul is just plain dumb to use in a car that doesn't see more than 4k rpms other than for interstate merges

.

I wouldn't use an other synthetic unless it's OTS and on sale for $30ish for 5 qts plus a filter.

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Mon Mar 25, 2013 10:17 am

Aaron Buckley wrote:

MarcusMcRae wrote:

It seems crazy to me to use synth on a car that burns oil. Just get something cheap.

I'm sort of in this camp that I would move to a good dino oil of proper weight and change it more frequently. - AB

I've considered this option as well. But we haven't had the car long enough for me to know if that low oil reading was real, or an outlier, or a bad sensor. It seemed odd to me that it went from middle of the "oil gauge" for three months, and then out of nowhere, have it tell us we need to add some oil.

I like the car a lot...through gritted teeth. I don't trust that electronic oil checker thing at all. Nevermind that I can't use my Mityvac to do the oil changes from above. :cry:

It's also a little annoying that the car uses oil, even if only in small amounts. My nearly 20 year old Mercedes doesn't use a drop. The PO's maintenance was meticulous, so I can't very well fault him.

JamesShort wrote:

Yeah, Motul is just plain dumb to use in a car that doesn't see more than 4k rpms other than for interstate merges

.

I wouldn't use an other synthetic unless it's OTS and on sale for $30ish for 5 qts plus a filter.

Yeah, maybe I'll stick to Rotella T6 5w-40. I can use it in both cars, it's inexpensive, and it's good. Turns out you can get that stuff on Amazon as well, also on Prime, for $77.30 for 3 gallons of it. There's even a $5.00 mail in rebate right now, although I nearly always forget about those.

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