So expensive engine oil really does work.
Discussion
richb77 said:
I would be interested what Oilman (Opie oils) has to say about it though.
The Millers Nanodrive oils definately look good so far. We've had lots of feedback from customers who reported their cars are running smoother and seem more responsive. Unfortunately those are not really quantifiable things, so it might not be accurate. We've also had no one say to us that their car hasn't felt better or say that the Nanodrive was a waste of money and they are going back to the normal CFS or another oil. Some of our sponsored drivers have also started using it.Other than the figures Millers quote, the only other ones I can give you are from one of our customers. He has a kit car for hill climbs and was using the Millers CFS 10w-60 before he changed to the Nanodrive 10w-50. I spoke to him a few weeks ago, and if I remember correctly, he said his speed over the finishing line at his local track has gone from about 99mph to about 103mph. That's a pretty good gain, considering he only changed the oil, but as he also started using a thinner oil than the 10w-60, he would have gained some power from having less internal resistance due to the thinner oil as well as the gain from the Nanodrive, so I can't really say how much is due to the Nanodrive.
Millers are a very reputable company and we have no reason to doubt their results, but I would like to get more feedback from our customers. The problem is, understandably no one wants to pay for a dyno test, drop out the old oil, change to nanodrive and then run it on a dyno again.
Cheers
Tim
tank slapper said:
GC8 said:
Youve answered your own question there. 5W- may be the correct oil for your VW, but 0W- certainly isnt the correct oil for an old 3.2!
Mobil recommend 0W-40 for a 1986 924S too, which is obviously boll*cks! Their recommendation is worthless as theyre obviously promoting their latest Mobil1 product irrespective of its suitability.
A 1985 Carrera 3.2 should be run on a good quality 10W-, or maybe even 15W-. Mobil made a very nice 15W- synthetic branded Racing, but its no longer available, which would have been ideal. 0W-40 is far from ideal.
The difference between a 0W40, 10W40 and 15W40 is the viscosity of the oil at low temperatures. All three of those oils would have the same viscosity at 100C which is close to the engine operating temperature. If you live in a hot country, then you don't need 0W oil. If you live in a cold country which experiences sub-zero temperatures it might be essential.Mobil recommend 0W-40 for a 1986 924S too, which is obviously boll*cks! Their recommendation is worthless as theyre obviously promoting their latest Mobil1 product irrespective of its suitability.
A 1985 Carrera 3.2 should be run on a good quality 10W-, or maybe even 15W-. Mobil made a very nice 15W- synthetic branded Racing, but its no longer available, which would have been ideal. 0W-40 is far from ideal.
GC8 said:
I understand the theoretical difference.
What people fail to grasp though, is that when I use 5W- synthetic oil in my relatively low mileage 2.7l/3.0l 944 engine, my oil consumption increases massively.
This practical experience trumps theory.
I ran my 1988 3.3 turbo on Mobil 0W40, and I run my 2.5L E30 on the same oil and neither used a drop.What people fail to grasp though, is that when I use 5W- synthetic oil in my relatively low mileage 2.7l/3.0l 944 engine, my oil consumption increases massively.
This practical experience trumps theory.
0w and 5w will only use more oil if you have a static leak, i.e. end up with puddles on the floor - at driving temperatures they revert to the top SAE grade of 40.
The Millers nanodrive looks interesting. IME once you exhaust the natural properties of an Ester base there are only two ways to reduce friction - one using EP compounds (axle and gearbox oil - will eat (bronze in) engines however) and two adding nano boron particles. I'm guessing millers does add boron, in which case I can well beleive the claims - and even after changing out for some other oil the boron should have done it's work and permanently reduced engine friction.
Maybe I'll try some in my scooter next time - that's currently got straight Mobil0w40 in it.
opieoilman said:
Millers are a very reputable company and we have no reason to doubt their results, but I would like to get more feedback from our customers. The problem is, understandably no one wants to pay for a dyno test, drop out the old oil, change to nanodrive and then run it on a dyno again.
Cheers
Tim
tell you what, if you supply the oil(s), I'll cover the dyno work/cost.Cheers
Tim
and yes, I am somewhat sceptical, assuming that we are comparing oils of the same grades/weights
(we all know that a 0W20 will win the dyno comp against a 15W50 etc).
Edited by Scuffers on Wednesday 22 August 22:01
mrmr96 said:
Surely it isn't as simple as just running thinner oil for lower resistance? That would be too easy.
Using thinner oil does reduce friction but it also increases the susceptibility of the bearing to damage. The bearing surfaces will run closer together, which makes them more vulnerable to any contamination that gets past the oil filter or any temporary interruptions in oil supply. It can also make the bearing surfaces more susceptible to fatigue damage due to the higher peak pressure within the oil film.The correct oil grade is determined by the dimensions and geometry of the bearings, the expected loads the bearing has to cope with, and the capacity of the oil supply system. These are all factors that have to be calculated in detail when the engine is designed and are why manufacturers recommend a particular oil specification.
Whether it is advisable to use something different depends on the design of the engine and how its being used - racing engines sometimes use a thicker grade oil than road engines because they tend to operate at a higher temperature where normal oil would become too thin and not provide enough protection.
mrmr96 said:
Surely it isn't as simple as just running thinner oil for lower resistance? That would be too easy.
It's quite a good idea to take account of manufacturing tolerances and general clearances in the engine too. Especially once the range of operating temperatures is figured into the equations.It's no co-incidence they have to warm up F1 engines by running hot coolant mix through them before they can even be started.
Back in the old days 63/64, I raced a Morgan +4, [TR3A engine in those days]. It went pretty well, getting 124.6MPH down conrod straight Bathurst, & setting lap records.
However, keeping big end bearings in the thing in those days before forged steel rods were available was a big problem. At Bathurst for example, the copper/led/indium big end bearings would be down to copper by the end of 10 laps, [38 miles] of practice. We were changing slippers between practice & racing at many circuits.
This was with BP coarse racing oil, & molly added.
Then STP came along. Not only did it stop the thing rattling like a tin of marbles at start up, but it did 126 racing miles around Bathurst in 64, & the bearings looked brand new when striped. If it could reduce friction that much it must have improved power quite a bit.
The boys racing these things today, in historic racing tell me that with modern oils they have no big end problem, even on stock con rods. This proves to me that Castrol add that goes, "oils ain't oils" is very true, & good ones are worth every penny.
However, keeping big end bearings in the thing in those days before forged steel rods were available was a big problem. At Bathurst for example, the copper/led/indium big end bearings would be down to copper by the end of 10 laps, [38 miles] of practice. We were changing slippers between practice & racing at many circuits.
This was with BP coarse racing oil, & molly added.
Then STP came along. Not only did it stop the thing rattling like a tin of marbles at start up, but it did 126 racing miles around Bathurst in 64, & the bearings looked brand new when striped. If it could reduce friction that much it must have improved power quite a bit.
The boys racing these things today, in historic racing tell me that with modern oils they have no big end problem, even on stock con rods. This proves to me that Castrol add that goes, "oils ain't oils" is very true, & good ones are worth every penny.
tank slapper said:
mrmr96 said:
Surely it isn't as simple as just running thinner oil for lower resistance? That would be too easy.
Using thinner oil does reduce friction but it also increases the susceptibility of the bearing to damage. The bearing surfaces will run closer together, which makes them more vulnerable to any contamination that gets past the oil filter or any temporary interruptions in oil supply. It can also make the bearing surfaces more susceptible to fatigue damage due to the higher peak pressure within the oil film.The correct oil grade is determined by the dimensions and geometry of the bearings, the expected loads the bearing has to cope with, and the capacity of the oil supply system. These are all factors that have to be calculated in detail when the engine is designed and are why manufacturers recommend a particular oil specification.
Whether it is advisable to use something different depends on the design of the engine and how its being used - racing engines sometimes use a thicker grade oil than road engines because they tend to operate at a higher temperature where normal oil would become too thin and not provide enough protection.
It's often worth a look in the service manual that comes with the car as they have a chart for oil. For instance a *w30 goes from a low air temperature up to about 35C whereas a *w40 goes up much higher - so at cooler times of year you can use a thinner oil.
I just stick a 0w40 in there for all seasons though as synth lasts longer than dino oil.
I just stick a 0w40 in there for all seasons though as synth lasts longer than dino oil.
mrmr96 said:
Surely it isn't as simple as just running thinner oil for lower resistance? That would be too easy.
Well actually it is, when it comes to an easy power gain. Here's something that Silkolene did a while ago.The place to look for extra power is in that 6% lost as oil drag. In a well-designed modern motor, the oil doesn’t have to cover up for wide clearances, poor oil pump capacity or flexy crankshafts, so it can be quite thin. How thin? Well take a look at these dyno results.
A while ago now, we ran three Silkolene performance oils in a Honda Blackbird motorcycle. this fearsome device is fitted with a light, compact, naturally aspirated 1100cc engine which turns out 120+ bhp at the back wheel. The normal fill for this one-year-old engine was 15w-50, so the first reading was taken using a fresh sump-fill of this grade. (The dyno was set up for EEC horsepower, i.e. Pessimistic)
15w-50
Max Power 127.9 bhp @ 9750 rpm
Torque 75.8 ft-lbs @ 7300 rpm
After a flush-out and fill up with 5w-40 the readings were;
5w-40
Max Power 131.6 bhp @ 9750 rpm
Torque 77.7 ft-lbs @ 7400 rpm
Then we tried an experimental grade, 0w-20 yes, 0w-20! This wasn’t as risky as you may think, because this grade had already done a season’s racing with the Kawasaki World Superbike Team, giving them some useful extra power with no reliability problems. (But it must be said, they were only interested in 200 frantic miles before the engines went back to Japan)
0w-20
Max Power 134.4 bhp @ 9750 rpm
Torque 78.9 ft-lbs @ 7400 rpm
In other words, 3.7 bhp / 2.9% increase from 15w-50 to 5w-40, a 2.8 bhp / 2.1% increase from 5w-40 to 0w-20 or a 6.5 bhp / 5% overall. Not bad, just for changing the oil! More to the point, a keen bike owner would have paid at least £1000 to see less improvement than this using the conventional approach of exhaust/intake mods, ignition re-mapping etc.
As you can see from that, just using a thinner oil of the same quality can give you a significant power gain (although it might not be a good plan to use the thinnest oil available, unless you don't mind getting a rebuild). There are a lot of oil test on Youtube that make their oils look very good. They show a car on a dyno reaching a power level, then change the oil to their super special one and show a gain of 10bhp or something like that. It's easy to get those kind of results - do the first run on the thickest most basic mineral oil you can find, then change it to the thinnest synthetic you have. The impressive thing about the Millers test results in the Porsche is that they used their CFS 10-60 as their control oil and that is a very good oil. The Nanodrive they used was also the 10w-60 version, so no gain in power due to reduced viscosity, meaning that any gain should have come from the formulation of the oil.
Cheers
Tim
GC8 said:
I understand the theoretical difference.
What people fail to grasp though, is that when I use 5W- synthetic oil in my relatively low mileage 2.7l/3.0l 944 engine, my oil consumption increases massively.
This practical experience trumps theory.
But not when you consider it's still miles thicker than the 10w-40 is that you use when it's hot. Correlation, but not causation.What people fail to grasp though, is that when I use 5W- synthetic oil in my relatively low mileage 2.7l/3.0l 944 engine, my oil consumption increases massively.
This practical experience trumps theory.
opieoilman said:
As you can see from that, just using a thinner oil of the same quality can give you a significant power gain (although it might not be a good plan to use the thinnest oil available, unless you don't mind getting a rebuild). There are a lot of oil test on Youtube that make their oils look very good. They show a car on a dyno reaching a power level, then change the oil to their super special one and show a gain of 10bhp or something like that. It's easy to get those kind of results - do the first run on the thickest most basic mineral oil you can find, then change it to the thinnest synthetic you have. The impressive thing about the Millers test results in the Porsche is that they used their CFS 10-60 as their control oil and that is a very good oil. The Nanodrive they used was also the 10w-60 version, so no gain in power due to reduced viscosity, meaning that any gain should have come from the formulation of the oil.
Cheers
Tim
did the same test a few years back and got very similar results between 5W40 and 15W50 (at the same oil temp)Cheers
Tim
pretty much what you would expect, it's not so much about change in friction as the extra load on the oil pump to shift thicker oil about (something that's very significant on modern variable cam engines that have very high capacity oil pumps).
you can get the same effect by dropping the oil pressure too, but once again, this has risks (if you go too far), hence the reason in F3 etc, the oil pumps are sealed too!
like I said, if somebody wants to provide the oil(s) I'll quite happily do the testing in a controlled environment...
Scuffers said:
did the same test a few years back and got very similar results between 5W40 and 15W50 (at the same oil temp)
pretty much what you would expect, it's not so much about change in friction as the extra load on the oil pump to shift thicker oil about (something that's very significant on modern variable cam engines that have very high capacity oil pumps).
you can get the same effect by dropping the oil pressure too, but once again, this has risks (if you go too far), hence the reason in F3 etc, the oil pumps are sealed too!
like I said, if somebody wants to provide the oil(s) I'll quite happily do the testing in a controlled environment...
Enter the comp and win somepretty much what you would expect, it's not so much about change in friction as the extra load on the oil pump to shift thicker oil about (something that's very significant on modern variable cam engines that have very high capacity oil pumps).
you can get the same effect by dropping the oil pressure too, but once again, this has risks (if you go too far), hence the reason in F3 etc, the oil pumps are sealed too!
like I said, if somebody wants to provide the oil(s) I'll quite happily do the testing in a controlled environment...
I'm sure PH would get free samples if they were to do a similar article. I'm gonna have a wee nose in the Vauxhall mag cos they said they done the same testing as fast ford but with a vxr. Billy_rfc said:
Scuffers said:
did the same test a few years back and got very similar results between 5W40 and 15W50 (at the same oil temp)
pretty much what you would expect, it's not so much about change in friction as the extra load on the oil pump to shift thicker oil about (something that's very significant on modern variable cam engines that have very high capacity oil pumps).
you can get the same effect by dropping the oil pressure too, but once again, this has risks (if you go too far), hence the reason in F3 etc, the oil pumps are sealed too!
like I said, if somebody wants to provide the oil(s) I'll quite happily do the testing in a controlled environment...
Enter the comp and win somepretty much what you would expect, it's not so much about change in friction as the extra load on the oil pump to shift thicker oil about (something that's very significant on modern variable cam engines that have very high capacity oil pumps).
you can get the same effect by dropping the oil pressure too, but once again, this has risks (if you go too far), hence the reason in F3 etc, the oil pumps are sealed too!
like I said, if somebody wants to provide the oil(s) I'll quite happily do the testing in a controlled environment...
I'm sure PH would get free samples if they were to do a similar article. I'm gonna have a wee nose in the Vauxhall mag cos they said they done the same testing as fast ford but with a vxr. 
(and how is anybodies driving going to affect how something performs on a closed dyno test?)
Edited by Scuffers on Thursday 23 August 15:31
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