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Billy_rfc
Original Poster
553 posts
125 months
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Just reading through a review of Millers nanodrive oil in one of my car mags, and they make some big claim about it. At £70 for 5 litres it would need to be! So they use a focus st as a test car and start of with halfords oil as a control, do three dyno runs and make sure everything is consistent. Next comes the Millers oil, and feck me! At 2750rpm they get 44lb/ft more torque! And over 20bhp extra! Across the rev range, gains are between 10-20bhp from 2k and 41/2k.
Wow.
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Fartgalen
4,413 posts
77 months
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On 5 litres ?!?!...shheeeit. I'm putting 20 litres in mine then !
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Dr Doofenshmirtz
6,945 posts
70 months
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Steamer
8,875 posts
83 months
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do we have a smilie for 'one eyebrow raised in suspicion'?
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Jimmy No Hands
1,860 posts
26 months
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They're five minutes from me, I'm off to ask for a sample..
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Dr Doofenshmirtz
6,945 posts
70 months
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Steamer said: do we have a smilie for 'one eye brow raised in suspicion'? This one... 
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ohtari
400 posts
14 months
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Steamer said: do we have a smilie for 'one eyebrow raised in suspicion'? or 
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McSam
4,955 posts
45 months
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So it was a colder day when they tested the Millers one, interesting findings.
Whole-vehicle dynos are so hilariously inconsistent no such testing is very valid..
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Petrolhead_Rich
4,228 posts
62 months
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Billy_rfc said: Just reading through a review of Millers nanodrive oil in one of my car mags, and they make some big claim about it. At £70 for 5 litres it would need to be! So they use a focus st as a test car and start of with halfords oil as a control, do three dyno runs and make sure everything is consistent. Next comes the Millers oil, and feck me! At 2750rpm they get 44lb/ft more torque! And over 20bhp extra! Across the rev range, gains are between 10-20bhp from 2k and 41/2k.
Wow. that difference can easily be accounted for in manufacturing differences in the engines, I really dont believe lubrication can give such dramatic performance differences!
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McHaggis
8,271 posts
25 months
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Yet even on their own site they only quote 1.5-5%... http://www.millersoils.co.uk/nanodrive.aspTest results speak for themselves, for example; 5% boost in power in a Porsche 911 race engine on a rolling road dyno 1.5% power boost in a Skoda 1.6 rally engine, on an engine test bed 3.8% power gain and 3.5% torque gain in a racing Toyota MR2 Roadster. I assume the "before" is used oil, the "after" their oil. Also no stats on longevity? I can believe low friction at the cost of time - i.e. have to change every 3k miles.... oil is a complex science, all a matter of trade offs.
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Billy_rfc
Original Poster
553 posts
125 months
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Going by the article, readers car used and all done on the same day. Three runs done every time to make sure results are consistent. Amazing results like.
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McHaggis
8,271 posts
25 months
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Billy_rfc said: Going by the article, readers car used and all done on the same day. Three runs done every time to make sure results are consistent. Amazing results like. Any link to the article or magazine?
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tank slapper
7,759 posts
153 months
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Petrolhead_Rich said: I really dont believe lubrication can give such dramatic performance differences! Lubrication can make a very large difference to friction in an engine, and power used overcoming the friction in bearings can be considerable. The main variables are the operating temperature and the dynamic viscosity of the oil. I would be quite sceptical of claims of massively reduced friction not accounted for by one of those. Without knowing more about how the test was conducted and what the likely error bounds are (which if it were done on a rolling road are likely to be quite large), I don't think you could call that result significant.
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Ray Luxury-Yacht
6,518 posts
86 months
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When I was racing Nationals on superbikes, we were always looking for a performance edge - whatever it was.
Silkolene brought out a beta product, 'racing only' oil - it had their 'electrosynth' additive (which helps the oil 'cling' to metal surfaces) and the formulation was 0w /20 - very thin and hence allowing the engine to spin more freely to release more power.
It was expensive, but we dyno - tested it compared to our usual race oil - and we saw another 5bhp and 10 lb/ft of torque - from 0 to 13,000 rpm. In racing terms, a significant gain for just an oil change.
We used it for two racing seasons - and each winter when we did an engine rebuild, there was no greater wear or damage in the motor compared to the other oil. We didn't ever suffer an engine problem or failure either.
So yes, for me, expensive oil really did work.
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Billy_rfc
Original Poster
553 posts
125 months
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The article is in Fast ford haggis. Don't think I'm allowed to take a pic and post it up 
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Globs
11,975 posts
101 months
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Ester based oils will always be better - which I guess that is.
The key is getting the best oil thin enough so it still protects the metal but doesn't get in the way.
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tank slapper
7,759 posts
153 months
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Ray Luxury-Yacht said: When I was racing Nationals on superbikes, we were always looking for a performance edge - whatever it was.
Silkolene brought out a beta product, 'racing only' oil - it had their 'electrosynth' additive (which helps the oil 'cling' to metal surfaces) and the formulation was 0w /20 - very thin and hence allowing the engine to spin more freely to release more power.
It was expensive, but we dyno - tested it compared to our usual race oil - and we saw another 5bhp and 10 lb/ft of torque - from 0 to 13,000 rpm. In racing terms, a significant gain for just an oil change.
We used it for two racing seasons - and each winter when we did an engine rebuild, there was no greater wear or damage in the motor compared to the other oil. We didn't ever suffer an engine problem or failure either.
So yes, for me, expensive oil really did work. Oil 'clinging' to metal isn't really relevant except perhaps on starting. An engine that is running supplies oil to the bearings under pressure, it doesn't rely on boundary lubrication. Your gain in performance was most likely down to the reduced viscosity rather than any magic ingredients in the oil. Whether there was anything special about the composition that allowed you to use such thin oil while still being able to cope with the forces in the engine is impossible to say. It may be that the engine design was such that you could have used any 0W20 oil and got similar results.
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Ray Luxury-Yacht
6,518 posts
86 months
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tank slapper said: Ray Luxury-Yacht said: When I was racing Nationals on superbikes, we were always looking for a performance edge - whatever it was.
Silkolene brought out a beta product, 'racing only' oil - it had their 'electrosynth' additive (which helps the oil 'cling' to metal surfaces) and the formulation was 0w /20 - very thin and hence allowing the engine to spin more freely to release more power.
It was expensive, but we dyno - tested it compared to our usual race oil - and we saw another 5bhp and 10 lb/ft of torque - from 0 to 13,000 rpm. In racing terms, a significant gain for just an oil change.
We used it for two racing seasons - and each winter when we did an engine rebuild, there was no greater wear or damage in the motor compared to the other oil. We didn't ever suffer an engine problem or failure either.
So yes, for me, expensive oil really did work. Oil 'clinging' to metal isn't really relevant except perhaps on starting. An engine that is running supplies oil to the bearings under pressure, it doesn't rely on boundary lubrication. Your gain in performance was most likely down to the reduced viscosity rather than any magic ingredients in the oil. Whether there was anything special about the composition that allowed you to use such thin oil while still being able to cope with the forces in the engine is impossible to say. It may be that the engine design was such that you could have used any 0W20 oil and got similar results. Sorry yeah - we understood that the 'cling' factor was good only for cold-start ups, nothing more - as you say, it doesn't affect the working pressure, lubrication, detergent qualites or particle suspension... It was nice to think that, especially as the oil was reduced to an '0w' viscosity whilst the bikes were sat in the workshop - that there was still a layer of electrostatiaclly charged oil clinging to the mating and load-bearing surfaces, which would be there on start-up (especially as our race engines 'idled' at around 2,000 rpm!) Who knows though - yeah, maybe using a 'straight 20' non-multigrade oil would have given the same results? But compared to the oil we were using which was either 40 or 50 when hot - this stuff gave us a measureable increase in performance, without any degradation to the race motors. These were dedicated build race engines too - pretty highly stressed - high comp. pistons, Ti rods and parts, very lumpy cams, high idle and high rev limits. Plus the extra grief of 'polymer shear' from the combined engine and gearbox unit - the pressure of constant-mesh straight cut gears on oil degrades the polymer chains and multigrade abilities quite quickly...but as I said, on strip downs, we had no visible or guage-measured wear from previous seasons with other 10w - 40 race oils. So, to sum up - it worked for us! 
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james280779
1,551 posts
99 months
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I just replaced the oil in my old 911 as I wasnt sure what was put in it before. I bought the proper Mobil 1 0-40 ($105) and I can honestly say it runs sooo much better. wish I had done it ages ago
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Locke
1,194 posts
54 months
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Jimmy No Hands said: They're five minutes from me, I'm off to ask for a sample.. Is that the place on Rastric Common?
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