Best oil for thrashing from cold
Discussion
Hi all,
We have a hillclimb car which uses a '90s Toyota MR2 Turbo engine. Mechanically it is stock but it's installation isn't and we've upped the boost etc.
We believe we are getting more power running it cool and not getting too much heat soak in the engine bay before a run. Therefore we wish to thrash it from... well, not stone cold but only with a bit of warmth and oil circulation etc.
I've read and read and no doubt like many before, gone round in circles, but I can't decide which engine oil would be best to use. As it's an old design the original oil would be semi-synth, but can anybody shed some light or thought on which oil would be best, in terms of lubricating well before optimum temperature and contributing to max power?
Grateful for any help guys, thanks.
We have a hillclimb car which uses a '90s Toyota MR2 Turbo engine. Mechanically it is stock but it's installation isn't and we've upped the boost etc.
We believe we are getting more power running it cool and not getting too much heat soak in the engine bay before a run. Therefore we wish to thrash it from... well, not stone cold but only with a bit of warmth and oil circulation etc.
I've read and read and no doubt like many before, gone round in circles, but I can't decide which engine oil would be best to use. As it's an old design the original oil would be semi-synth, but can anybody shed some light or thought on which oil would be best, in terms of lubricating well before optimum temperature and contributing to max power?
Grateful for any help guys, thanks.
I always understood that thrashing from cold should be avoided due to different rates of expansion between the pistons and block and the main issue isn't an oil flow one. That being said a 0W or 5W followed by the highest number possible will likely do the best oil can.
Fundamentally it sounds like you need to look at your intercooler performance.
Fundamentally it sounds like you need to look at your intercooler performance.
trickywoo said:
I always understood that thrashing from cold should be avoided due to different rates of expansion between the pistons and block and the main issue isn't an oil flow one. That being said a 0W or 5W followed by the highest number possible will likely do the best oil can.
Fundamentally it sounds like you need to look at your intercooler performance.
Thanks, we've put a charge cooler (water/air) on since last running it, but I think the same still applies, the cooler it's run the more bhp we'll get. It's for hill climbing so the runs are short, minute or two at a time at best. Fundamentally it sounds like you need to look at your intercooler performance.
heebeegeetee said:
but I think
heebeegeetee said:
We believe
You need some certainties in order to move forward successfully.I can give you some for starters: There is no way an engine likes being thrashed from cold and no oil on this planet that will protect it from you doing so.
An engine will give less power when it's not up to full working temp than it does when it is.
Maybe you could look at getting more airflow into the engine compartment and lagging the manifold and exhaust ???
IMHO once its running the oil will be lubricating the bearings its as others have said its different rates of expansion of components while the engine warms up ,
maybe its running a little rich if it runs better cool ??? or even wrong plug grade so when its hot you are getting some preignition ...??
IMHO once its running the oil will be lubricating the bearings its as others have said its different rates of expansion of components while the engine warms up ,
maybe its running a little rich if it runs better cool ??? or even wrong plug grade so when its hot you are getting some preignition ...??
Edited by powerstroke on Thursday 24th March 07:20
Any pics or details of the car? Sound interesting.
Like boosted I can only imagine that the OEM has done hours of testing the engine pretty much exact how you will be using it. It's also a race engine. So you are going to be doing a rebuild / replacement every now and again.
If you are serious about keeping things a little cooler then you might want to look at running e85 or higher fuels. This have high ethanol content and will run cooler than on normal petrol. Alternatively look into methanol and you can ditch the charge cooler as well!
Like boosted I can only imagine that the OEM has done hours of testing the engine pretty much exact how you will be using it. It's also a race engine. So you are going to be doing a rebuild / replacement every now and again.
If you are serious about keeping things a little cooler then you might want to look at running e85 or higher fuels. This have high ethanol content and will run cooler than on normal petrol. Alternatively look into methanol and you can ditch the charge cooler as well!
Hi Guys, thank you for input, it is very much appreciated. To answer some questions:
The car is a Smart car with an MR2 turbo engine in the back. Whilst no doubt we could have given the engine more space I was also keen to retain a standard (ish) smart car appearance, and so the bulkhead we have made for it has boxed the engine in a bit.
The car requires an 'A' licence for which I had to do 6 'B' licence events to upgrade. I did four event in my Smart Roadster. I had a gauge that gave me air inlet temps, and I could definitely do better 64' times by starting with as cool an inlet temp as possible. (In sprint and hillclimbs the first 64' from standing start is measured, I understand that if 64' is cleared in exactly 2 seconds 1g of acceleration has been achieved)
The stock MR2 has a largish intercooler which we didn't have room for, which resulted in the air inlet passing over the exhaust manifold. Just one run at Curborough woud result in the air inlet pipe being too hot to touch. We've subsequently fitted a charge cooler which sits above the exhaust manifold but we believe we've lagged it well and we have a higher capacity water pump too.
).
The engine is in fact 23 years old, about 88,000 miles on it IIRC. We had it on a rolling road prior to fitting charge cooler and got a flywheel best figure of 204 bhp, they were rated at 220 bhp new, so losing 16 bhp over that time and distance isn't bad at all (with all the usual provisos of accuracy of course).
Methanol though - that's a good point, and indeed I have a pal who runs a hillclimb special on methanol so will hopefully catch up with him this weekend and explore that.
Interestingly, according to this (rather strange) video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6-fYeZpfco they run low oil temperatures in drag racing (2'53").
I think I'm going to try to start each run at a hillclimb with about 40-50 degs c coolant temperature on the clock, attempt maximum acceleration of course, and I think the engine will get to optimum temperature very quickly - and then we need to see how the car maintains that temp and what we have after each run.
I may have tied myself up in knots to a degree when it came to deciding which oil we were going to use but of course I do have to pick something.
The car is a Smart car with an MR2 turbo engine in the back. Whilst no doubt we could have given the engine more space I was also keen to retain a standard (ish) smart car appearance, and so the bulkhead we have made for it has boxed the engine in a bit.
The car requires an 'A' licence for which I had to do 6 'B' licence events to upgrade. I did four event in my Smart Roadster. I had a gauge that gave me air inlet temps, and I could definitely do better 64' times by starting with as cool an inlet temp as possible. (In sprint and hillclimbs the first 64' from standing start is measured, I understand that if 64' is cleared in exactly 2 seconds 1g of acceleration has been achieved)
The stock MR2 has a largish intercooler which we didn't have room for, which resulted in the air inlet passing over the exhaust manifold. Just one run at Curborough woud result in the air inlet pipe being too hot to touch. We've subsequently fitted a charge cooler which sits above the exhaust manifold but we believe we've lagged it well and we have a higher capacity water pump too.
Boosted LS1 said:
Thrash it using the manufacturers recommended grade. They'll have already done that zillions of time's during the course of the engines evolution at arctic temps and tropical temps.
This is a very good point. Indeed I've had a couple of very interesting conversations with a guy who works at the Toyota engine plant at Deeside. Whilst I can't remember the exact figures now I can recall being astounded at the tolerances they're achieving, the repetitiveness of the quality, the testing including draining engines of oil and running them til they seize and could run for amazing amounts of time, etc etc Whilst the engine is a 20 year old design the 90's weren't exactly the dark ages and I think you're right, there's probably a lot to be said for running the standard oil.chuntington101 said:
Any pics or details of the car? Sound interesting.
Like boosted I can only imagine that the OEM has done hours of testing the engine pretty much exact how you will be using it. It's also a race engine. So you are going to be doing a rebuild / replacement every now and again.
If you are serious about keeping things a little cooler then you might want to look at running e85 or higher fuels. This have high ethanol content and will run cooler than on normal petrol. Alternatively look into methanol and you can ditch the charge cooler as well!
It's definitely not in the plan to be rebuilding the engine (not more than once anyway Like boosted I can only imagine that the OEM has done hours of testing the engine pretty much exact how you will be using it. It's also a race engine. So you are going to be doing a rebuild / replacement every now and again.
If you are serious about keeping things a little cooler then you might want to look at running e85 or higher fuels. This have high ethanol content and will run cooler than on normal petrol. Alternatively look into methanol and you can ditch the charge cooler as well!
).The engine is in fact 23 years old, about 88,000 miles on it IIRC. We had it on a rolling road prior to fitting charge cooler and got a flywheel best figure of 204 bhp, they were rated at 220 bhp new, so losing 16 bhp over that time and distance isn't bad at all (with all the usual provisos of accuracy of course).
Methanol though - that's a good point, and indeed I have a pal who runs a hillclimb special on methanol so will hopefully catch up with him this weekend and explore that.
Interestingly, according to this (rather strange) video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6-fYeZpfco they run low oil temperatures in drag racing (2'53").
I think I'm going to try to start each run at a hillclimb with about 40-50 degs c coolant temperature on the clock, attempt maximum acceleration of course, and I think the engine will get to optimum temperature very quickly - and then we need to see how the car maintains that temp and what we have after each run.
I may have tied myself up in knots to a degree when it came to deciding which oil we were going to use but of course I do have to pick something
.Edited by heebeegeetee on Friday 25th March 11:32
If you switch to methanol only as a fuel you may be able to get away without a radiator also. A lot of the drag racers don't use radiators and only have water in the heads (if any). Also if running meth you would loose the need for cool running as intake temps aren't as critical (in fact you don't need an intercooler with meth).
I really cant see any reason you'd want to thrash a cold engine...when there will be more sensible solutions to whatever problem you think there is.
And if it's the OEM ecu, fairly sure even Toyota had reduced operating modes in places when the engine was below a certain temperature.
At least I recall a friends old ST205 GT4 was like that, and it was a far sturdier engine than the older ST185 cars.
And if it's the OEM ecu, fairly sure even Toyota had reduced operating modes in places when the engine was below a certain temperature.
At least I recall a friends old ST205 GT4 was like that, and it was a far sturdier engine than the older ST185 cars.
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