Engine Oil for DD/Track
 

I am looking for suggestions on what type of oil to run for DD w/2-3 track days per oil change in SoCal climate. Engine is stock and I am going to be running a Jackson Racing oil cooler. Temps shouldn't be an issue considering most are not seeing anything above 220 degrees with an oil cooler in NA form.

Any quality full synthetic should get the job done. 5-30 will work, as will 0-20.
You would be well-served to search before asking questions. There is a lot of great information already out there, including this.

i'm using motul 300v now but had 8100 eco energy before that.

@midnight23 Did u ever track on 8100? If so what were the max oil temps?

I run and recommend Millers Nanodrive CFS 0W-30 NT. It's a true race oil that can be used on the street for longer intervals. It features nanotechnology that allows significant friction reduction that adds measurable power with added durability.

It's dyno proven to add 6wp and 3wtq to a stock 86 and myself and others have UOAs showing clean bills of health after 3k miles of E85 fueled track abuse and 7k miles of spirited street driving.

Product link: http://performanceracingoils.com/cfs-0w20-nt-p-48.html

FAQ's: http://performanceracingoils.com/faqs-ezp-2.html

Case study on longevity: http://performanceracingoils.com/PDF...case_study.pdf

Dyno proof: http://www.millersoils.co.uk/news/20...Power-Test.asp

Don't go more than 0W30 or 5W30. You can find a detail analysis by Total and Subaru here:

http://www.pleiades-zero.com/


They say that in racing applications 0w30 is ideal for the FA20 engine. Motul 300v 5W30 also has similar specs.

Nice! Quite pricey though.


With an oil cooler you're looking at $160 oil changes. Although with my typical mileage that would only be 2x a year at this point.

Motul 8100 range lasts longer, but it is not for heavy usage. It depends on what you want to focus ...

The Toyota GT86 Cup car user manual suggests a 10W-60 oil for a racing application: http://www.toyota-motorsport.com/mot...al_2014_02.pdf

This is a dedicated racing car and it is not even street legal. The engine of this car is proposed to be changed/rebuild every 10000 km! We are not discussing about such cases. User asked about an oil recommendation for a daily driven car with a few track events. Whoever uses 10W-60 oil on streets is damaging his engine.

Are you saying that 8100 is not up to the task of track duty, even with an oil cooler? If so, is Motul 300V my only option? Seems like overkill for a DD with light track duty. Surely there is something in between that fits my intended use. I plan on sticking with 0w20, is there any reason why I should go with a 0w30 or 5w30 instead?

300V is great but if you have to ask if it's good for DD or not, you generally would not need it.

https://www.motul.com/ca/en-us/community/446

Or you can resort to Google to find gems like this:

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums...Number=1817829

You literally said "racing applications."

We tracked on the Motul 8100 5w30 X-cess last season in hot/humid NE Summers without the oil cooler and had no issues daily/track use over the course of 4-5K interval changes. We moved up to the 300v 5w30 and the test have come back essentially the same as the 8100. Then we moved up to the oil cooler (Perrin) and results from Blackstone are great. We generally will alternate between the 8100 and the 300v just to keep the detergents in there.

-mike

Have fun with this one:

https://540ratblog.wordpress.com/


Tests dynamic wear load protection, flash points, breakdown temps etc.

Just points of reference:

The miller nano drive (0w30) rates at 105k psi (Excellent), but the Amsoil 0w30 is also at 105k psi and it's readily available and less money.

Even the Pennzoil High Mileage 5w-30 Conventional scores a 102k psi.


The Motul 300V 5w30 Racing oil scores 112k psi... BUT it's a racing oil so you're forgoing your additives and detergents that are important for a street driven engine.

For reference I run Amsoil 0w30 all year long in my FRS.

A 0w30/5w30 or even a 0w40/5w-40 (summer only) would be advisable considering how little oil pressure these engines make under track conditions.

In that link I posted above, the 300V (racing only) scored very well (112k psi) but it's street counterpart the 8100 only scores 76k psi and the 8100 ECO oil does even worse and many conventional oils out both 8100 options.

In your position, looking for an oil that's up to the task for DD/Track (additive package and high shear and temp stable) it appears there's better options than Motul for your application and cheaper options as well.

I had fun with it. It's meaningless. :) He should conduct these "tests" based on the ASTM tests used by the oil industry, but he can't afford it.

Some good comments here:
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums...Number=3124298

And for the record, Motul 300V does have enough detergents to handle a ~6k mile OCI with no problem. There are several uoa's in the long uoa thread.

I agree with this and your observation about the oil blog but that's why I said, "have fun with this."

That 540Rat test is fun though, it's not necessarily indicative of what's inside our engine but it is a test of one parameter and while that parameter doesn't mean much to our engines, it still fun data to compare.

What I did find was applicable to our uses is the breakdown and flashpoint temps. Find yourself running 280F oil temps and it may be something to consider.

Out of curiosity do you have a psi gauge? Just curious if you've logged the 0w-30 while on track for temp and psi.

No

Decided to go with Motul 8100 Eco-Lite 0w20 since I DD quite a bit, ran at Streets of Willow last weekend and saw max oil temps of 240F in 90F ambient after 8 hot laps with a JR oil cooler. I will be doing a UOA once I change the oil as well. Looking to keep temps around 220-230F to maintain safe oil pressures, any recommendations on the next cooling mod after an oil cooler?

For the track, I'd rather run Motul Eco-nergy 5W30. It has a higher HTHS which will keep your bearings happier during track time.

There is some track oil pressure data in this thread, although keep in mind that the higher HTHS oils 300V are being compared. The 8100 series 0W20 and 5W30 would probably show lower oil pressure (especially after some time on the oil) due to their lower HTHS.

Rotella t6 $22/5qts is plenty good for track and daily driving. Its prob the most popular oil for people who track their cars. Really don't need to shell out a lot of money for bandwagon type brands. If you want to get a little fancier, brad penn $6/qt oil is also great, but much harder to find readily. Valvoline vr-1 $9/qt racing is also great too and is available at autozone and such but not really needed unless you run e85.


I don't know how well our cars wear but 3 track days on a single change might be too much. Only way to tell is universal oil analysis.

I was just doing some reading on the endless oil threads, and it seems like the general consensus is that xxW-40 is too high of weight.

After much contemplation, I went with the Eneos 0W-20. I average around 2-3 autox events/month and some street miles on my basically stock FRS. We'll see how the oil performs, but based on others' results, I should be in good shape.

Is eneos 0w50 to thick for track? I was told it was ok for our cars.

They are wrong.

what? NA? who says that?

for NA I would do 5w-20
and for FI 5w-30 should be fine.. I have been using Mobil 1 5w-30 for my supercharged BRZ on both street and track and change them every other track day (or 3k miles whichever comes first), Mobil 1 is pretty close specs to those more expensive brands and since you have to change your oil every time it sees above 280F I don't see any reason to get something more expensive ..Mobil 1 is also cheaper at Walmart so changing them often is not a big deal

For you I would recommend the mobil 1 0w-40. It's a thin 40 and it's the european formula which is vastly superior than any USA Mobil 1 offering. Secondly, if you're seeing 280F oil temps at the track, you don't necessarily need to change your oil immediately but you DO need to run a 40 Cem because these cars do NOT like making oil pressure when the oil is very hot. That is extremely well documented on this very forum.

I run 0w-30 in my DD only FRS period. If I were doing double duty then the first thing I would switch to is a 0w-40.

That was the oil I was using last year with the same thing in mind Colin,
then I noticed that I was obviously missing an important point:

why do we want to see more oil pressure ? because it's a good indicator of how stable is the oil flow (fluidity) in the engine , well in theory yes but thinner oils do that naturally.. they're thinner so they flow better, get into the veins of the engine which ultimately balance the temps since it is the primary reason for the low temps ... so thicker doesn't necessarily mean more protective, well to some point yes .. if you think about it what would be the best oil if you keep your oil temps below 280 F, obviously the thinnest oil that you can get away with it..I've also heard many stories with people using 40 - 50 grade oil, racing teams use 15w-50 or 5w-50 oils but for race engines and special race oils AFAIK..

both me and my friends experienced the same thing when we switched back to 5w-30; the added friction was also responsible for the higher oil temps at track days... my friend's Miata is also boosted (KW kit) and he has full bolt on Camaro, similar results on all three cars .. it certainly has to do something with the tighter tolerances of the newer engines .. it might be different for your CRX though or any older engine perhaps.. my main concern now is the coolant temps so I will see how the Cosworth low temp thermostat work, I will also try to utilize that to operate the hybrid oil cooler I have in mind..

if you never tried extended Performance version, you might also want to take a look at it it's 5w-30 but on the higher side of the viscosity index, and pretty close to 0w-40 ..

for me, I'll just stick to what I have and address coolant temp and overheat issues at the core and continue changing my oil more often :thumbsup:

Just as an FYI, we were running 290F at the track with no oil cooler running Motul 8100 0w20 or 5w30. Our coolant temps however didn't go above 205 when we had the stock rad. Once we moved to the Koyo Rad the temps don't go over 196 on track and now with our Perrin Oil Coolers we don't see more than 238 on track for oil temps.

If you are seeing high coolant temps on track, even with stock radiator, you may have another issue going on with your car.

-mike

I have been using Koyo Rad for a long time ;) in fact I've installed the Radiator along with the supercharger kit, so I don't have any experience with stock radiator when boosted.. on very hot days and extended sessions, I was able to see the coolant temps go as high as 230s on many occasions .. what kind of mods are there on this specific car? what are the average RPMs throughout the sessions? ambient temps? track or auto-x events?

without some serious mods done for cooling, I don't think it's possible to keep the coolant temps below 210-220 (even with the Koyo Rad) when boosted or me driving it..if you think about it OEM thermostat starts allowing the flow after 194F and fully open at 203F by the time , for that specific reason I recently got a Cosworth Racing thermostat which will be installed soon.. they claim it allows the flow at 169F and fully opened at 194F..my friend was able to lower his coolant temps by 15-20 degrees on his Miata and keep it stable at around 210-220F when running without a thermostat, with a thermostat it might be a little better :)

We run 2 cars. A Spec86 Cup wheel to wheel race car doing 30+ min sprint races and 30 min sessions on track this is a full race car. Rpms are 5-7500 for the entire time. Our other car does DE and is similarly setup.

Do you run coolant? Water? Water wetter? Also do you have an oil cooler? When we tested the coolant-oil heat exchanger found on the 2015+ wrx we saw coolant temps hit 215-220. Once we went to a full oil cooler the coolant temps went back down to the 196-200 range.

-mike

I use Mobil 1 0W40. It's pretty much the only household brand oil that is a pure class 4 PAO base stock oil. And, I understand you can pick it up pretty cheap on sale in the US.

M1 seems pretty good with our engines despite factory turbo EJ Subaru engines seem to burn it.

The lower cost means you can change your oil more frequently which you should do if you're going to track it.

You've got part of the equation which "flow is good". Pressure is an important part of the equation too.. I'm totally fine with running as thin an oil as possible so long as target pressures are maintained. But if I can't make more than 50psi at 7k rpm with a 20wt oil at my operating temp (280f in your case) then I either need more viscosity or less temp.

What's your oil pressure at 7k rpms when your 30wt is at 280F?

More explanation:
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...&postcount=142

So yes, the thinner oil will be *a bit* better at shedding heat but please... PLEASE, don't blame your cooling system problems on your oil. Just fix your cooling system problem like AZP suggested, don't get a water/heat exchanger setup, get separate cooling systems for your coolant and oil. You're already experiencing a lack of cooling capacity no need to introduce an alternate option that allows your overly hot oil to remove cooling capacity of the new system.

Please achieve optimal oil pressure at your operating oil temp with whatever wt oil gets you to that point. Choosing an oil that's too thin simply because it "runs a bit cooler" most likely is robbing peter to pay paul for lack of a better euphemism. If you're dead set on running a 0w-30 come hell or high water, then you really need to bring down those oil temps.

ok that explains it , I make a lot more hp than Spec cars :) so for stock power levels your modifications should be more than enough and I can understand how you were able to keep those temps that low..

I stayed away from the water wetters after I saw my friend had a bad experience with Redline water wetter (leaves gunk when the coolant is overheated), many people had similar issues with Redline but Amsoil seems to be fine,, either way, they only help to lower the coolant temps about 5-10 degrees on average (if works properly) ..

I have OEM oil cooler which I know is nowhere near close to the airtooil type of stack coolers but I had my reasons to keep the WRX-Forester oil cooler for a while, I will report back how my Cosworth and my hybrid oil cooler project goes

the spec cars are not stock power.

But your issue is because you are using the OEM oil cooler.

If you track you should be using an external. Especially if you are FI.

You are going to do long term damage IMO to the motor if you run it at 280 on track constantly.

I will take 215-235 all day long.

Mike

I looked but couldn't find the track logs that I took last year,
if you're referring to the instant drop at those levels (280F and 7k rpms) I have to say 280F is my ceiling and I immediately go for a cool down lap and fresh oil makes a lot better job on protecting the engine than the old-thicker oil ..

keep in mind, we all noticed a drop in our oil temps with 5w-30 like many other people who have done the switch ,so if I have to choose between lower oil temps over a slight disadvantage of the pressures I would always go with the lower oil temps since I see it as a preventive method,