GC 0W30
 

Is anyone considering this oil in their BRZ/FRS? I picked up 6 quarts the other day and I'm looking forward to dumping it in this Wednesday when I hit 1000 miles.

Obviously GC has been proven to be a great oil but not all engines are treated equally so I was wondering if anyone already had GC in their FA20 and could give any input.

Im currently running it in my car, changed at 1500MI and its now got over 2500 on it. Looks and sounds good so far. I wont *really* know until after a UOA, though. First UOA on the breakin oil showed LOTS of a random metals/silica from the breakin period, hoping to see far reduced levels at my next change.

Mattles you're quick!

Hmm I didn't even consider doing a UOA but I probably should to get a baseline eh? What was the molybdenum concentration like?

UOA? Either I've had a brain fart or never heard this before... Can someone fill in the FNG to this term? :D

Used Oil Analysis

Well you know what, I have the PDF right here, so I just took a quick cap and anonymized it for your reading pleasure. :D

Iron, Copper, Moly Silicon are all retard-high, phos and zinc are too low, but not by much. Actual sample date is June 11 2012

You're the man! Thank you!

Viscosity is really low for only 1500 miles. Do you think this was Toyota or Idemitsu 0W-20?

I wonder if this DI engine is going to beat up oil like all the rest and have big fuel dilution issues.

Assuming the flashpoint of the oil is typically 415 or higher, your sample has at least 2% fuel which would explain the low viscosity.

I think GC 0W-30 might be too thick for this application, but depending fuel dilution it may be necessary to prevent the oil from thinning too much.

Good post and you make a good point about the fuel dilution. What makes you think that the 0W30 would be too thick? I understand it's considerably thicker than the stock oil but I'm curious to know why this would be so bad.

I think the fact that I never take short trips and my work is a 30-40 minute drive each way helps me justify going with GC.

GC is definitely great oil. But i agree it might be too thick, unless you track every other weekend.
Many people don't realize that GC is just as thick or a bit thicker than M1 0w-40.

Wait, it says 0.5% fuel on the report...or am I completely blind?

Yes, but I think Blackstone pulls the "should be" flashpoint out of thier ass. According to Blackstone themselves, every 20F is 1% fuel dilution. I'm sure if you lookup what the virgin flashpoint is on nearly any decent synthetic its probably somewhere between 415-440F.

I don't necessarily think that 0W-30 is too "thick" per say as to be bad for the engine but its going to sap horsepower from a car than can use as much as it can get.

Assuming that 0W-20 stayed in grade a little better (8.0+ cSt), then it should protect the engine just fine for any normal driving (not road course). GC is 12.0+ cSt which is consideably closer to a 40W than a 20W.

Lets assume we do have fuel dilution issues, maybe something like Mobil AFE 0W30 or a resource-conserving 5W30 will likely shear down to the 8-9 cSt range over the length of the OCI.

Thank you very much for the input guys.
@getbent I wish there was a positive way to tell if I had any power loss without shelling out money for a dyno just to feed my curiosity. I'm gonna send it in to blackstone when I'm done with it and post the results if anyone is interested, hopefully Mattle's will do a UOA too.

Good points about the anticipation of the oil degrading down to a lower viscosity. Just one thing though, I thought the SAE standard for an SAE 30 oil is a cSt range of 9.3-12.5 at 212 Degrees F, 100C.

Mobile 1 lists their 0w-20 at 8.7 cSt at 100C.
Mobile 1 lists their 0w-30 at 10.9 cSt at 100C.

The difference is only 2.2 cSt which is a pretty small difference and a dyno may only register a 1 hp loss.

I don't buy into the 0w-20... yet. I think most of it has to do with CAFE standards. However, I do know the NASCAR teams are racing on straight 0 weight oil and I know that thin doesn't mean less protection. On the race car I run a oil pressure and temp gauge and an oil cooler and I race on the thinnest oil I can for the temps I anticipate the oil will see for any given weekend.

If the 86 can make 10 psi of pressure for every 1000 rpms at 212F with 0w-20 oil then I will probably just stick with that. I theorize most new engines with a factory standard of running a thinner oil have probably increased their oil pressure to compensate. I have no tangible evidence of this, just hypothesizing.