Oil – Facts and Myths.
Can you tell one from the other? Born in the late 40’s I am very much a child of the hot rodding sixties. Having cut my teeth stripping simple single cylinder engines much earlier I pulled apart my first real engine, a flat head Ford, in 1962. Although intrigued with the inner workings the one thing that not only stood out but left a big and lasting impact, was the amount of sludge and varnish in the lifter valley. Seemingly the previous owner had been far from fastidious when it came to maintenance and oil changes. It ran through my mind then, and has many times since, as to why anyone would buy something as expensive as a car and not maintain the engine. Oil is cheap and engines are not and it seemed that was all the justification needed to totally support the then universally accepted short oil change intervals of typically 2000 miles that was deemed the wisdom of the day.
The oils of the 60’s, less money in my pocket, and the cost of engines left these low mile oil change intervals indelible imprinted on my mind. Leaving the same oil in the sump for even ten thousand miles would have seemed reckless and I would have no more entertained this idea than jumping from a plane without a chute! Like so many of my era I was locked in to the now 3000 mile oil change and I, along with countless thousands of others of my generation, have passed this down to subsequent generations of hot rodders and enthusiasts – and it now may not be the right thing to do. Should I feel any guilt here? Let’s see. First, if old oil is bad then new oil must be better so changing it frequently cannot be bad for the engine. Secondly, pull out the dipstick and take a look at the color of 3000 mile old oil. It’s black and surely that can’t be good? Based on the forgoing I should reasonably feel no guilt what so ever about sticking with the 3000 mile oil change interval – and for the record – I don’t. But oil formulations have change almost beyond recognition since the 60’s. 3000 miles changes, though totally OK for the well being of your engine might not be so for your pocket, time expenditure, and most importantly, for the environment!
Check Point Charlie.
I am sure all of us can look back and in hindsight see a point in time that, to some significant extent, redirected our life. I had decided early on in mine that making a living in the auto industry was not for me. It would, I was sure, ultimately destroy my hobby and passion for hot rods so I became a commercial realtor and have done OK at such. This has left me exactly where I wanted to be with my cars. It’s what I do to relax and have fun. My current hot rod is an 87 Corvette with a 600 plus hp injected 440 inch small block in it. A few years back, in an effort to cancel wear as far as humanly possible, I added, too the high dollar oil already in the crankcase, a highly publicized additive. I few months later I find, from an informed source, that this additive, basically a chlorinated paraffin, turns to hydrochloric acid when temperatures exceed about 400 degrees (which at certain points in the engine they can although bulk temps may be well below that). This literally shocked me into a ‘need to know more about oil’ mode.
When you have a $20,000 LS 6 engine cranking out some 675 hp it is not unreasonable to 'spoil' it in terms of short term oil changes. Whats the cost of an oil change every 3000 miles instead of every 10,000. It seems like cheap insurance and it sure won't do the engine any harm - but is it needed?
Up to this point I, like so many hot rodders, had accepted that the oil industry was simply taking care of us - and all we needed to do was – you got it – change the oil every 3000 miles. Here I am just a few years on and I can tell you the reality of what you think you need to know and what you should, are so far apart as to be almost scary. My mission here at GFN is to help bridge the gap between a professional automotive oil chemist and you, the hot rodder/racer/enthusiast. Pay attention here and you will learn what it takes to save money (as much as the price of a new car), fuel and the environment and go faster longer with an engine life extending to as much as a million miles.
Natural to Synthetic.
The Check Point Charlie of my oil life may have been the chlorinated paraffin’s but for the oil industry at large it was ‘synthetics’. To ease into this let’s start somewhere else on the car and see how ‘engineered’ as apposed to ‘natural’ materials have changed things. Tires may largely been of rubber from rubber trees in the twenties and lasted at best, 10,000 careful and slowly driven miles, but not now. Tires of man-made materials last three, four, even five times as long today and the 100,000 mile tire is all but upon us. And determining just when to change tires requires no keen technical ability since all you need do is look at the tread. The same cannot be said for oil. Knowing when oil is worn out takes some pretty high tech equipment and that is almost solely why the 3000 mile oil change is still with us so much today. But, like tires, oils have moved along so much that what was a disaster zone just 50 years ago can, assuming quality oil, almost certainly be the middle of a sweet spot.
I used to think that the oil manufactures deliberatly labled oil in such a manner as to make end users like you and I feel intelectually deficient. Now I know a little more I can say with every degree of certainly I was right!
Unless it is so far gone visual analysis of oil is not on. However, infrared spectroscopy along with other such analytical techniques can determine not only the oil’s current lubricating properties but also the state of the engine in terms of wear. Make no bones about it modern sophisticated oil analysis is an extremely powerful tool giving us a window on the entire lubrication and wear situation of an engine. Doubting this is almost like believing the earth is flat.
Not only are today’s oil technically superior but also the oil’s operating environment. Consider the engine itself. The machining tolerances and bore finishes of a modern engine today are so good, they would stand up to a custom blueprinted engine a generation ago. Consider fuel management. No longer is it even possible to flood the engine with fuel and contribute to oil dilution. Modern electronic fuel management has literally become your engine oil’s best friend; and finally consider filtration. If you’re buying the better ones today the oil is being filtered down to a micron level that was unheard of a generation ago. Just to put this into perspective for the younger generation, an oil filter on a 1955 Chevy was an option!
After my chlorinated paraffin additive checkpoint I sort of wandered through what ever technical papers I could find on oils and honestly understood but a fraction of what was written. I then found that Amsoil ran a tech school for their dealers which basically starts at square one. This seemed like it was for me so I became an active Amsoil dealer (ZO # 368204). What an eye opener this turned out to be. Looking back I realize just how much I was operating under the shadow of those images of sludge and varnish from the sixties. As this, and subsequent articles in what is intended to be a series goes forward, you will see how becoming associated with Amsoil has put me in a far more informed position than I would have otherwise been. I am now so much better equipped to recognize good oil and by that I don’t mean just an Amsoil product. There are a number of top quality oils out there. As important as recognizing a top quality oil is it is even more important to be able to recognize a poor quality oil or one ill suited for the job. I don’t have all the answers to possible oil questions but I can, with a great degree of certainty, guarantee that I know more, thanks initially to my Amsoil training and subsequently to the industry experts I have come to know, than most readers.
To make a point here let’s have a little fun with a ten question True or False quiz. If you cannot explain your answer, leave it blank. Also, no guessing since there is a 50/50 chance you would be right. If you want to play guessing games go to Las Vegas.
1. The W in 10W-30 means Weight.
2. A vehicle with straight SAE 60 viscosity grade oil has a higher viscosity (thicker) at operating temperature (212 F) than a vehicle that is about to start up for the first time on a hot day (104 F) with 0W-20 oil.
3. Mobil 1 and Mobil 1 Extended Performance are the same oil.
4. The latest API (American Petroleum Institute) oil is rated SM and you can run this modern oil in your older flat tappet hot rod.
5. API rated SA and SB oils that were introduced in the 1930’s and 40’s are not available today so are unlikely to end up in your engine’s sump.
6. 75W-90 gear lube has about the same viscosity as 20W-50 motor
oil.
7. The base stock in a true synthetic and a mineral oil are both a hydrocarbon.
8. Of the dozen ways to evaluate an oil for your engine, viscosity is about the most important consideration.
9. In America, unlike most of the rest of the world, a highly refined mineral oil can be called synthetic.
10. Oil analysis should determine how long you can go on your oil, not the quickie oil change industry’s 3,000 to 5,000 mile mantra.
In the next of my oil discussions I will give you the explanation for answers that can in no way be found in slick marketing images of galloping horses, splashing oil and fancy buzz words like “liquid engineering”. Meanwhile of the questions above the first five are false and the second true. How well did you score? For the record the average number of correct answers is only 2-3. If you got better than five right you are far more informed than the average enthusiast so pat yourself on the back. But while you are doing so consider this – if you knew only 50% of what it takes to assemble your engine correctly where would you be? My point here is even at a 50% score you need to know more and my job here at GFN will be giving you the info you need to make your investment go faster and last longer.
Greg ‘20-50’ Finnican.
My web site - lubrication-filtration.com
PS so where did I get the 20-50 moniker from? Suffice to say if you hang around tech editor Vizard a while you will get a knick-name.