The Goods On Oils

[Rolls]

The bottom line of it all...these are sports cars that we drive to enjoy them. So factual objective evidence aside, I don't care if an oil isn't as good as another, if it makes my car feel better to drive, I'm going to take that over the better performing one. On the subjective note though, it's not always a placebo effect. Placebo usually entails a falsified positive experience, but people here have also noticed bad things after an oil change...e.g. with the Nulon stuff.

I have no doubt that you can hear the difference of certain things especially when they break, I'm just doubting that you can hear the difference between two oils that are performing perfectly well without issue. I am sure that you guys are more than capable of diagnosing faults by ear, it is just when you have two oils that have no issue, but one 'feels' better, it just sounds wishy washy and inexact to me.

What everyone is actually talking about is confirmation bias. You expect your million dollar oil to make then engine feel better & lo and behold your head confirms it.

This is exactly why I brought up the blind test example, eg get someone else to change the oil to a really crap one and see if they can tell the difference.

Edited May 12, 2011 by Rolls

[D ENEMY]

I use and recommend Motul 300V Chrono 10w 40

I run that in my R34 GTR all day everyday.

I aslo do alot of track days and this oil runs 30-40 degrees cooler then any other oil in the market

Guys/Girls who do alot of track days will know

[Galois]

Try running a cheap ass shitty oil like magnatec for 1000km and then come back and tell us you cannot notice the difference. People criticising others' judgement, tell us which oils you have used and noticed no difference. You can't really criticise if you've only used high end good oils.

Many people notice their car's performance suffering on a hot day, before I realised it was this I always used to get frustrated in mid summer thinking there was a problem with the 34, it just didn't seem to pull as hard, didn't have that exciting explosion of power.

I also wouldn't have believed I could notice the difference between oils, until I put magnatec in. I'm not saying I could notice the difference between 8100 xmax and royal purple, same oils at same viscosities. But if you throw in an oil that's at the bottom end you will notice a change in noise, engine noise at high rpm and lifter noise, possibly leaking or burning off too quickly, smelling burnt after the change. Are you going to report back here and say you'd use it again?

[AngryRB]

yeah the Mobil 1 Gold, to me it seemed to start up more lively and idle maybe slightly higher and accelerate more keenly... just my opinion though, i dropped the castrol after doing a few hundred ks, .. not to say that it wouldnt be good in someone elses engine though..

[ARTZ]

what about PEAK oils, any one tried them..

[rollex]

what about PEAK oils, any one tried them..

Got a link to some info? Never heard of them personally.

What kind of pricing/specs have you seen?

[Harbor]

Hi everyone just joined as I'm negotiating my first skyline. Hope to have it by Friday. R32.

I was talking to a friend about oils and asking what he uses in his chaser. He is running a synthetic castrol oil. I told him about sougi 6000 as the company I work for sells it and started googling for some reference's on people that have used it. Just wanted to clear a few things up and confirm another few things said about sougi. Firstly sougi isn't going anywhere, Gulf Western is an expanding company and will continue to offer a huge range of oils and grease. Having said that sougi 5000 is being culled which is the semi sythetic.

Someone said earlier in the thread they were worried about more people finding out about it and the price going up. Gulf westerns prices are cheaper because it doesn't have the overheads of other companies as it doesn't have huge advertising campaigns. It relies on word of mouth and success stories similar to what I have been reading on here. Believe me if more people knew just through word of mouth it would be cheaper not more expensive.

As far as dealers for GW that can be a problem depending on where you are. Our Toowoomba branch is the main supplier of GW oil throughout regional QLD. Our other Branches all around the country have less coverage as they aren't a central point for distribution. Having said this all auto stores like autopro, etc have the ability to buy gulf western if they are getting asked for it. The second freight becomes a part of it you can blow the price of oil out for sure.

Clearly there is a market for quality oil and its bad that not everyone has access to it or knows of the advantages to using such an oil.

If its within the rules I can link my workplaces website which has pricing an locations to help people find and price it? I didn't name it or the company because this is probably a pretty sus first post. We are more wholesalers of GW oil and have very little retail sales on it and its very disappointing that sougi doesn't sell all that well within our branch and wholesale distribution throughout our part of regional QLD. Look forward to using sougi myself with my staff discount

To the sougi users. Do you still change every 5000k?

[scotty nm35]

Yes, but im not religious on change interval, before each dyno hammering for sure.

For the price S6000 cant be beaten but it is discontinued. I have 10 bottles in my stockpile though so I wont need any more for a while. Do you have any stock left?

[ARTZ]

Got a link to some info? Never heard of them personally.

What kind of pricing/specs have you seen?

I never heard of them either

http://www.peakoil.com.au/engine_oil_eco_syn_5w40.html

http://www.peakoil.com.au/tech_data_sheets/engine_oil/ECO-SYN%205W40pb.pdf

they also stock ELF

can get 20lt for 160$ but cant find any info on it anywhere..

Looks reasonable enough on paper though..

[Harbor]

I apologize I made a dick of myself Sougi 6000 is also discontinued, nearly fell off my seat when I asked that this morning. We are in the Ag industry and have very little sales of that sort of thing so I was out of the loop apparently. Reason they have discontinued it is the PAO base is too expensive as well and the market is small without getting into the advertising war. We only have 7 Sougi 6000 left in all our branches so you have more then us!! I didn't check how much 5000 we had. I had an in depth oil meeting with the gulf western rep as they are starting education for us and providing us with more selling tools (more on this later) which will shed some light on everything. At the end of the day if you are running high performance imports gulf 1 is a better choice then sougi and this is why they knocked it on the head.

If your running a stock car the manufacturers suggested specs will do the job needed which for most skylines is a 10w30 premium energy. The problem with following the manufactures specs is they quite often look at the manufacturers country of origin to spec it to. Not only that but a 10w30 will be more fuel economic then a 10w40 so the second fuel economy comes into it your being short changed high performance quality oil for fuel economy. As engines get older and get more wear a 10w30 is not the best option. If you wanted to bump up your stock cars oil quality without hurting the pocket (not that gulf 1/sougi is all that expensive) the pick of the oils to use would be the syn-x 3000 (semi synthetic 10w40). IF you have a modified car the group 4 choice is sougi 6000 while it lasts, or for the same price gulf 1 group 5 oil. Gulf 1 also comes in 20L and 205L if you want to save extra $.

[scotty nm35]

The 6000 is a group 5. What is the retail price on the 20L and 205L Gulf 1? Is it suitable to use with ethanol/e85 also?

[Moodles2]

Sougi S6000 is a ester base (group 5) not PAO (group 4).. not to mention Gulf 1 is 10w60, which is more suitable for track usage with engine that have blowby problems.

[skins]

Has anyone tried to run their engine on hydraulic oil? I just read an article where a fellow has a 80's mitsubishi scorpion which has a oil leak. One day in the shop he had to fill the oil but didn't have anything available apart from Mobil hydraulic oil. He filled it with that (temporary) but then decided to run it on that all the time. He said in the article that since he has run it on that he hasn't had any issues.

Any theories on what it would do to the internals of the engine?

[rollex]

What are the specs on hydraulic oil? It is probably designed for a completely different operating temp range and without all the friction modifiers, I imagine it'd be the wrong visciousity, burn really badly and have too much friction.

The guy sounds like an idiot.

Edited May 18, 2011 by rollex

[Birds]

In theory it will work, but don't expect it to do anywhere near the job of a proper engine oil. Most hydraulic oil is monograde (meaning one viscosity and no friction modifiers, i.e. will become too thin on warmup or will start off too thick on startup. It also won't contain the detergents and additive package necessary to clean an engine. In a hydraulic application, the oil is mostly there to lubricate and create an hydraulic motion.

Where engine oil viscosity is measured by SAE standard (e.g. 15w40), hydraulic oil viscosity is usually measured by ISO standard (e.g. 46, 68, 220). I don't have it on me at the moment, but I've seen a chart that pits ISO measurements against SAE to show what is the equivalent. It's probably on the Internet somewhere.

So yes, you can find an hydraulic equivalent, but for the reasons in my first paragraph I wouldn't do it outside of an emergency or in a car you care about. The guy in the article probably used a real thick hydraulic oil which would have plugged the leak.

EDIT: Just remembering the GW product range at work...there are a couple of special "all rounder" hydraulic oils you can get, such as Agritrans or Farmoil, which are designed primarily for tractors and earthmoving/agricultural machines. These all-in-ones can be used in the engine crankcase, transmission, wet clutch and brake/steering/hydraulic reservoirs of the equipment. I don't doubt you could get away with using one of these in a car engine, they even meet the specification of an older engine's requirements...but again, it wouldn't be ideal and I don't recommend it for a road car.

[AngryRB]

I guess its still an oil which will lubricate the parts, probably accelerate engine wear , but arnt all those mitsubishis pretty gutless and noisey anyway, even with good oil they all seem to start smoking well before a nissan..

if it were thick it might lead to some oil starvation that if severe maybe cause big end bearing to sieze, although an old motor would have large clearances so maybe thats why its had no problems

[Ninja gts25t]

i just use royal purple thats the way to go

[Harbor]

Your right about the PAO thing I questioned the rep and thats what he said I must have confused what he said about the gulf 1/sougi. I just read the full specs then and seen that. There are no 20l or 205l sougi left in stock in our branches. I think gulf 1 works out at $1950+gst retail for a 205L. We have a new oil rep starting this week so it will be good to have one that actually cares and answers questions with enthusiasm. The new rep worked as a caltex oil rep for years and has recently changed sides. I bought my skyline today and it has 1000km before needing a service so I will have an in depth chat with him as to what I should use. I'm enjoying learning about oil there is so much misinformation out there and broscience.

Further to the comment about gulf 1 being a track oil. Can I ask why you say that? I'm not saying thats not correct but I want to know why you say it as the rep suggested I use gulf 1 now that sougi 6000 is gone.

Also as far as using hydraulic oil in your engine Birds said it perfectly. The additive packages in these oils is crucial. The agritrans and farmoil mentioned is quite often used in older tractors motors and its handy for farmers to buy a 205l over 6 different 20l but if they have a late model truck or tractor just because its the same viscosity doesn't mean it will do the job. Agritrans also meets power steering fluid specs in allot of agricultural machines. A hydraulic ISO 100 is equivalent to an SAE30 oil.

We now have the power in order to convert people to gulf western to take an oil sample before an oil change. Supply them with free oil then take another sample when its due for the change. Gulf western is more then confident that we will beat other oils. This is being made so the selling tactic is no longer "We are cheaper", Its " we have an excellent top quality product and are willing to pay for the oil and testing to show you". I think this is an excellent strategy for all the people out there that don't understand that gulf western is cheaper because it doesn't have the overheads not because its made in a third world country and is bad quality. Similar to what is said above in the oil test we look at how much of the additive package is still in the oil and how much iron is in the oil..etc. We can only do this for larger companies, transport companies and industrial machinery companies but we are able to just buy the tests and the price includes the sample bottle and the results being mailed to you. Need to be a pro to read the stuff though.

[joeyjoejoejuniorshabadoo]

i just use royal purple thats the way to go

royal purple what?

[beemae30]

Motul 8100xcess here Smells funk but good stuff so far had it for around 1000kms and made a noticible difference in response. Probably mostly due to the old oil from the P/o