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FAST FRED (209.26.110.148)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 9:23 am: | |
Found this interestin site that has a good discussion on the value , or rather the lack of value in oil additives , teflon ect.
Might be worth a read before you buy some MAGIC GOO.
http://www.oldengine.org/unfaq/additive.htm
FAST FRED |
Glang (205.188.196.48)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 10:42 am: | |
Great article Fred. Thanks |
jjimage (207.30.189.172)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 10:53 am: | |
Thank you Fast Fred for your home work! It added to my file.
Happy Journey! Sojourner |
Jim (208.189.57.94)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 11:28 am: | |
Good article although a little dated. It was published in 1992. |
bob neely (209.30.249.41)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 12:35 pm: | |
Fred,do you have any good information on
or about fuel additives. |
Clarke Echols (207.174.160.68)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 3:23 pm: | |
There was a big flap in one of the engineering trade journals I used to subscribe to several years back about "Slick 50" and some of the other oil additives using Teflon powder. The trouble is, you're not looking for just something to reduce friction; engine oils fill a much more complex function.
High quality engine oils contain detergents to keep particulates in suspension until trapped by the filter and to help reduce the effects of acids and other nasty chemical compounds resulting from combustion of the fuel. The lifetime of these detergents and related chemical additives is limited because they cannot exceed a small percentage of total oil volume due to other requirements.
Variable viscosity oils (10W30, 10W40, 20W50,
etc.) use thickeners, and the wider viscosity ranges (10W40 or 5W50 in gasoline engines, for example) contain more thickeners, to the detriment of engine life. Gasoline engines using
10W40 oil show significantly higher wear than engines running on 10W30, and the lowest wear comes from using single-viscosity oil (I use 30W in Colorado from the first oil change after Feb 15 until the last one before mid-November or so).
I only use 10W30 in the coldest winter months.
Metallic additives (copper and other metals) in oil coat the cylinder walls and piston rings when the heat of combustion burns the very thin layer of oil that is left on the cylinder walls as the piston rings, on the downstroke, wipe off most of the oil sprayed onto the walls during the upstroke. This reduces cylinder-wall wear and greatly increases engine life. However, these additives also break down as the age of the oil increases between oil changes.
Synthetic oils are sometimes claimed to have dramatic benefits, and some suggest you can even run 25,000 miles between oil changes. However, you generally will not get the benefits of metallic deposition to reduce cylinder wear. The machinist (now retired) who did my engine work for years found in over 35 years of precision engine machining (this guy was as meticulous as a Swiss watchmaker) that the engines with the worst wear coming into his shop had run on synthetics oils, next worst were those run on 10W40, followed by 10W30 users (all were gasoline engines). I have found that I get startlingly good engine life using 30W except in the cold part of the year. I also do not idle my gasoline engines to warm them up in winter (diesel engines are somewhat different -- they need to be warmed up a bit before being placed under full load), but still it makes sense to minimize idle time when an engine is cold because that's when wear is the worst. A couple of minutes of cold-idle on a gas engine can be worse than 20 miles of normal driving.
DuPont tried to prevent sale of powdered teflon for use in Slick 50, but the Slick 50 folks apparently went to the Federal Trade Commission, complaining of restraint of trade, and got their supply re-established. In any case, the benefit of teflon as an engine lubricant is seriously questioned by many engineers who are familiar with internal-combustion engines.
I have used oil additives with a graphite-like content or metallic copper, etc., with no adverse effects; but I am not inclined to use teflon or other such additives because the behavior of such materials at high engine temperatures is not reliable.
Remember that a MAJOR purpose of motor oil is to spray onto the piston skirts as a piston coolant.
There is no practical way to transfer heat build-up from the piston to the cylinders, and when insufficient oil is available to cool adequately in the pan before being pumped back up into the system, increased oil temperatures can cause thermal expansion of the piston due to higher piston temperature until the piston begins dragging on the cylinder wall (though still well-oiled), possibly increasing downstroke force on intake sufficiently to break the connecting-rod bolts at the crankshaft, ruining an engine (my son lost the engine in his Geo Metro when a leak from the oil filter base due to improper installation by the local Jiffy-Lube store caused this exact problem. The engine had lost about 80% of its normal oil supply and the rod bolts broke, ruining the engine. That was over three years ago, and the Jiffy-Lube store owner still refuses to make the promised engine replacement).
Don't have a lot of experience with fuel additives. Some are good; others less so. |
Dale Leyten (Fdale) (199.247.228.240)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 3:47 pm: | |
Just what my Father told me many years ago - buy good oil and change it LOTS!! Like the old Caterpiller fuel tank cap says - buy clean fuel - keep it clean. Same goes for oil. thanks FF for the info on site. Its great. |
Mike Eades (Mike4905) (207.190.10.203)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 7:52 pm: | |
Consider the fact that most of our engines are two stroke. Multigrades are not good and all the bells and whistles for for all don't work. I have a little problem in finding a non mulitigrade oil.I find some truck stops carry the straight 30 and when I find it, I buy enough to keep me full. I use about quart or two in 1500 = 2000 miles Not bad. I change every 15k. Happy holidays Mike |
Chuck Harris PD4104 (207.172.7.100)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 4:59 pm: | |
I certainly am curious about Clarke's stats
about 10W40 oil. I have never met a machine
shop that has surveyed its customers about oil
habits.
I have, however, used Castrol 10W40 extensively
in a number of my cars, and I had the occasion
to remove the head on a Datsun (head gasket
rusted thru) with 300,000 miles. It had used
nothing but Castrol 10W40, and had NO ring
ridge! None! The car was finally taken off the
road because the body was rusted away, but the
engine was quite fine. It used about 1/2 qt
between 4-5000 mile oil changes at the end.
So, given that there is no way to tell what
the old juice in the engines he remanufactured
was, I have to wonder just how this info was
compiled.
-Chuck |
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