Thread:

What oil are you running and why?

Royal Purple 50wt. I was told blower motors run good with 50wt and i decided to go with Royal purple

I have been using Valvoline Oils my entire life. I have never had an oil related failure. I use Durablend 10W-40 in my '91 SD F250 4x4, in my '94 I use Synpower 5W-40 and in my Race Boat I run Valvoline Racing non street legal 20W-50 Synthetic. I always have a case of Valvoline Racing VR1 ready if needed at the races, you never know if someone may need some oil.

The Valvoline VR1 20-50 is a good "off the shelf" choice and is really not that bad economically... about 4 bucks a quart at Autozone. Though the amount of zinc it contains is not as much as other "off highway" race oils... but then again... it's offered on the shelf and quite convienant to purchase. I've used it and it seems to, for the most part, work fine. Wouldn't just use it alone on a flat tapper cam without some sort of additive... but that's just me being super-duper paranoid.

Personaly... I prefer Maxima Synthetic Blend 20-50... you get the best of both worlds... high heat resistance and loads of anti-friction goodie stuff in it... but it is 1) Harder to find... and 2)Pricey. Cool thing I found about it in my family cruser is that I do not see the oil fluctuation driving long distances I used to see with Valvoline... old school Kendall... Brad Penn... and a few others I have tried. Used to be I'd drive about 5-10 miles up river and the oil temp would go through the roof... and the pressure would fall like crazy... then after a single river trip... the oil would be wasted. With the synthetic blend it holds up to the temp and I get about 1/2 a season before changing the oil... (about 2-3 drums of c-12)

I use Redline Racing 30w synthetic. I've read some good articles on it on speedtalk along with some of the TAH guys saying that they have seen improvements with bearing life compared to the rest. Plus if Pro Stock is using it then it has to be good (0-2w)!!

15-40W in hyd roller engines, because the Navy says so...

For the straight 40 and 50 weight dinosaur oil guys.... When you get the opportunity run your engine on a dyno with it in the pan. Then switch to a 20-50 or 15-40 Synthetic oil. Once you see your power increase and your oil temps drop 20+ degrees I wonder if you'll stick with the "old stuff" ??? Just a thought.

I've run Mobil One 20-50 and 15-40 and Royal Purple 20-50 and 15-40.
I've run them with and without Lucas Oil stabilizer. I heard Amz-Oil makes a good product and as Bostick stated Maxima is a good product.

Redline, Motul , Amz-Oil, Maxima if you have the extra $$$$$$ ,but just about any quality synthetic oil will do.

Sleeper CP

Originally Posted by Sleeper CP

For the straight 40 and 50 weight dinosaur oil guys.... When you get the opportunity run your engine on a dyno with it in the pan. Then switch to a 20-50 or 15-40 Synthetic oil. Once you see your power increase and your oil temps drop 20+ degrees I wonder if you'll stick with the "old stuff" ??? Just a thought.

I've run Mobil One 20-50 and 15-40 and Royal Purple 20-50 and 15-40.
I've run them with and without Lucas Oil stabilizer. I heard Amz-Oil makes a good product and as Bostick stated Maxima is a good product.

Redline, Motul , Amz-Oil, Maxima if you have the extra $$$$$$ ,but just about any quality synthetic oil will do.

Sleeper CP

Sleeper, when do you run the 2050 as opposed to the 15 40? Colder temps? What's a good weight/oil for summer time mild motor in a boat? Thanks! I have been running 20 50 valvoline racing.

Originally Posted by Tahiti Boss21

Sleeper, when do you run the 2050 as opposed to the 15 40? Colder temps? .

It kind of started out that way.. beginning of the season with cool water we ran 15/40 then in July switched to 20-50. Since we run an oil cooler I thought the thinner oil would be good when the heat exchanger water was on the cold side. Not sure it much matters because we just set the intake water volume so that while headed up river to Picacho (12-14 miles depending on where we go) at 3,900-4,000 rpms (approx 48-50 mph depending on load) the oil temp will run 190-200*( water temp at 140-150). I could only imagine what it would be without the cooler. When we run it hard on back to back race passes it will go to 220-225 *.

When the water temp gets warmer we adjust the intake water to the change. This year I'll more than likely just run 20-50 all year because of a few reasons.

The original question of this thread stated : what oil you guys are running and why ?

The why part for the synthetic includes talking to a Mobil One engineer 20 years ago about their oil vs other oils, a friend of mine who was a crew chief for a Winston West (Nascar team) they put synthetic gear oil in a transmission that they had bearing issues with with no other changes the synthetic gear oil dropped the tranny temp 90* , no more bearing issues. After that they dropped the Kendall racing oil they were running and put synthetic in the race car and dropped the temp of the oil 40* during race laps. All of this was over 15 years before I talked to the GM engineer who made the decision to start running Mobil One in the Vetts as they came from the factory. Ricky Johnson introduced me to him one year at the Baja 1000, the research GM did before they switched should be enough to convince anyone as to how much better synthetics are over standard petroleum oils.

I keep doing it because I've seen the 565 pickup 10-12 hp on the dyno after dropping a standard 20-50 and switching in a Mobil One 20-50 (have done this 3 times) but actually much more important than the 12 hp is the fact of what it takes to heat the oil up on the dyno once you switch it out. The dyno operator really has to load the engine to pull the oil temp up to 180* or whatever temp you want to start your pulls at as compared to running the standard oil and how fast it will come up to temp before the dyno pulls. That has been my experience with my two of my BB's, two smblks and 2 friends engines we switched oil while on the dyno. Someone else's experience may differ but that has been mine.


S CP

Castrol Syntech synthetic (not blend), 20W-50, because it is plenty good.

I run different weights in everything we drive, same oil.
10w-30 in wife's Blazer
10w-40 in my F-150
20w-50 on the CB-750 Four and XZ-750 F4 Ninja 750R

The lawnmower gets dyno-oil, maybe not the brand new one tho.