Bad Mystery Engine Noise

I think a semi and certainly a fully synthetic is asking for trouble. I'm on 20W50 and leak (& squeak) free.

 

I live in New England. Weather is not all that different from the UK in summer, probably colder in winter. I have been running 20W/50 Pennzoil organic oil for as long as I can remember. Had the car since new, going on 30 years. That's what I would suggest. Never seen a synthetic or semi synthetic.

 

Oils from 0w40 syn to 20w50 dino are used in these cars with no issues of squeaking valves. The owners manual on my 328 shows 10W40 synthetic as the recommended oil...

IOW, certainly, if you want to change to some other oil, do so. But don't expect the noise to quit because of the change.

 

+1 The recommended oil for the 328 is AGIP Sint 2000 10W40 which (AFIAK) is synthetic.

I've used Mobil 1 0W40 (synth) for the last 6 or 7 years without issue.

Anecdotally, you can run 0W40, 10W40, even 20W50 if you must (though I can't see why you would unless you live somewhere very hot) & to be honest they should all be fine (ish).

My understanding of the oil grade numbers (and somebody please correct me if I'm wrong)is that

A 20Wxx oil will be much thicker when cold than a 0Wxx oil so the point of running the latter is to get it up & round the engine faster at cold start. I suppose if you had a fairly worn engine then it might make some sense to run a 10Wxx or 15Wxx oil.

Bearing in mind Bell's problem only happens with warm cranking, this part of the oil grade shouldn't be a factor in this - in theory.

A xxW50W oil will not reach operating viscosity till a higher temperature then an xxW40 oil. Again, I'm not sure why you would run an xxW50 in a 308/328/Mondi where Ferrari say to run it on xxW40. a 60W oil will need an even higher temperature to reach the correct operating viscosity.

Unless you drive the car very hard, will a 50W oil ever even reach the correct operating viscosity? I don't know (though I expect the operating temperature ranges of a W40 and a W50 do overlap by some considerable amount).

Personally, if it was my engine, I'd carry on looking for the problem, I wouldn't change the oil & hope that would mask it & to be honest I would doubt it will anyway. It simply shouldn't make that noise under any circumstances IMO.

 

The reality is that just because it makes a noise doesn't means there is something wrong.

 

True, but the consequences of there being something wrong on one of these things are not small!

 

I cannot agree with that; the noise is abnormal and indicates SOMETHING is wrong. What, exactly, that is or how serious it might be is unknown at the moment.

 

I hear what you say Ian, just remember that the original factory spec for 308's were 10w50 and only because it "was" longer made Ferrari changed/superseeded to 10w40 as for 328's back in the day, ( part where you mention : I'm not sure why you would run an xxW50 in a 308/328/Mondi where Ferrari say to run it on xxW40. ) Ferrari only say that originally back in the early 80's because of unavailability, but as we all know they are available now..

I would actually use 5/10w50 ( mostly all synthetic now) since they give better protection at high temps, less oil seepage through camseals because of higher viscosity etc, just IMO... especially high miliage engines, the OM even recommend shell / castrol 10w60 for the high milers...

yet again this got nothing to do with the noise...

 

+1

I would deliberately not change the oil in case it masked it and I would then never find out what it was.

 

I think Ferrari just recommended whatever oil the company which was paying them for endorsement at the time (eg Agip, Shell) told them to.

 

I just had a revelation.. or maybe I just remembered something..

Bell, put a dial gauge on the cam at the bearing areas and spin it to see if there is too much movement at the one bearing where the wear was showing. Or did you do that already? Steady downward pressure with one hand and rotate a bit with the other. Check each bearing area relative to the others..

Just to establish if the cam is not true.

 

Good debate Chaps, keep it coming...
Just to say that I want to fix this issue, but now I need to buy time.
Oil in the car is 10W40 Mobil 2000 semi synthetic.
Would a 10w60 be better for my particular issue I wonder,
Smg2 says the oil must have zinc, I think it zzd but I can't ever find that info on UK oil specs anywhere.

Remember. Guys I'm just trying to buy time here, summer is nearly over and I've used the bloody Ferrari a handful of times, just a bit tired of it right now. Thank god for my old Lotus, that never let's me down.
Many thanks once again, Bell.

 

Bell, IMO, the 1st thing you should have done was to change the oil to organic. As I said, I would recommend 20W/50 racing oil as it has high concentrations of ZDP. I would still make the change but there is no guarantee it will make the noise go away even if the change to synthetic was the cause. This is because if the oil was the cause the noise may be a result of damage cause by the oil. On the other hand, if changing to 20W/50 does result in the noise going away I would think it would be reasonable to suspect that the oil was the cause, and no damage resulted and that the change to 20W/50 is not masking anything, and I personally would not look further.

On the other hand, the noise could be completely unrelated to the oil and it was nothing more than a coincidence that it started when you changed the oil.

So what does 7 L of oil cost in the UK? 50 pounds? Less than a tank of gas I suspect.

Good luck with it.

 

I believe what johnk is saying has some merit. My 84 Euro had a complete engine rebuild by two of the Factory trained mechanics with less than 10k miles on the odo. Car was originally shipped to Saudi Arabia and Apparently they are not big on checking oil levels It was relayed by these Ferrari Master Mechanics to ONLY USE 20w50 Dino.... I believe these guys to be a lot smarter than me in all things Ferrari, so that's what stays in both QV/82

 

Exactly. ~£50 for 10 litres of VR1 20W50 mineral. And more to the point, 30 minutes to drain & refill? Even if it doesn't work, it'll help your understanding.

 

Sure, you can change the oil and, as has been noted, what harm is there? None. BUT OTOH, changing the oil to fix this problem would be like changing the brand of antifreeze to fix an overheating issue.

 

There's alittle more involved than that (roll eyes)

 

There are enough of us running enough different types of oil to prove that these engines are just not that sensitive to oil type and grade. If the thing is working it will run happily on 0W40, 20W50 Dino or fully synth & anything else in between! You pays your money & takes your choice.

Changing the oil grade or type is NOT the answer IMO, even as a short term fix.

The Zinc issue seems to be a US specific thing, its not an issue that we see or hear about here in Europe that I know of.

The oil that Bell has in the thing is perfectly good middle of the road stuff, changing it isn't going to do anything

(All that said, a xxW60 oil is unlikely to ever reach proper operating viscosity in one of these engines under normal use IMO, it won't get hot enough).

 

Probably correct but before Bell starts pulling the motor apart......

 

Ok Guys are we going with John on this, he says 20W50 organic not synthetic....
I know this might not fix anything and yes I know I should pull the engine, I'm just a bit tired of it all now. If it goes bang which I think it probably will, then I still have to pull the engine...and I have my fault ;-)
If it lasts the summer then great and I'll fix it in the winter.
This is not the way I like to do things but I feel like I'm chasing phantom sounds that no one else seems that worried about at my local dealership, even they said shove a differant oil in it, so what do you do eh?
The other alternative is shove the bloody Ferrari in a corner somewhere and forget about it till fall,
we do have Emilys lovely 1976 X19 to play with now also so life is good and it's such a fun and pretty little car.
All the best, Bell

 

Hell, I missed he went to 10-40W.

NEVER drop below 50W in my cars, thicken it back up, Mobil 1 or even better Royal Purple, and run it!!

 

or 5w50..0w50....I run 20w50 all year, but that's in Houston, Texas

 

OK I know that any question in regards to oil will spark a debate.. however please read up on oil and the basics of viscosity and shear w/ respect to grade. A couple good links..

How Do You Choose the Right Type of Oil for Your Car?
http://mysite.verizon.net/oldhokie/windyridge/oil.pdf
Oil Viscosity Explained

And until all the seals and bearings have been replaced in these engines with those designed for synthetics it's best to stick with conventional oil.

 

Agreed, but I get the Royal Purple free under a sponsorship and live at an apartment so don't care about the pavement....LOL!

 

Ok Guys, so looks like a 10 or 20w50 mineral oil for me then