+1
Castrol themselves now recommend Syntec (or more recently, Edge) 5W50 for any application that formerly used 20W50, like our Ferraris. The 5W50 has a higher zinc content as well, but it's important to recognize that there's no scenario where a 20W cold weight is preferable to a 5W cold weight - the 20W at ambient temp is simply too viscous, and takes too long to reach operating pressure and flow on a cold start. The thinner 5W cold is still more viscous than the hot 50 viscosity, but circulates to provide protection and pressure much more quickly on a cold start than will a 10W or 20W oil. Improved protection on a cold startup, by using the thinnest cold oil possible, is critical to preventing engine wear - around 80% of engine wear occurs on cold starts. I'd go with a synthetic 5W50 like the Castrol Edge or Redline if I wanted a hot 50 weight oil, or synthetic 0W40 like the Mobil 1 Euro 0W40 or new Castrol Edge 0W40 if I were happy with 40 weight.
5W-40 full synth (or 5W-50 full synth) is by far a better choice than any other oil for a 308 or a 328. The firm is not important at all. A 20W-50 is a poor oil and a 10W-60 is a bad oil for a vintage car like 308-328. On turbo cars please avoid the 20W-50 (and the 15W-50 and 15W-40) and go for the 5W-50 (even better of the 5W-40 on the turbo cars) or, at least, go with a 100% synthetic oil. ciao
One of the major Ferrari-only service centers over here firmly disagrees with you. They do recommend the shell 10W60 for the 308/328 So please share why you think 10W60 is bad. Especially as you recommend full synthetic. btw I use it in all my cars without any issues.
0W 40 Mobil 1. The "low number" has nothing to do with the oil viscosity at operating temp. 0W40, 10W40, and 15W40 are the same viscosity at operating temp. You want the "W" as low as possible for cold startups to get the oil where it needs to be ASAP. Simply check your oil pressure with various weight oils, the LOWEST viscosity oil that will maintain 10PSI per thousand RPM is the "correct" oil. Running heavier oil than that serves no purpose other than to use additional HP to drive the pump... This added a few minutes later: The most important thing is to do what you are comfortable doing. If you believe you MUST have a high W number and/or heavier oil, then do what makes you comfortable. Otherwise you will just spend needless time worrying. FWIW, we bought a new knock-around car yesterday - a 2015 Hyundai - and the factory recommended oil is 5W20! Engine has a 100k mile warranty.
correct. however i deviated from the 40 and went to 60. The kinematic viscosity at say 100 C with the 60 is 23+ with the shell racing xxW40 it is 14.4 wth the knowledge that any oil's kinematic viscosity will decrease pretty quickly when used i choose the xxW60 just to build in some extra safety. as for the low number. 10 might be a bit high for winter applications, but with the European winters i'm not driving it in those conditions anyway.
Yip w60 more for warm climate countries and engines running hotter (racing etc ) but it will not do harm to 3x8 engines, most pro mechanics recommends w60 for high mileage engines. I use full synth 5w50 on my 328, 10w50 are very close to 5w50 looking at flow rates on both cold and warmed up engines. 10w50 just becoming scares..
Just want to share a very interesting observation with Valvoline 20-50 which I also ran for a long time. I like to remove the oil filler cap and observe the oil flow occasionally. Disclaimer ... this is a motor that I converted to dry sump BUT I would see the oil pressure immediately register unlike my wet sump car which would take a second or two. Anyway one cold morning (about 42 deg f ... not real cold ... Cali cold ), while I was admiring the cam lope and the steam coming out of the tail pipes, I took off the oil cap to observe the oil flow to the cams and there was hardly any ... I immediately revved the motor from the engine compartment to get the oil up there. Once the oil got slightly warm there was no issue. Switched to 5-50 Redline and haven't seen the problem since. I saw something very similar on my wet sump car when I did an oil change. I let the oil drain out over night and when I refilled the next morning, the oil pressure came right up but there was no oil coming thru the cams. As soon as I revved the motor up over 2k rpm the oil started to flow. I have that car apart right now but will be very curious when I get er back together if there are similar problems with the cams oiling at start up. We also saw this same thing when we started up a fellow fchatters car after rebuild. There was oil pressure on the gauge but no oil to the cams ... once we revved the motor it cleared what was probably an air lock in the top end. Anyway it's a good feeling to see oil flow to the heads at cold start up when idling... but whatever you do don't drop the oil filler cap into the cam belts! Also FWIW I think this is what mighta killed my web cams years ago. I was changing the oil all the time but I never looked at the oil flow to the cams and there was definitely an air lock of sorts in the top end of that motor after oil change... don't know what it was doing at cold start up just idling though. I do know the oil pressure registered properly because I put aftermarket gauges in that car that I can trust. Long rambling post but wanted to share ... cheers
I use nothing but 20w/50 Castrol in the 308 and my 97 Jeep Wrangler. Easy to find, even Sam's sells it. Does it protect, My jeep has over 300,000 miles on it, not bad for American car!
Am I supposed to beat you up over something? Oil is a topic that has more biases than about any other topic I can think of and I am not limiting that to car topics so for the most part I really don't pay them any attention. My rules of thumb are for old iron cylinder Ferraris I use 20/50 Valvoline dinosaur oil. For anything QV and up I use 5-40 Redline up to the newer cars that call for W60 then I use 10-60. I also use 10-60 for any serious track use.
Yes. I said I couldn't remember the actual spec in the manual but that I recalled it was 15W40. It's actually 10W40. So I put my hands out on the counter so you can hit my knuckles with a ruler. -F
Consider yourself punished. Besides it is nowhere near as bad an oil reference as we have had here on numerous occasions. 15/40 if you could get it isn't a bad choice in many circumstances. Better than running on 0/20 or something dumb like that.
As mentioned in many previous posts having zinc in the oil is very important. Many of the newer passenger car oils including synthetics have removed as much zinc as possible to meet EPA mandates. Look for an oil with higher levels of zinc like are found in Redline, Valvoline VR1 (levels have been reduced though) and Brad Penn. I am sure there are other oil brands that contain zinc.
Not cheap by any means, but here's a full synth, 10W50 motor oil, designed mainly for off road use, with old-school API ratings (indicating high zinc/phosphorous levels): MOTOREX I may eventually switch to this as I was using Motul 5100 10W50, but it looks like they've discontinued it. They market a 10W50, but is rated at the current API SN level (so very low zinc content).
Enclosed is a page from a Mobil 1 product guide from a few years ago. I have been using 0W-40 because of the cooler temps in CO. It's not uncommon to start at around 40-50 deg. F even in the summer. Also that oil has a high Phosphorus content. However, I am wondering if I need to up it to 5W-50 for the warm operation protection. -F Image Unavailable, Please Login
Okay, I'm trying to reconcile Ali Haas' compendium of work WRT viscosity and wear across operating temperatures, with the advice here, that sometimes reaches beyond that (to areas such as zinc and phosphorus content, etc.), and I need some help. Haas' work seems to say these oils ALL behave roughly alike at normal street operating temperatures: that is, they all behave like a viscosity of around 10 at 100 degrees C, but they're ALL too viscous at cooler (ambient) temps that our cars experience at startup. His recommendation seems to be that, for street operation, we should all be using a 0Wsomething or so to minimize startup wear, while keeping to around a 10 viscosity at operating temps, and choose whatever oil gives around 10 psi/1000 rpm on our oil pressure gauges. Beyond that, we should all be choosing something different (more viscous @ 100C) for racing operations, where operating temperatures get higher than that. But here, we all seem to be recommending other oil ratings, and saying that 0Wanything is a poor choice. How do I reconcile all this to arrive at the best oil choice for my 1988 vintage 3x8 in street use?
The body of work you quote runs in direct contradiction to what recognized experts in the field and most auto manufacturers recommend. Sticking to the book is never a bad idea and making modest corrections to take into account the changes due to modern motor oil chemistry is OK too. Another thing to consider in all of this. Ferrari motors almost never are torn down and rebuilt due to a lubrication issue (Oil starvation issues in 308/328 motors not included). Things go wrong with them, people break them and stuff wears out but not due to lubrication issues. Depending on usage and climate something starting with a 5 up to a 20 and ending with a 40 up to a 60 is where it needs to be.
I run 20w50 Dino because that is what the mechanic that rebuilt the motor recommended (Andy Falbo) and it runs strong w predictable oil pressure. My m3 runs 10w60. My 430 runs 5w40. Shrug.
Shell rotella t6 5w 40 diesel oil for flat tappets. You can call shell, ask for an engineer and ask what they recommend. I had a nice long conversation with an engineer about a year ago. Very nice and informative guy and didn't mind talking to me at all.
