Ferrari recommend 10W50 engine oil for the 308, 1981. In the past, I've been using Mobil1 15W50. Now, at least in Canada, Mobil is now only offering 5W50. Any help on what type of engien oil should I use would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Marc-André
Use the search and check for posts by AEHaas, there's quiye a bit to read there. BTW, I'll be in Montreal next week.
Yes AEHass is the man when it comes to oil. I've gone to 0/40 Mobil 1 in a 3.2 as alot of others have according to the polls that I've seen posted here on the site. Don't forget, viscosity does not mean lubrication. Do yourself a favor and read oil 101 and 102 etc by the good Dr,AEHass. He went to great lengths to write these posts and they are well worth the time it takes to read them.If you read everything that he has wriitten on the subject you too will be a oil authority. MBG
EXCELLENT POST!!! The guys using 20w-50 are probably damaging their car for no good reason. AEHass explains it all and more at http://63.240.161.99/motoroil/ . ONLY TIME i can see using a 50 weight oil is for HOT (over 90F) TRACK day. Between BITOG (http://theoildrop.server101.com/cgi/ultimatebb.cgi?) and just trying many different viscosities over time in the car... and am now doing regular UOA (used oil analysis) on the car here. PLEASE everyone, read AEHass as motor oil and technology has come a LONG way in the past few decades. Add to that these thick oils make the starter, battery, and other bits work harder than needed. Where on Earth did these 20w-50 guys actually think these oils are fine for their car. If you say owners manual, what year was that info written? In what regard (usage) was that information given? Are you using the EXACT formulation specified (odds are no if the car is over 5 years old)? FYI: use Mobile 0W-40 and track the car here a lot. Yesterday it was 62F ambient and after various 20-minute sessions the oil temp never got much to 90C. REMEMBER: oil flow is a combination of it's specific rating/specs and temp. BUT then some guys who use thinner than 20W-50 oils suddenly complain about engine gasket leaks. So instead of fixing their engine's problem at the source, they keep on using oil that is too thick and probably causing damage to their engine during startup. Damn i hate these these oil threads, it is like a skipping CD player... My apologies if i seem like a arse here, but have been the 20W-50 paths and quickly learned it was NOT the way to go.
Just a quick tangent: will 20w-50 oil possibly stop or slow a leaky oil pan gasket more than 10w-40? I've been told NO, but I can see that working. I have an older Porsche with a little gasket leak and wondered if 20w-50 would slow it down. I was told by my oil change guy that it would not, the real difference is so small in the thickness to do anything.
Actually it's Castrol 5W-50 Syntec... and I've been running it in all my older cars. I've not seen Mobil 1 in that weight... wonder if it's the original Mobil 1 formula or the newer cheaper formulation? If it's the original, I might switch should it become available down here... Bill
Unfortunately for me, I and a handful of other engineers were unofficially declared the losers of the Fchat viscosity debates a while back. So all I've got to say is that lots of cars have gone a long way with the oil recommended in the owners' manual. I do agree with Ali that going as low as you can on the first number is a good thing.
10W-50 would work wonderfully. There are those that would suggest you go to something drastically lighter on the hot end, but your engine will get excellent protection with the 10W-50, regardless of how or where you drive it.
Shortly after I purchased my '79, I changed the oil myself from whatever was in it before to Mobil-1 OW-40 after reading the entire AEHass series. Very enlightening. I must say, though, that my car was NOT....*NOT* happy when fully warm. The oil pressure was just too low at idle, and I was experiencing poor idle, stalling, the red light coming on, etc. The following week, I changed to Kendall GT1 20W-50, and the car is much happier at all temps. Yes, it is a little more difficult to get started with the 20W stuff vs. the Mobil-1 Synthetic that I had in it (i.e., it doesn't idle perfectly right at start up - I have to keep the revs up with my foot until she'll idle on her own). That said, it sure as hell beats stalling at a light from zero oil pressure, and then not being able to get it restarted b/c it vapour locks. Sure, if I had a QV or 3.2 motored car, I'd be all over the 0W-xx stuff. Since I don't, I just stick with what works on my 80,000mile, 27 year old, driver. Maybe after a rebuild and everything is new and tight, I'll revisit the synthetic realm... Aaron
I think the reason why the manufacturer recomend 10/50 is because so that you can drive tha car anywhere specialy in East coast where it gets below zero thats where the "10" comes in place, its safer to use thinner guage oil as the temp gets colder. But here in CA. specialy central and southern, I think its safe to use 20/50 since it does not get below zero. but then again thats my theory I could be wrong.
One of aehaas' key points in his oil tutorial is that old oil specifications no longer provide optimum lubrication for old cars. The reason is that the quality of motor oil has steadily improved over the years. Lighter grades of oil may now provide superior lubrication to the heavier grades once recommended. Using my 87 328 as an example: --The owner's manual specifies AGIP SINT 2000 10W-50. This was a semi-synthetic. --Ferrari Service Bulletin 00-25 issued 15 June 88 specifies a change to AGIP SINT 2000 10w-40 with API SF/CD approvals. If unavailable, it recommends any API SF/CC oil in 10W-40, 15W-40, or 15W-50 grades. --Ferrari has replaced AGIP with Shell as their sponsor in motor racing and now recommends Shell oils. I do not know whether Ferrari has issued a service bulletin regarding Shell oils and their backward compatibility to my 328, but if I were to have my car serviced at a Ferrari dealer they would put Shell Ultra Helix 5W-40 (API SL or maybe now SM) in the car. This is a fully synthetic oil and is one of the thinner 40 weights on the market. --Unable to get the Shell Helix here without having to ship it in, I have chosen Mobil 1 0W-40. The Mobil is thicker than the Shell at both cold and hot engine temperatures (80 to 76 cSt at 40 deg C and 14.3 to 13.8 cSt at 100 deg C). A used oil analysis has shown that Mobil 1 0W-40 in my engine shears down to a middling 30-weight after a few hundred miles but provides excellent lubrication to the engine. I suspect, but do not know, that the Shell would do the same. Based on the above, it seems that using a 50 weight oil (and maybe even a 40) is not necessary in my particular application, although I don't think it would do much harm other than cause a higher rate of engine wear during cold starts and warmups. In fact, the 50 weight recommendation in the owner's manual is clearly obsolete. Cheers, Mark
Sorry and all... been there, done that. Pay for shipping and i have a brand new gallon bottle for you that i will never use. That stuff is WAY TOO THICK. Hmm.. perhaps use it as my chainsaw chain oil... Thank you Mark!!! Excellent post. BTW, will post my used oil analysis (once it comes back) on BITOG. Should be interesting as that oil had three track days and some daily beater driving. Also am having my tranny fluid tested and that had 10 track days(!) on it and about 2x the daily beater driving on it. My mechanic says we need to be careful about the tranny as for hard track use the tranny bolts are a known weakness and can sheer, so a UOA can help detect the metals.
I'll just say again, 50 weight oil wasn't too thick for Ferrari to develop the car with. And the fundamentals of how journal bearings (i.e. your rod bearings, cam bearings and crank bearings) work haven't changed in hundreds of years. Sure, anti-wear packages have changed a lot in 30 years, but how often do you hear of these cars wearing cams out or wearing out reciprocating assemblies? BUT I digress from what' sreally interesting in the post... Which bolts in the transmission are the known weakness, and where are they generating wear metals from to be detected in an oil analysis? Are they fretting leading to reduced cross section that then allows them to shear? I don't see where you're going to detect that some bolt is about to fail in shear from an oil analysis, so please get a clarification on which bolt and how its failing. Likewise, someone's going to have to be right on top of his game to tell that wear metals are coming from a bolt and not a gear.
Don, i need to talk to my race mechanic David at KTR European as he is the one who warned me about bolts in the tranny on a 308 (when racing) that they can break due to stress. He has dealt with guys who race 308's before so his experience is what is being relied upon. Am about to leave for 4 consecutive days at Watkins Glen, so please forgive me if i don't get back onto this thread until Friday (or Monday the 8th). Many thanks.
