mk3cn4

iTrader: (3)

I am driving a 98 camaro with almost 300k miles on it, been running Walmart Tech1 or whatever generic oil since 79k miles when I bought this car, and only changing it at 6000 miles. Been like 7 years. Race this car quite a bit at the track.

Prior car was a 93 Camaro, same deal but sold it at just over 200k, zero problems.

Also had a 9C1 Caprice with LT1, again Walmart cheapie oil only at 6000 miles, this car went over 200k before I sold it, zero problems.

If you ever needed a testimonial on using cheap oil versus expensive oil, I'm it.

Never an oil-related problem in the last say 600,000 miles with these cars.

I think name brand oil is a waste of money. SG rated or whatever, all these oils are the same.

Decadence75

iTrader: (17)

Nope. I will stick to my Mobil 1 thanks for the offer though

mk3cn4

iTrader: (3)

Synthetics are a different category, still not better protectionwise in my opinion just lasts twice as long. That I'll give you.

People who use synthetic and change at 3k are wasting money too.

bww3588

iTrader: (49)

Synthetics have better lubrication properties, therefore they protect better. Period. It's a well know fact

Blk98Vert

iTrader: (2)

Clearly you need to do some research about oil

96capricemgr

iTrader: (1)

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php
We have ways to MEASURE how well and oil works in a particular application but particularly those with a brand loyalty like the blind M1 faithful don't want anything to do with measured data.

Far as the OP's results, nothing surprising about them, basically any vaguely current API rated oil can give the same result. I believe the OP understands this and is not saying the Walmart stuff is standout spectacular.

The M1 crowd just digs their heals in farther when you try and show them documentation of it being fine but nothing special. They are worse than the Amsoil crowd.

I am not saying any of these oils are bad, just saying that most of the guys with a strong brand loyalty have it based on nothing but marketing and could not care less about measured results.

DarkblueTA

I burn oil to find out what metal and other materials are in used oil. We use a spectrol m/n oil burning unit and calibrated it each morning and after every 3 hours of use with 5ppm oil and also have 0, 30, 100 ppm oils in our inventory to verify calibration and use to standardize the machine at regular intervals.

I use valvoline 10w30 dino oil in a 2.4 DOHC dodge stratus since 41k miles and it currently has 162k miles on it.

My coworker runs castrol 10w30 synthetic and was surprised how well the normal valvoline burned vs his synthetic. It is damn near the same numbers (outsize of moly and zinc).

I have heard that walmart brand is valvoline oil repackaged. I haven't verified this. As long as the oil meets API specifications, I wouldn't worry to much about it.

I do know that Mopar certified walmarts ATF+4 for use in their transmissions and I've used it multiple swaps without issue. I swap the filter and fluid out every 40k miles in the stratus and the car runs like a champ.

gMAG

iTrader: (1)

Good old Castrol 10w-30 fits the bill, but if Walmart is repackaged Valvoline (at a discount), I might give it a try.
While I'm there, I think I'll pick up a couple of dee-licious Walmart steaks!

96capricemgr

iTrader: (1)

http://neptune.spacebears.com/cars/s.../oil-life.html
Link currently is not coming up for me but it is a frequent UOA study of M1 and Amsoil in an LS1.
Now formulas do change over the years so I wont claim it is a perfect test of today but it certainly does not support the mythic superiority of M1 in this engine nor does it support Amsoil's 25K mile interval. Hopefully it comes back or someone knows of another copy of the page.

DarkblueTA

Off topic, are they really that good?

3rdCoastPowerSports

iTrader: (5)

Thats funny I was about to ask the same things...

mk3cn4

iTrader: (3)

All I'm sayin's is IMO if Walmart oil is good enough to take a motor 300k, does it matter if yours is better? What is it going to do, take it to 400k?

It just doesn't matter if it's better or not, Walmart (or I'd probably say any API rated oil) is all you really need and paying more for better is a waste, whether it's better or not.

Quick math and I think I've saved $4000 in oil changes in my last few cars over the years. Granted, I drive WAAAAY more than most of you but I also drive 200 and 300k mile clunkers and drive them like I stole them, and have never had an oil-related problem.

Before I sell this last 300k Camaro I am currently replacing, I'll crack open the valve covers and see what it looks like just for curiosity. They've never been opened since from the factory as far as I know, that'll tell the tale. If I'm wrong I'll post but I bet it's just fine in there.

96capricemgr

iTrader: (1)

Even if you do find some sludge or the like a $25 bottle of AutoRX every year or so would be cheap compared to running an expensive oil.

bestlude

iTrader: (4)

THis is LS1tech.. If you think you're going to change peoples minds about what oil to use on their Cam only, H/C/I, Stoker, Crate, FI, Nitrous , ect MOTORS then ...... NOT GONNA Happen. LOL

FASTFATBOY

iTrader: (23)

I love it when the sheep keep their heads down and follow what the media feeds them, ******* hilarious.

There is NO reason to use a synthetic oil unless the cars sees EXTREME duty, as my 99 Z does on a road course for 30 minutes at a time. I run Royal Purple in this car.

My old solid roller LT1 used diesel oil, Shell Rotella.

All you sheep using Mobil 1 and changing it every 3k miles are flushing money.

I run whatever is on sale in my 92 Silverado, and have run the Wal Mart Tech oil in it, as I did in my 234,000 mile Accord. Oil change intervals are 5,000 miles on all my vehicles and have been for a LONG time.

Read this and learn.

http://www.ganoa.org/Motor_oil2.htm

OH, BTW over on FRRAX.com they avoid Mobil 1 like the plauge, more road race LS1's have spit rods out on course with M1 in the pan than any other oil.

Blk98Vert

iTrader: (2)

I'm not one to follow the media or else I'd be running Royal Purple or AMSOIL. I am a big believer in diesel oils. I am not brand loyal to M1 but all around I think their 5W 40 Turbo Diesel oil is great for the price, nothing else I have ran has held up as well as it has. I have no problem running Rotella, but its the same price with Autozone's promos.

96capricemgr

iTrader: (1)

Even back on the LT1s the b-body owners manual and change oil light allow for up to 7000mile change on dino oil and not all the b-bodies even got oil coolers, and that was the dino oil available almost 20 years ago.
My LT1 I change the oil every 3Kish because I want to keep an eye on it, I ask way more of that motor than GM ever intended.

My truck 2005 Sierra 5.3l I buy whatever synthetic has the good sale at Advance with the Bosch distance plus filter and run it for the full OLM since the truck does not spec synthetic I know I am treating it well by draining synthetic that quickly. Just that using the OLM is an easy automatic reminder.

MMWS6

Going to toss something in on this... personal experience here

Changed oil in my bone stock, tune only, 2000 WS6 about four weeks ago using Quaker State Ultimate Durability 5/30 full syn. 300kms later the engine was down dam close to half a liter! I was pretty freaked out, topped it up and watched it closely. With another 200kms on it it was down a good bit again. Well, I'm thinking "Just my luck... finally buy a dam F-Body and I get one that was on the verge of dying with only 65K miles on it!" Read a few post in here about oil and oil consumption and figured, what the heck, I'll change it to something else and see if the same thing happens.
Well, did I ever get the best shock of my life... changed the oil to Mobil 1 5/30 full syn and the oil has been spot on the full mark for almost a week and a half here now, another 300kms! I don't know what's really behind this one, but I'm telling you guys straight up, that is exactly what happened here
End result for me.... No Q for this guy ever again

dr_whigham

iTrader: (49)

You guys really need to get out more and read up on some UOA's. Those with aftermarket cam and valvetrain NEED to read this!! Notice your precious Mobil 1 5w30 isn't even on the list...

Some folks have a hard time accepting certain data that has come out of the motor oil “wear testing” that I’ve been performing this year. The result that is the hardest for them to accept is the outcome showing that an oil with a high level of zinc, will not automatically provide excellent wear protection. That runs counter to everything they’ve always been told over the years.

The data I’ve provided up to now has always included low zinc modern API certified oils along with traditional high zinc High Performance and Racing oils. But having so many oils of different types, all mixed in together, might be a bit overwhelming or confusing. So, here I’ve selected only 13 oils that all have between 1100 and 1800 ppm zinc. That way the comparison is just apples to apples. Now zinc levels vs wear protection can easily be compared straight across.

The excellent performance of many of these high zinc oils, shows that my testing equipment and test procedure do in fact, allow high zinc oils to perform as well as they are capable of performing.




Wear protection categories are:

*** Over 90,000 psi = OUTSTANDING protection

*** 75,000 to 90,000 psi = GOOD protection

*** 60,000 to 75,000 psi = MODEST protection

*** Below 60,000 psi = UNDESIREABLE

I’ve also included detergent levels for reference as well.

All the oils below are full synthetic unless otherwise specified.

The following group of 13 oils are ranked according to their “load carrying capacity/film strength”, or in other words, their “wear protection” performance, at 230*F. The higher the psi number, the better the wear protection. The tests were repeated multiple times for each oil, and then those results were averaged to arrive at the final psi numbers shown below. And every single oil was tested EXACTLY THE SAME.

1. 10W30 Valvoline NSL (Not Street Legal) Conventional Racing Oil = 103,846 psi
zinc = 1669 ppm
total detergent = 1618 ppm
detergent ppm/zinc ppm ratio = 1.0
NOTE: Due to its very low TBN value, this oil is only suitable for short term racing use, and is not suitable for street use.

2. 10W30 Valvoline VR1 Conventional Racing Oil (silver bottle) = 103,505 psi
(.3% below no.1)
zinc = 1472 ppm
total detergent = 2787 ppm
detergent ppm/zinc ppm ratio = 1.9

3. 10W30 Valvoline VR1 Synthetic Racing Oil, API SL (black bottle) = 101,139 psi
(2.6% below no.1)
zinc = 1180 ppm
total detergent = 2683 ppm
detergent ppm/zinc ppm ratio = 1.9

4. 10W30 Amsoil Z-Rod Oil = 95,360 psi
(8.2% below no.1)
zinc = 1431 ppm
total detergent = 2927 ppm
detergent ppm/zinc ppm ratio =2.0

5. 10W30 Joe Gibbs HR4 Hotrod Oil = 86,270 psi
(16.9% below no.1)
zinc = 1247 ppm
total detergent = 3134 ppm
detergent ppm/zinc ppm ratio = 2.5

6. 5W30 Royal Purple XPR (Extreme Performance Racing) = 74,860 psi
(27.9% below no.1)
zinc = 1421 ppm
total detergent = 3050 ppm
detergent ppm/zinc ppm ratio = 2.1

7. 15W40 Farm Rated Heavy Duty Performance Diesel, CI-4, CH-4, CG-4, CF/SL, SJ (conventional) = 73,176 psi
(29.5% below no.1)
zinc = 1325ppm
total detergent = 1593 ppm
detergent ppm/zinc ppm ratio = 1.2

8. 0W30 Brad Penn, Penn Grade 1 (semi-synthetic) = 71,377 psi
(31.3% below no.1)
zinc = 1621 ppm
total detergent = 2939 ppm
detergent ppm/zinc ppm ratio = 1.8

9. 10W30 Brad Penn, Penn Grade 1 (semi-synthetic) = 71,206 psi
(31.4% below no.1)
zinc = 1557 ppm
total detergent = 3173 ppm
detergent ppm/zinc ppm ratio = 2.0

10. 15W50 Mobil 1, API SN = 70,235 psi
(32.4% below no.1)
zinc = 1133 ppm
total detergent = 1437 ppm
detergent ppm/zinc ppm ratio = 1.3

11. 10W30 Royal Purple HPS (High Performance Street) = 66,211 psi
(36.2% below no.1)
zinc = 1774 ppm
total detergent = 3676 ppm
detergent ppm/zinc ppm ratio = 2.1

12. 10W40 Valvoline 4 Stroke Motorcycle Oil conventional, API SJ = 65,553 psi
(36.9% below no.1)
zinc = 1154 ppm
total detergent = 1999 ppm
detergent ppm/zinc ppm ratio =1.1

13. Royal Purple 10W30 Break-In Oil conventional = 62,931 psi
(39.4% below no.1)
zinc = 1170 ppm
total detergent = 3184 ppm
detergent ppm/zinc ppm ratio = 2.7

SUMMARY:

As you can see, the number one oil above, the 10W30 Valvoline NSL Conventional Racing Oil, has 1669 ppm zinc and 103,846 psi “load carrying capacity/film strength”. But, the number 11 oil, the 10W30 Royal Purple HPS (High Performance Street), has 1774 ppm zinc, but ONLY 66,211 psi “load carrying capacity/film strength”, which is a WHOPPING 36.2% below the number one Valvoline.

On top of that, the number one Valvoline is conventional dino oil, while the Royal Purple is synthetic. So, many people might not expect conventional oil to perform so well, since synthetic oil gets all the hype. Conventional oil is still quite good and does not get the respect it deserves. It’s sort of like the fact that Chevy’s late model high performance push rod engines are still quite good, even though most all other modern vehicles use overhead cam designs and get most of the hype.

If you had only looked at the spec sheet for each of these two oils, you’d assume they were equal in wear protection because their zinc levels were essentially the same. But nothing could be further from the truth. This is real world test data (not just some theory), which compared motor oils against each other under the EXACT SAME test conditions. So, this is a perfect example of the point I’ve been trying to make, which is that you cannot simply look at the zinc value on an oil’s spec sheet, and assume that you can predict how well it will provide wear protection. Things are just NOT that simple in the real world.

And for those folks who want to avoid high levels of detergent in their oils, for fear that an oil with a lot of detergent will not be able to provide adequate wear protection, let’s look at that above as well. The oils ranked 1st and 12th both had low levels of detergent. And the oils ranked 2nd and 13th both had high or relatively high levels of detergent. The rest of the oils were a mixed bag of high and low detergent oils. So, that is proof that detergent levels are a non-issue, and that there are better things to worry about.

You simply cannot believe all the misinformation you come across about motor oil, on the internet and elsewhere. The bottom line is that, the only way to really KNOW how well an oil can provide wear protection, is to perform real world “wear testing” at a representative temperature, and see how it performs dynamically, under load. It’s the same kind of reason that we dyno test engines, rather than simply looking at their build sheets. “Wear testing” motor oil is the gold standard, just like “dyno testing” an engine is the gold standard. Anything else is simply guessing.

As I’ve said before, there are no BAD oils here. They all will generally work well enough in most applications. But, some do clearly provide a higher level of reserve “extra protection capability” than others. Of course you can decide for yourself, how much reserve “extra protection capability” is good enough for your needs

96capricemgr

iTrader: (1)

That is some interesting data but I still like UOA over lab performance tests.
Most folks don't care though they want dyno numbers for performance mods but when it comes to oil a stickler on a racecar, or the print on the fill cap or a commercial will always mean more to most folks than any actual TEST.

If people were half as concerned with PROOF of how oils performed as they are about dyno numbers for performance parts we would not see some of the most popular oils being recommended anymore.