1QWIKBIRD

iTrader: (25)

My car sees a little bit of everything. Mostly autox and some occasional street miles. I have autometer ultra light water temp and oil temp gauges (full sweep electric) and the oil pressure still factory analog gauge. I've never had an issue with pressure on the street or during an autox event or on a track day. My decision to run the 0/30 is based on my own positive experience with other Amsoil products. For my situation (autox and street) I think the 0/30 fits my needs. It will flow well at startup, get up to operating temp quickly and be stable once at temp. If I did more trackdays then I'd lean more in the direction you are to better handle higher temps for extended periods. I have an oil cooler on the car to help keep temps under control and have not seen much more than 250 degrees on a track day and 210/220 at an autox event. Keep in mind that there are trade-offs with everything. As you go up in viscocity you will require more warm up time, cold oil can be just as bad as overheated oil. Street driving in cold weather with a non bypass oil cooler (air flow through type) can keep the oil from getting up to temp, so be careful with that.

My last track day I ran Royal Purple 10/30 and then had it analyzed and while the oil wasn't completely used up it did show signs breaking down and had already sheared. But with 1 trackday (3-20 minute sessions), maybe 1000 street miles and 4 autox events I expected more, especially from an oil that is $7-8/qt. Maybe my expectations were too high?

If you are serious with the trackday thing, get some gauges (oil temp, water temp, oil pressure) on the car so you have good info, get your oil sampled and start gathering YOUR own data, then you can provide good info to Amsoil or Red Line or Joe Gibbs or Schaeffers or Joe Blow or which ever manufacturer you go with. CMC/AIX racers run Accusumps, none of which I have any first hand experience with and don't think would be something you could easily incorporation into a street car.

I am not an authority, this all just from my own experience after seeing/reading other peoples info and paying closer attention to my own situation. There is so much information out there and oil is like religion and politics, it gets tough to sort through it all and find good solid info (look at the M1 debate that broke out above??).

If you want go over to www.FRRAX.com and browse some of those posts. Lots of experienced autox/trackday/road race guys who would share their experiences with you, both good and bad.

Good Luck.

kukri

iTrader: (9)

Thanks for the info. FYI I do run accusump, oil cooler and digital gauges, just figuring out which oil to run so it doesn't fail next time even with all these things
Running time trials is in this car's future.

LS1-450

iTrader: (33)

kukri, look @ this chart; http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/visc.html

See how the 5W is near 70 & the 30 is also near 70 (SUS side of chart; SAE engine oil). The 5W (W means winter) is the cold oil viscocity rating. The 30 is the hot oil viscocity rating. See how the 50 is near 90 @ 210*F? Add 50* in oil temp & that 90 is more like 70.

Now imagine running a 30 @ a road course; the 70 becomes more like 45-50 & even lower for guys without true oil temp gauges. You can see why running anything 30 on a road course is not good for the engine.

People run 0W-30 oil because they read it on the internet mostly, but the true advantage is that as long as the 30 in a 0W-30 is actually 30 or even 30+ (German Castrol, Amsoil), then the cold start viscocity is closer to ideal than in a 5W or 10W oil.

Yes, Amsoil is excellent oil.

kukri

iTrader: (9)

So basically I'll have to run 15W50 or 20W50 at the track and 0W30 or 10W30 on the street, bad news is that with accusump now instead of changing 6.5 Qts (if I ran the same oil for street and track), now I have to change 9-10 Qts every time. Is that what you do? $70-80 per oil change hurts! But hell, racing these cars hurts the wallet period, why not spend more on oil.

EchoMirage

iTrader: (3)

you dont 'have' to run 15w50 or 20w50 at the track. i dont, hundreds of other LS1s dont, and we're all fine.

1QWIKBIRD

iTrader: (25)

For piece of mind, and the added protection, probably. If you didn't change grades and ran 0/30 or 5/30, you would probably still be dropping the oil after every track day anyway? It kinda sucks because if you switch grades, the "street oil" would probably still be good as it would see only street miles and the "race oil" should last more than 1 track day so you will constantly be pouring good oil down the drain, or so it would seem anyway.

You could run a better quality street oil, do a track day, then have it analyzed. See how it holds up. This might allow you to run 1 track day and some street miles in between, then change the oil right before your next track day????? Just an idea?

This situation is the curse of a dual purpose car. Asking a car to live and perform in two different environments is always more complex and expensive.

It sounds like you are tracking the car more than just the casual owner. And if you are going to Time Trial the car then you will be pushing the car to the limits as opposed to just tracking the car for fun, where maybe you only go 80% or something. How much street time does the car see? Do you trailer it to the track or drive it to the track? Lets see some pics of this hot rod.

I'm not sure there is a clear cut answer. The safe play is run a better oil, dump it, then refill with street oil. Call a few tech lines, explain to them what you are doing, see what they say.

If you do settle on Amsoil, become a preferred customer. The $20 a year it costs is more than made up for in the savings you will see. (Example: 1 quart of 15/50 Dominator racing oil lists at $11.20/qt., but as preferred customer I pay $8.60/qt.) I buy all my Amsoil stuff online and its on my door step within a day or two.

Good Luck

LS1-450

iTrader: (33)

Yah, and I usually add a quart of beach sand just make sure that I fit in with the "got away with it crowd." Am always amazed @ how people will completely ignore documented proof over their own fucked up reality....Rock-on! I'm out, have once again read enough nonsense.

kukri

iTrader: (9)

I could drive it to the track as far as distance is concerned (3-6 hours depending on track), but I always trailer because anything could always brake. When I'm back in town, sometimes I drive it 5 times a week, sometimes just once. Depends on the weather, mood, etc.

Here's video from this last time, every time you see red LEDs come on that's when oil pressure drops below 30psi. Also, Cobra was on Hoosiers and I was trying to keep up on Bridgestones

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og6i1...layer_embedded
This is where brakes and tires start to fail on last lap
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAD197mhXYI

Please pardon my noob driving, only 2nd time road racing.


It is a dual purpose car, but it's more important to me that it runs on the track, than on the street, like right now I have to replace all the brakes, it's just sitting there and I don't care until the next event.

1QWIKBIRD

iTrader: (25)

First......beautiful car. Second, run the good oil......Don't even try to screw around. Run the "race" oil on the track and the "street" oil on the street. And with the trailer this becomes easier because you can prep the car ahead of time and not have to worry about driving to the track on street oil and doing an oil change at the track etc. etc. (You'll probably end up doing the same with the brake pads as well, dedicated street pads and race pads).

Looking close, that light appears to becoming on while in turns or as you are exiting long sweepers and that probably is a clue that your issue is not only viscosity related, but baffling/windage related, maybe even more so. In the second video that light seems to come on an awful lot? Are you running a stock pan/baffle? stock pan with upgraded baffle? aftermarket pan? Check out www.improvedracing.com for one option on a bolt in baffle, if you don't already have something.

Educate me on the accusump and how it works. When oil pressure goes below some preset pressure it pushes oil into the circuit to restore pressure temporarily? So my question is the accusump coming on at the time the redlight is on (30psi)? Or is the accusump set to kick in at lets say 45psi and is already exhausted by the time the red light is on?

Either way, I'd agree with the others and say run the good oil. Too much invested to take a chance. But I'd also look into the baffling/windage and see if there is something you can do to help that situation if it hasn't already been addressed.

Take care of that car, it is beautiful.

bballr4567

iTrader: (5)

What makes a car go? The engine. What is the life of the engine. The oil.

If its a purpose built track car (which it looks like it is) you better treat that engine right. Get great oil and use it!!!

kukri

iTrader: (9)

Thank you for the compliments, I just painted that headlight cover

I already run the upgraded baffle from improvedracing. I believe the oil just gets so hot that when I decelerate or at lower than 3-4K rpms it just goes below 30 psi. Higher rpms it's fine. Accusump is set to turn on (3 qt system) when pressure hits 30 psi, so yes when the light comes on. I don't think there are starvation issues I really do think the oil gets really hot. In the beginning light does not come on even on the sweepers, and I know the that I was cornering harder in the beginning of the run due to tires not being over heated yet. Cooler temps got up to 230 on that second run, I got carried away a little bit. This was one of the reasons accusump system didn't work right is oil got too thin and accusump kept dumping unnecessary oil into the motor. I don't think I have starvation issues, but we will find out after I run decent racing oil on track. I guess if the light will keep coming on as often with 20W50, then I have other problems, but so far everything indicates to me that M1 5W30 oil just thins out a lot by the time it gets really hot.

Also I did run race pads (Racingbrake ET800) and from brand new they are almost down to the metal in 90 minutes driving time!!! I do have another thread going on v8rx7 forum regarding brakes though.

I should have been prepared to spend some money racing while building this thing... For every track weekend we have $160 oil (from street to race then from race to street), $200 pads, $50 trans fluid and diff fluid, lol?

bballr4567

iTrader: (5)

Why cant you just recycle the street oil? If you arent putting hard miles on it and only going less than 2k miles I really dont see the harm in it if you are running good filtration.

kukri

iTrader: (9)

That's a very good point and I was thinking of doing that actually.

01badz28

iTrader: (5)

Here is my .02. I ran Mobil 1 5W30 in my old LS1, and changed it religiously. The car gets autocrossed heavily and sees some 'aggressive' weekend street driving. This time last year, this is what my engine looked like:









The new motor is running Amsoil 10W30, and I will no longer be using Mobil 1 syn. in a performance application.

EchoMirage

iTrader: (3)

i hope you post that up everytime theres an M1 ballwasher bragging about how great an oil it is.

dragonrage

GC 0w30 is more like a 40 weight oil, which is a good thing.

See www.bobistheoilguy.com forums, seriously. Awesome resource. I'd take GC over Amsoil any time ~40 weight oil would be acceptable. But Amsoil is still good stuff.

Heavy85

That doesn't seem right. I was running M1 10W30 with oil cooler, 2q Accusump and the 35-40 PSI switch with NO baffle and the light only comes on at the end of long sweepers and at idle. When it comes on at the track it's only for a second or less. This is pushing hard on full slicks and still it rarely comes on and only for a blip - I believe this is oil starvation in my case when it lights up on track. At idle hot it's always on and cold it flickers at idle. That last video it seemed to be on more than it was off. Based on my experience I think there is something else going on as much as your light is on. Mine is an '02 and I understand there were oil pump changes so I wonder if this has anything to do with it?

PS - I recently switched to Penz Plat 10W30 and noticed no difference what so ever.

Cameron

kukri

iTrader: (9)

I literally have thought of everything as far as motor parts go to not have oil issues. I do have shimmed newer oil pump. I'll switch oil and see where it goes. I've got the baffle and everything else I could think of. Motor hasn't been beat on hard either, recently built. Will find out what running different oil does. Redline tech recommended 10W40, but he also said if I'm getting at least 10psi at idle after a run, I'm fine. I'm going to get more info from Amsoil, Katech and maybe more places to see what they say on viscosity of the oil. Maybe motor itself has a lot to do with the oil viscosity, temperature. I don't know what your setup is but I'm running almost 11:1 compression making 465 at the wheels on 12.2 A/F tune. So it's possible that it gets hotter than in your car, quicker. As far as cooling I'm not sure how affective it is in this car versus F-body or Corvette cooling system, either, that could have something to do with it. I did run 5W30 as well comparing to you running 10W30, I don't know how much difference that would be though.

Sabre002

iTrader: (7)

And your saying M1 did this to your motor? Rather then racing it? I'm just not seeing your point here. I dont know of any oil that is going to stop a rod from being pulled apart. That rod jornal still looks pretty good after what it went through.



Also here is all the motor info on his car I did the rebuild on it

http://www.v8rx7forum.com/v8-rx-7-bu...-sabre002.html

Heavy85

Tech recommending 10W40 and 10 PSI is interesting. Mine is bone stock but in a lightweight car (240Z) which could be part of the difference. I dont have an oil temp gauge but water runs 230 consistently give or take and I back off when it gets into the low 230s but that's not necessarily a good indication of oil temp.

Cameron