Engine Oil And What Makes Lubrication Engineers Better

jimdawg185

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I have been getting quite a few questions. So, instead of going deep into each and every part of what makes up an engine oil I am first going to talk a little bit about how LE compares to the competition. I am not allowed according to FTC and certain ISO 9001 mandates from mentioning my competitors by name. I can however point out some tests and what to look for. And, from an intangible side I can show yall the other side of the oils life, the analysis after and during use.

A few simple things before I get into the meat and potatoes.

An engine oil has a life span to it. If its one day like me putting the wrong oil in my wifes car and dumping it yesterday to replace with the correct oil, or ten to twenty years like our clarifier gear box gear lube or steam turbine oils. It is very important to consider the life action of the oil. Just because a certain test or spec determines that an oil has a higher or lower performing point when new does not mean that it will mean anything tangible when in service. I will clarify this more later.

Oil test consistency matters. Being ISO 9001 certified actually means something. You can tell this when you look at our test reports. In the data section you will never see a range of numbers unless that is how the test results are to be determined. LE is ahigh performance oil company with very solid results and very solid numbers. There are not that many high performance oil manufactures that meet the ISO 9001 standards. And their test results show this from time to time. There is a reason us power stroke guys don't use Dorman products, why would you use the equivalent of Dorman as the thing that holds that 1-3 micron hydrodynamic film between your journal bearings and crank. There is no room for error here, even if you haven't had problems. There are lots of people who have not had problems with Dorman products, does that they are the best choice for your truck? Our oils are tested dozens of times from the second the base oil is brought into the plant till the time it leaves. That is for your truck!

Proprietary additives matter. LE has additives that belong only to us. They are similar to the additives that people pay for and add to their engine oil. Why buy a cheap oil, just to add something to it later to make it work "better". These additives work good, but the oil companies and the additive manufactures do not manufacture their stuff to work with some one else' stuff. They manufacture their oil to work just how it is with it's additives. Buy an oil that already has the chemistry balanced for said additives and already included in the cost of the oil.

There is a difference between price and cost. Yes, you can go to Autozone and buy a bucket of oil for 60$ instead of 130-150$. But, if you don't change that 60$ oil more often, you will be building up sludge and soot. My oil stays red till about 10k miles. There are other sponsors on here who have seen the inside of my engine, it is stupid clean. And I do my oil changes at 25k miles. Last year I saved 1000$ by extending oil changes ( I drive about 1k a week). I took some of that savings and bought oil analysis. Now I can trend data and look for things like coolant and silicon way before I could see it with the naked eye. I can now schedule down time for my truck instead of being caught off guard. This saves my fleets tens of thousands of dollars a year. Sometimes more. Buying a high quality oil from someone with my expertise brings much more value to you than the moron at Autozone ever will.

The robustness of our oils will really shine if something goes sideways in your engine/trans/t-case/diffs. When I cracked my block I had no idea that the coolant was was going into the oil right away. I thought I blew my head gasket again. Six gallons later I saw the oil cap had that waxy crap on it. I flushed it with a major brand oil, three times. The truck went down hill fast. I thought it was game over for that engine. The major brand oil was just getting wiped and really hot fast. For the heck of it I tried our oil again and temps went back to normal, and the waxy crap got cleaned up real fast. Truck runs good (considering) with 60 psi hot at speed and 40 psi hot idle. I am now able to save up and build an engine that doesn't have coolant pissing into the oil on my time.
 

jimdawg185

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What tests matter most....

There are many, many tests that lubricants can go under. I will say this first, ASTM is the standard for tests. With a handful of exceptions if a test isn't done per ASTM specs, it's difficult to put any weight behind it.
As stated above, the way test results are reported say something about the results of the test. I was comparing viscosity index between our oil and a competitor today and noticed they had a higher VI#. I was a little impressed, until I saw that the individual Vis tests were given in a range. SO... they picked the best VI out of many tests and reported that number, then gave a range of Vis to avoid issues if a customer complained. That's a little bogus to me.

OK, the tests.

When it comes to any lubricant viscosity is the most important factor. It's not the only factor, but the most important.

Viscosity changes as temp changes so....

We start off with your basic vis info.
SAE Viscosity is a joke to me. It is very broad, and really can be cheated in a way. That needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but it is true. Vis should be in looked at in kinematic viscosity in centistokes or cSt.
The most accepted test for this is ASTM D445 which measures at 40c and 100c. Basically this would be near ambient and operating temp.
Now, just because an oil test higher or lower means nothing out of context. They run this test to show that it is in spec for what ever SAE rating that it is branded as.
A more important performance aspect in my opinion would be VI or viscosity index.
VI is determined by ASTM D2270. VI is an arbitrary measure for the change in viscosity with variations in temp. Basically, the higher the number, the less a lubricant changes with increase or decrease in temperature. This is where in general synthetics are of the most benefit (the other would be there resistance to oxidization, and that's it in general). So, when you compare VI, the higher the better.
Now, why don't I just go and buy an oil with the VI of 200 and call it the best of the best. Why doesn't every oil company just make a pure PAO with a stupid high VI. Cost is one issue, pure high quality PAO's are very expensive. The second issue is the base oils ability to carry other molecules into action. PAO's have high VI's and resist oxidization because they are nearly perfect hydrocarbons. They are very consistent in size and shape (high VI) and they have no openings (oxidization resistance) for oxygen or any other molecules to attach themselves to and degrade them. For this same reason, not even additives can attach themselves to the base oil hydrocarbons. This limits their effectiveness in use. So, you want a High VI, but it can also be at the cost of additive compatibility.
Another very important test that should be taken into consideration would be Viscosity-HTHS ASTM D4683 (there are a few other ASTM tests that measure this as well, and they are fine, but use different measuring tools so you need to pay attention that you are comparing apples to apples, but they should all be close). This test is called a high temperature high shear test. This is a brutal test that shows the oils ability to withstand shear at 150c. That's very hot. Again the higher the number, the better as this is the oils cP or Centipoise (another form of measuring dynamic viscosity) at 150c during the test.

There are also a few tests that measure apparent viscosity at low temperatures. One uses a cold cranking stimulator to measure how much resistance and apparent vis at a certain temp, usually ASTM D5293 at -30C. The lower the number in general the better as you don't want higher vis at cold start up.

There are a ton of other tests that new oils are given, but usually taken into context they are just a baseline for trending analysis. For example, there is usually a base number given. Now, that is the relative alkaline reserve that is put int he additive package to offset the acidity build up during combustion. Higher or lower is not better. There are many different quality levels of packages. A lower base number of a higher quality package will be more robust than a higher base number of a lower quality package. So once again it is relative.


So how do you know what is good and what is bad....

In general, the higher the VI and higher the HTHS the better balanced with a good low temp cold cranking vis. In the bigger picture, there is a sacrifice you make to gain high VI and High HTHS numbers. This is where PAO backfires. Using a 100% PAO sythetic gets you the best VI and HTHS numbers. But, again the add package becomes less effective. So, how do you know where that balance is.....

This is where the balance of high VI and high HTHS and additive package compatibility with base stock comes in. Jet turbines are where you need a near full PAO or PAG. You sacrifice any benefits of long drain intervals with the HTHS and high VI to protect against the very high temps. But, in our engines, temps never get as high as that, so we can give in a little and put in things that balance out the additive package.

How do I know that LE works the best...

I have many many oil analysis from many different engines of LE's ability to go exponentially farther than anyone else on the market. There are others that can extend drain intervals, but our add packages just work better. They work so well that even fuel dilution drops, meaning that the ring lands are getting cleaner and allowing the rings to seal better on the piston side. I have not seen this to the degree that we have in any other oil. And not only do they work well, they work well balanced with some of the highest VI and HTHS numbers on the market.

In the next few days I will be posting analysis to back up the above claims.

Thanks!
 

powerstroked08

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This is some awesome info! Obviously its a little over my head but I do grasp some of what your saying. I will be doing a lot of reading in your section thats for sure! Thank you for not just saying "hey my stuff is better just because I think it is". Keep the education coming! Thanks Jim!
 

jimdawg185

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No worries! I love my job. And I truly believe the more I educate the more people will choose my products!


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jimdawg185

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This shows a drop in fuel dilution. The first sample is a common major. The second is analysis just short of the majors initial pm, then double (the oil was not changed this time). So double the miles on the oil with a fraction of the fuel dilution.
4a65e1244018117349fedc7009f6aa11.jpg



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DEEZUZ

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Any information thats HEUI specific?

This all sounds great, but are their more benefits in your oil that provide a smoother idle and operation for our 7.3 and 6.0s?
 

jimdawg185

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I used to have a ton of 6.0 and 7.3 analysis, but Polaris labs deleted them because I used up too much space on their site. I have dozens of samples a day from my power plants that are eating up my space on their server. Let me look a little closer and see what I can come up with. I know that they do make a difference though.
 

Gearhead

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Yeah I'd like to see this stuff next to rotella through a heui engine to see how it compares after a normal oil change interval. Rotella must lose all of its ability to keep foam at bay or something.. I can make 5 quarter mile passes and lose 3-4 tenths. Change the oil and it comes right back to running good again.
 

jimdawg185

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Rotella is not an oil I would use for anything but for break in.


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jimdawg185

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Try it out, you don't like it Ill buy you whatever oil you want to replace it.


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bigrpowr

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I broke in my built engine with motorcraft , switched to LE , i'll give an analysis at 5000mi . thanks jim !
 

jimdawg185

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I don't like trash talking any of my competition. But the issues I had with coolant exposed the weakness in it and put me in a pickle. I jumped at an engine that I got screwed on. Its not really Rotellas fault, its not designed to take that much ingression. But it was a crappy series of events in my life. If I had not tossed that extra LE in there with a hope and a prayer, it would have been worse.


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jimdawg185

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I was referring to my bad experience with it. If it was really bad no one would use it. That analysis above is rotella then our 8800. There is no question about fuel dilution drop.


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