Best engine Oil and technique with VR4s

[scottie2hotti]

Well exactly what the title says. What viscosity oil do most of you use? brands? does anyone have a specific technique to prevent the lovely ticking sound from coming further down the track?

[Ghost_2008]

There are plenty of threads on here regarding engine oil so have a search, however Amsoil is the weapon of choice for the Vr4. I am currently using mobil1 fully synthetic 0w 40, this I find tackles the tappet noise very well.

The important thing is fully synthetic oil, usually 5w 35 to 0w 40.......

[Rambaud]

Personally, I would use synthetic in a turbo engine.

IMHO, 0W-30 is likely to be the best choice - unless the car is used on a track/racing or the engine is a bit worn, then a 0-40W or above might be more appropriate.

[Subaru ETA]

i use magnatec 10w30 in all my cars. both my legnum and my galant never had tappet noise.

[wintertidenz]

Castrol Edge 5w30 is fairly common around NZ, myself and Brad use it. My car starts to tap more noticeably when the oil is getting up to changing time, but my lifters have always been a little noisy on startup anyway.

[OnBoost!]

That reminds me,I need to do an oil change!

I haven't had a look,but is it hard to change the oil filter?




sorry for thread hijack...

[wintertidenz]

Richard - look under your bumper and up a bit, you will see the filter

[amsoil]

Be very careful with the 0w-40 grade We sell one but would never dream of telling people to use it in a VR4. There was a lot of cheap Mobil 0w-40 at Costco (I could say dumped at ). Reasons for not using a 0w-40 are as follows:-
It is not possible to make a 0w-40 without the use of lots of VI's (viscosity improvers to the uninitaited) The quantity required is usually in proportion to the spread of the numbers, in this case 40, in the case of a 10w-30 it is half of this ie 20. This use of lots of VI's makes the oil 'weak' It is the long polimers of the VI's that are literally chopped up and broken by the piston rings and by a combination of pressure and heat. This is a situation made worse by a turbo car, read this as not only extra heat and pressure from the engine but masses of heat in cooling the turbo. So what you may say... however you need to understand what a 0w-40 oil is. It is not a 40 grade (thickness) but a 0 thickness which does not thin with temperature as a zero does because of the resistance of the VI's. When the Vi's start breaking down the oil will no longer be able to remain at 40 when hot and this will reduce further with time. The oil will be quickly broken and with this the protection and surface film strength will be lost (reduced). IMHO a 0w-40 should only be used in something that is thrashed from the start and doesn't do great distances between services ie in ATV's go carts and the like. If a 40 weight (2nd number) is your choice then please consider going for a 10w-40 or at least a 5w-40.
We always recommend our trick 0w-30 as a first choice or the 10w-30 as the alternative, thicker on starting and until it warms up thus reducing the tappet rattle when cold. With the 0w-40 you ae liekly to quickly drop to a 0w-30 (but without the trick protection) before you drop to a 0w-20 etc.

[Ghost_2008]

Be very careful with the 0w-40 grade We sell one but would never dream of telling people to use it in a VR4. There was a lot of cheap Mobil 0w-40 at Costco (I could say dumped at ). Reasons for not using a 0w-40 are as follows:-
It is not possible to make a 0w-40 without the use of lots of VI's (viscosity improvers to the uninitaited) The quantity required is usually in proportion to the spread of the numbers, in this case 40, in the case of a 10w-30 it is half of this ie 20. This use of lots of VI's makes the oil 'weak' It is the long polimers of the VI's that are literally chopped up and broken by the piston rings and by a combination of pressure and heat. This is a situation made worse by a turbo car, read this as not only extra heat and pressure from the engine but masses of heat in cooling the turbo. So what you may say... however you need to understand what a 0w-40 oil is. It is not a 40 grade (thickness) but a 0 thickness which does not thin with temperature as a zero does because of the resistance of the VI's. When the Vi's start breaking down the oil will no longer be able to remain at 40 when hot and this will reduce further with time. The oil will be quickly broken and with this the protection and surface film strength will be lost (reduced). IMHO a 0w-40 should only be used in something that is thrashed from the start and doesn't do great distances between services ie in ATV's go carts and the like. If a 40 weight (2nd number) is your choice then please consider going for a 10w-40 or at least a 5w-40.
We always recommend our trick 0w-30 as a first choice or the 10w-30 as the alternative, thicker on starting and until it warms up thus reducing the tappet rattle when cold. With the 0w-40 you ae liekly to quickly drop to a 0w-30 (but without the trick protection) before you drop to a 0w-20 etc.

This is the first time I have used 0-40 (which maybe wrong because I havent got the container any more), I change the oil very regularly usually about the 2000 mile mark...... this is mainly because I do a lot of short journey's, but I dont thrash it about, I always allow the oil to get to operating temp....... but I'll look at a different grade next time, but given the journeys/driving I do I have found 0-40 pretty good at present......... Also I didnt buy my oil from Costco and it was far from cheap, and I'm sure it had some form of system protection formula........

[amsoil]

Actually if you are changing at 2000 miles it could work for you.

[Rambaud]

Don,

Are you saying it's just Amsoil's 0W-40 oil which will be inferior to its 0W-30/10W-30? Or does this apply to other companies' 0W-40?

Mobil 1's 0W-40 seems to be highly regarded in the US. Is it a different formulation to that sold in the UK?

[amsoil]

No not just Amsoil, anyones oil with that kind of spread of numbers will be full of VI's and therefore weak in that it will be chopped to bits. Remember that in the USA drivers have been used to 3,000 miles (max) oil changes for decades. Oil is cheap over there and yes also to Mobil being a different product in the USA, its superior to what we have here making comparisons very difficult.

[Rambaud]

Thanks, Don.

The price the Yanks can buy their oil for makes me green with envy.

[OnBoost!]

Castrol Edge 5w30 is fairly common around NZ, myself and Brad use it. My car starts to tap more noticeably when the oil is getting up to changing time, but my lifters have always been a little noisy on startup anyway.

Doing an oil change tomorrow,so you would recommend the Castrol Edge 5w 30? I was gonna go with a 10w 30....

I don't suddenly wanna get bad lifter tick..

[Ryan]

10W30 would be perfectly okay Richard

[sodge]

I recently topped up with some magnatec 10w40 as I was getting near low. The result was terrible lifter tick. As such I did a complete change last weekend to Castrol Edge 5w30 and a new filter. No more lifter tick

[bradc]

the lower the first number the better as that is simply how well the oil flows when cold. Hence you want it to be as low as possible as engine oil is always too thick when the car is cold.

[OnBoost!]

I recently topped up with some magnatec 10w40 as I was getting near low. The result was terrible lifter tick. As such I did a complete change last weekend to Castrol Edge 5w30 and a new filter. No more lifter tick

Sweet,I'll go for Castrol Edge 5w30 then.

[amsoil]

I'd stick to the 10w-30 rather than the 5w-30 for the simple reason that in general a 10w-30 will be more robust than a 5w-30 which can be significant on a turbo car.
You are basicly giving away a little cold start flow for an oil that is less likely to shear /break down under the heat and pressure of the turbo.
For a non turbo car I would certainly tend to go for a 5w-30.
Dont know about in NZ but in the UK Castrol have again cheapened their range and some 'edge' oils are no longer true top notch full synthetics. Most other oils are better than Magnatec.

[wintertidenz]

In NZ the 5w30 Edge is definitely synthetic. The Magnatecs are only semi-synth.

Unfortunately we don't get much of a choice in the way of affordable full synth oils, and the Edge 5w30 is the easiest (and probably cheapest) to obtain.