Oil Recommendation!

[Victorofhavoc]

Um, tested by who? Amsoil? Not knocking them as their Signature Series (SS) is likely what you are referring to as its their premium product, and excellent: but for the money other small blenders have arguably better products depending on what you intend to use the oil for (long drains, shear stable, low/no VII etc...)

The factory fill appears to be Type 2.0 oil which has a lot of moly in it, and not available retail in the US. The Honda/Acura Full Syn here is made by P66 and is meh. Both VOA of the Type 2.0 and samples of the factory show near identical data.

Odd how the EU manual (CTR, but identical K20C engine) *specifies* Type 2.0 it to be used, or 5/30 instead. Why different US? Hmmm Its unfortunate we don't get that here in the US, would be a good oil to use if Honda feels they need to put that in the EU manuals

Don't want to get too deep into it, but I've done some of my own testing in various vehicles and regular refill rates with cars that see oil temps of 275F+ in track use. Amsoil has stayed fairly stable and avoided shear even up to 325 to 350F spikes. Other oils haven't been as lucky in my use cases, but certainly others are also high quality. In fact, I actually prefer a liquimoly 5w40 or 10w60 for certain German car applications over amsoil, but I certainly wouldn't turn down the amsoil 0w40 euro formula, which does contain more moly than their other blends. Ime it's more important to ensure you have a fresh oil than a specific brand.

If you Google around for "amsoil vs... Oil analysis" you'll get a lot of results. It's often at the very top tier and from what I've seen it normally edges out to number 1. Then again, pennzoil is usually up there in the 1 or 2 spot, and the last few years liquimoly has gotten more popular.

You're right the factory fill contained very high moly content. It's very low on mag though. The replacement oil from the dealer is the exact opposite. I'm. Really not a fan of the virgin oil's formulation from a high level. I curious how it's used values will look and how it will have degraded. Notice in my linked analysis how much viscosity the factory fill lost after one track day. I suspect it was a 0w20 to start.

From my personal past experiences, I would not run royal purple or Mobil 1 again. Out of all the oils I've used those are the only two brands where I consistently found the journal bearing in my old sti weeping oil. Switched to rotella t6 on it and no more weeping. Oil analysis on them also showed ridiculous shear and reduction in viscosity. I've seen people run them in mustangs and boosted vettes for years without issue, but for some reason they hated my subaru.

It all depends in the end, and metal compositions of each engine are going to be different... That's why the oil analysis is crucial.

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[bvanlieu]

OK, bit of oil geeking but not going too deep here, that is what BITOG is for.

Totally appreciate your posting your experiences @Victorofhavoc , I was a bit cheeky on then notion of a testing agency which I disagree with. Single unit tests that show oil 1 better then oil 2 sure, and that's marketing at its best but an engine is a system the properties multi-dimentional over time.

Your experience is to the point that each application and engine can have different behaviors that react to oil choices and sometimes one has to be more educated about what they use vs. what a manual says or what you have used before.

By M1, you don't specify *which* M1: many many products they make. I am guessing it may have been Euro 0/40 which is known to be a pretty light 40 and shear quickly to a 30 but its also an oil that works very well in many applications, but in yours not so well. STIs didn't like it much, but older EJ20's did. It shears quick but tends to then stay in grade for a long time. That is key that its not a linear behavior, and often you will see drops in samples in the first 1-2K and it then mellows out over time.

Factory Fill is a 0w/20 but its the type 2.0 which is *not* what is sold as the Honda/Acura SYN in the US, its this:

Dream has it listed:

https://www.dream-automotive.com/pr...lCrL05J41xthro7vZQTMjvHbBdV9QVqzJ8xueqJ-qyPi6

For your UOA, sure its then the upper 7's it was new, your 6.76 is still well within grade. I think Redline has one of the higher 8.x ratings for a VOA but that is just V not how it behaves over time.

I suspect for tracking, you have moved to a nice 0 or 5/30 with a good HTHS rating which is more important then the fixed 100 value anyway.

There is a fellow in the EU who has run the Type 2.0 on multiple OCIs and educated folks like me on its results for their Type R.

Below UOA is of the Type 2.0 and is similar to your, save the higher Cst.

 

[Victorofhavoc]

OK, bit of oil geeking but not going too deep here, that is what BITOG is for.

Totally appreciate your posting your experiences @Victorofhavoc , I was a bit cheeky on then notion of a testing agency which I disagree with. Single unit tests that show oil 1 better then oil 2 sure, and that's marketing at its best but an engine is a system the properties multi-dimentional over time.

Your experience is to the point that each application and engine can have different behaviors that react to oil choices and sometimes one has to be more educated about what they use vs. what a manual says or what you have used before.

By M1, you don't specify *which* M1: many many products they make. I am guessing it may have been Euro 0/40 which is known to be a pretty light 40 and shear quickly to a 30 but its also an oil that works very well in many applications, but in yours not so well. STIs didn't like it much, but older EJ20's did. It shears quick but tends to then stay in grade for a long time. That is key that its not a linear behavior, and often you will see drops in samples in the first 1-2K and it then mellows out over time.

Factory Fill is a 0w/20 but its the type 2.0 which is *not* what is sold as the Honda/Acura SYN in the US, its this:

Dream has it listed:

https://www.dream-automotive.com/pr...lCrL05J41xthro7vZQTMjvHbBdV9QVqzJ8xueqJ-qyPi6

For your UOA, sure its then the upper 7's it was new, your 6.76 is still well within grade. I think Redline has one of the higher 8.x ratings for a VOA but that is just V not how it behaves over time.

I suspect for tracking, you have moved to a nice 0 or 5/30 with a good HTHS rating which is more important then the fixed 100 value anyway.

There is a fellow in the EU who has run the Type 2.0 on multiple OCIs and educated folks like me on its results for their Type R.

Below UOA is of the Type 2.0 and is similar to your, save the higher Cst.

The m1 was the 5w30 non-euro in my sti. Oil analysis had it looking like 20 within 2500 miles, but that was also on an sti making over 400whp that was seeing heavy use. Given how much people like M1 I thought it was a fluke so I tried it a second time and had the same issues. Honestly, I think it's just how subara oils the turbo. They're higher pressure on the line to it than you'd expect, so oil moves faster and should have less local heating, but it also loses oil through gaskets sooner when oil thins. It's not uncommon to find oil in the intercooler of an ej after the turbo weeps and blows it in.

Thanks for the link on dream. That actually looks like a more decent oil than the dealer fill! I like seeing other's data points as well!

For my racecar, I use redline 5w30. The high revving vq37vhr engine likes the high ester content of redline, even at higher temps. It seems to survive 8200rpm and constant WOT very well. It does shear some, but it's not horrendous. It's a lot worse on a 40w or higher. I had mountains of oil analysis on that engine and stupidly put it in a bin in the garage that got thrown out . 10-12 events per year and fresh oil every 3 events meant a lot of good data points.

 

[Integra23]

I strongly recommend maple syrup from New America near the Gulf of America. Let me know if you want me to ship you a few bottles.

I'm very interested! I love products from the 51st state.

 

[Ktrw]

Granted it is the break in oil change, but I'm not a big fan of the factory fill for these cars given that it's sheared out of grade in 1k miles. I was never going to run the factory fill or Hondas off-the-shelf oil, but I will be running Pennzoil Ultra Platinum or something higher at the end from this point. No short trips, no track mileage, and the fuel dilution was somewhat high.

I'm about to do my second oil change now that I'm at 3k miles and that will show results for PUP 0W-20.

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