Lubricants

Ferrari Message Board Archive 10/00-8/02
Locked
wwwboard
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:56 pm

Lubricants

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Jim

Dear Tom,
I'm nearing the completion of a restoration of a 330 GTS.  I asked the restorer, a reputable fellow, about what type of oil to use.  In particular, what about synthetic, with its superior lubricant properties, and high temperature stability, and its longevity.  His response was that he uses natural oil in old cars, like ours, and synthetic in the newer Ferraris, because the machine tolerances are closer in the new autos and won't leak the synthetic oil; but, in the cars like the 250's, 275's & 330's, the synthetic sruff will leak, even with properly performed rebuilding/machining and gaskets.

What  is your and others' opinion?  What does Francois say?

As an aside, I read somewhere in an FCA tech column, that changing an engine from natural oil to synthetic is not a problem (i.e., you can mix the two).  Any comments.

And lastly, I have the same questions about synthetics for transmissions, transaxles and rear ends of the vintage Ferraris.

Thanks,
Jim
wwwboard
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:56 pm

Re: Lubricants

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Tom

Hi Jim,

Francois uses dino(saur) oil for everything because in all the years of working on Ferraris, he has never seen a failure directly attributed to regular oil. His feeling is, if it isn't broken, why fix it? I feel the same way, and feel sythetics are a waste of money considering the frequency of oil changes, and severity of use with classic cars. It's amazing what good marketing will make us spend!

He, and I will use 20W-50 Castrol for the engine. Again, never a problem, so that is good enough of a reason for me to use it.

I'm going to try the SWEPCO stuff for the transmission against Francois' advice. He uses regular 80-90, but on occasion, used Redline with good results. I figure if he used Redline, then the SWEPCO stuff should at least be the same, if not better.

The rear diff is filled with 250, that's right, 250 weight gear oil as per Ferrari recommendations.

Your 330 transaxle will use the 80-90.  

Tom
wwwboard
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:56 pm

Re: Lubricants

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by zac

just a note take a synthetic oil of the same viscosity as a coventional oil and pour them both out the synthetic will flow much faster why they rate them the same is beyond me but if your going to use it in an older Ferrari which allready leak oil at any given opportunity why make it worse. besides the only true benifit to synthetic oil is it's resistence to heat and break down at extremely high temperatures much beyond the operating or designed temperatures of a Ferrari. so the oil didn't fail but the rods warped or the pistons melted not a sensible waste of money but man the maketing sure makes it look like a must have &nbsp
wwwboard
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:56 pm

Re: Lubricants

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by zac

just a note take a synthetic oil of the same viscosity as a coventional oil and pour them both out the synthetic will flow much faster why they rate them the same is beyond me but if your going to use it in an older Ferrari which allready leak oil at any given opportunity why make it worse. besides the only true benifit to synthetic oil is it's resistence to heat and break down at extremely high temperatures much beyond the operating or designed temperatures of a Ferrari. so the oil didn't fail but the rods warped or the pistons melted not a sensible waste of money but man the maketing sure makes it look like a must have &nbsp
wwwboard
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:56 pm

Re: Lubricants

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Chris Coios

Jim, A suggestion, if you can find it, is straight 40W for summer use, what Ferrari originally recommended.  Kendall used to make 40W in their GT-1 line if I remember and it was great stuff.  Perhaps they still make it, and you may be able to order it.  I used it for years in an Alfa Romeo.  A good basic warm-up at a steady 1500 RPM (avoid the blipping routine, sounds cool, but all it does is pour raw fuel down the bores from the accelerator pumps!) for 5 minutes to get some temperature on the gauges, and off you go, keeping the revs modest until the engine and gearbox oils are warmed.  I always had good oil pressure, and good wear.  By October, if you live in a cold climate, you need to swap it out for a multi-viscosity oil, like 10W-40.  As for multi-viscosity oil, should you elect to use this for summer, try 20W-40, again if you can find it from Castrol or Kendall.  20W-50 has become popular, but I have read that to get this range is a stretch requiring lots of additives.  20W-40 will give good protection. Chris
wwwboard
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:56 pm

Re: Lubricants

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Jim P

I'm somewhat familiar with motor oils by proxy of work with Ashland and Borden Chemical, mainly with resin curing processes (hold a patent on vaporizing reactant and catalyst gases, know a bit about chemistry).  Initially, and not widely disclosed at the time, most synthetic motor oils contained high levels of ester.  Similar to hydraulic fluids that are ester-based and used in machinery at foundries and steel mills (higher flash point being one reason), it's bad for use in systems with directional valves, cylinder actuators, etc. that do not have Viton seals.

In older cars, the high ester content attacked the rubber, particularly if seals were already marginal from normal breakdown via extended contact with oil over the years.  Also synthetic (ester-based) oils and conventional (mineral-based) oils did not mix well back then.  I remember using the new stuff when it first came out in an older Corvette.  I ended up changing all of the seals a month later.  My scenario was not unique...  Synthetic motor oil suffered a somewhat miserable introduction.

Now almost all newer synthetic motor oils have been re-formulated (less or no ester content) to be safe for use in most vehicles, and can even be mixed with conventional oils.  Synthetics flow better in colder temperatures and do adhere better to surfaces at higher temperatures and pressures, which probably saves a bit of wear on engines at startup.  But the additives, which are essentially cleaners and anti-corrosive inhibiters, still break down at pretty much the same rate from the by-products of engine combustion.  So I would still change oil at the same interval as conventional oil.  Since I don't have the exotic cars you guys drive (only a boat and regular cars) and NEVER speed, I personally opt to not spend the $$$ and just change oil frequently.

Maybe I’d consider using synthetics if I had a newly rebuilt muscle engine with all new seals (gasket material is much better today too), AND the engine had already been broken in with “dino” oil (some wear is good initially to ”seat” everything).

wwwboard
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:56 pm

Re: Lubricants

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Tom

Hi Jim,

Thank you so much for sharing your insight on this topic. Exotic or not, Ferrari engines require the same things as any gasoline engine. Since very few of us drive our cars in extreeme temperature, nor abuse the frequency in which we change our oil, I agree with not spending the extra money on synthetics.

What about disposal? Does synthetics get recycled with dino oil? What happens to all of this stuff after we drop off our old oil at Autozone?

Tom    &nbsp
wwwboard
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:56 pm

Re: Lubricants

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Lee Sanders

Here's my $.02.

My Boxer just had a total engine teardown and rebuild (restoration, not failure) by Tate Casey at Carobu Engineering ( www.carobu.com ).  He used dino oil for the Dyno tests, and replaced it with dino oil for 500 mile break-in.  He then advised I switch to Mobil-1, 10-30.  I don't face the old gaskets problem mentioned earlier.  I haven't decided if I'm going to follow his advice.  At 24 liters of oil in the tank, this is not an inexpensive decision.

David Haney what are you using?

Lee
wwwboard
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:56 pm

Re: Lubricants

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Lee Sanders

Here's my $.02.

My Boxer just had a total engine teardown and rebuild (restoration, not failure) by Tate Casey at Carobu Engineering ( www.carobu.com ).  He used dino oil for the Dyno tests, and replaced it with dino oil for 500 mile break-in.  He then advised I switch to Mobil-1, 10-30.  I don't face the old gaskets problem mentioned earlier.  I haven't decided if I'm going to follow his advice.  At 24 liters of oil in the tank, this is not an inexpensive decision.

David Haney what are you using?

Lee
wwwboard
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:56 pm

Re: Lubricants

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Lee Sanders

Here's my $.02.

My Boxer just had a total engine teardown and rebuild (restoration, not failure) by Tate Casey at Carobu Engineering ( www.carobu.com ).  He used dino oil for the Dyno tests, and replaced it with dino oil for 500 mile break-in.  He then advised I switch to Mobil-1, 10-30.  I don't face the old gaskets problem mentioned earlier.  I haven't decided if I'm going to follow his advice.  At 24 liters of oil in the tank, this is not an inexpensive decision.

David Haney what are you using?

Lee
wwwboard
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:56 pm

Re: Lubricants

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Jim P

Most oil that's recycled is used for purposes other than motor oil, so whether it's synthetic or mineral doesn't matter much.  The biggest share is used in asphalt production, some to make fuel oil, and some is burned in industrial boilers, etc.  The oil change guy down the street from me burns it in an approved heating system.  His shop is always toasty.

For awhile (pre '95 I think) you couldn't give away used oil, at least here in Indiana.  You had to pay to have it hauled off.  But EPA legislation in the mid 90's made it practical (profitable) for collection, reprocessing, and re-refining.  After that, some states gave tax abatements to the recycling industry and now typically give preference in awarding contracts to those selling recycled oil products for governmental consumption.  Some of the motor oil used in the cop cars here contains up to 25% re-refined oil.  They seem to run OK...

I believe an FTC proposal was struck down a few years back that would have required oil companies to label motor oil as to whether it contained recycled stuff or not.  Also since API-certification for motor oil is based on its physical properties and performance tests, and doesn't care about the origin of the oil, it's not hard to figure out that we are putting some percentage of it back into our engines.

And driving on it.

wwwboard
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:56 pm

Re: Lubricants

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Aaron Masters

To  -  who ever it may interest

I put new syncros in the transmission of my C4 about a year ago, and after replacing both the second gear syncro ring and the first&second slider/engagement ring/(the thing with all the teeth on the inside), I still was not happy with the way a casual shift felt. I can slam it in gear, or go slowly with perfection – but a moderate up-shift will catch just a slight grind/”non-fully-syncroed” transition. I have tried 4 different types of lubricants in the transmission to ease this situation. I’m running Swepco now and believe it to be pretty good but my favorite is Red Line Heavy shock proof, and I will most likely put that back in at the next oil change.  None of the transmission lubricants relieved the problem, and if you think about it, it really isn’t a lubricant problem – more of a mechanical “timing/clearance” problem.  The Red Line warmed up faster, and had more of a cushiony feel.  

wwwboard
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:56 pm

Re: Lubricants

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Aaron Masters

To  -  who ever it may interest

I put new syncros in the transmission of my C4 about a year ago, and after replacing both the second gear syncro ring and the first&second slider/engagement ring/(the thing with all the teeth on the inside), I still was not happy with the way a casual shift felt. I can slam it in gear, or go slowly with perfection – but a moderate up-shift will catch just a slight grind/”non-fully-syncroed” transition. I have tried 4 different types of lubricants in the transmission to ease this situation. I’m running Swepco now and believe it to be pretty good but my favorite is Red Line Heavy shock proof, and I will most likely put that back in at the next oil change.  None of the transmission lubricants relieved the problem, and if you think about it, it really isn’t a lubricant problem – more of a mechanical “timing/clearance” problem.  The Red Line warmed up faster, and had more of a cushiony feel.  

Locked