High quality oil for high horsepower application

FXDL said:

Don't use a 15w50,10w50 or20w50 in a water cooled engine, in a air cooled motorcycle or your lawn mower yes and break in oils are useless.
Run the heavy weight oil in that, I assume air cooled racing tractor pictured above ok.
Use a top quality 5w30 or 5w40 oil that the engine was called for wright from the start.
Why would anyone want to run such a heavy weight oil in a engine that called for a 5w30 oil or a 5w40 oil in the first place??
Hey its your engine, good luck

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This above ^^^ is probably the worst advice in this thread. This guy is clueless, do not use 5w30 in a 300+ HP CR TDI.

I get great results with Mobil1 TDT 5w-40 in my CRUA. Here's my last UOA
I plan to keep using TDT as well when the CUAA makes its way under the hood.

Using a 5w30 in a 300 HP engine is not clueless. Anything heavier then 5w40 is truly not need. Break in oils are a waste, use a top quality oil wright from the start and forget the break in crap. Its your engine and Clever knows better. Explain why you would want such a heavy weight oil [10w50 etc..] in a water cooled engine?
10 pounds of oil pressure for every 1000 rpm and you are good with 5w30 oil.
Crap they now are using 0w16 oil in Toyota's and their is now a water thin 0w12 oils too, which is for sure a joke.
600 and higher HP engines are running 5w30.
Again your engine and Clever says I am clueless, so listen to Clever as he knows best??????
Your engine and your money.

FXDL said:

Using a 5w30 in a 300 HP engine is not clueless. Anything heavier then 5w40 is truly not need. Break in oils are a waste, use a top quality oil wright from the start and forget the break in crap. Its your engine and Clever knows better. Explain why you would want such a heavy weight oil [10w50 etc..] in a water cooled engine?
10 pounds of oil pressure for every 1000 rpm and you are good with 5w30 oil.
Crap they now are using 5w16 oil in Toyota's and their is now a water thin 5w12 oils too, which is for sure a joke.
600 and higher HP engines are running 5w30.
Again your engine and Clever says I am clueless, so listen to Clever as he knows best??????
Your engine and your money.

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I'm not sure what's worse, your grammar, spelling or oil advice?

All oils thin out as they heat up, and the hotter they get above 100c the operational viscosity begins to drop. A 40w is only 40w @ 100c. If you measured the viscosity at 150C it would only be a 20w.

You need thicker oils with modified engines because they generate more heat. Since they run hotter and generate higher coolant and oil temps, you must compensate by using a higher viscosity oil to maintain the same film thickness during these extremes with elevated temps. This is a really basic concept and a well known phenomenon.

Same concept if you owned a 2.0 CR TDI and drove it to work every day flat out at 140 mph for an hour long commute. Your oil temps will be elevated, beyond what VW designed them to be with a "normal" duty cycle and 5w30. Therefore a thicker oil should be used. Same concept would also apply if you lived in the middle east and regularly drove around in the desert with A/C on full blast when the ambient temps were 130+ degrees. Elevated oil and coolant temps would be seen in this situation.

The operating temps of the coolant, and thus the oil, are regulated via a thermostat. The peak output of the engine only occurs during that peak.

I very much doubt a 200hp engine pushing a 3000 pound car through the air on a 100F day at 100 MPH is generating any more oil taxing situations than a 100hp engine doing the same thing, since in either case only ~50hp is being used anyway.

And the term "high horsepower" and "racing" are completely vague and ambiguous. VAG specs the same oil in a 2.0L 4 cyl moving a Crafter around, that has a payload that is more than a whole Golf weighs. THAT engine would be working harder potentially, wouldn't it?

The caveat is, where is the oil spec fall in relation to fuel economy and emissions vs. engine health and longevity?

We (this club, and others) have volumes upon volumes of experience to show that even some really heavily modified TDIs that get worked quite hard, or as hard as a road going car could/would ever see, are moving along just fine with stock OEM type motor oils. Not to mention the piles of UOA data collected.

So it really comes down to what exactly is being asked of the engine in the OP's car? It sounds to me (he did not say), that he is going to be using the engine in a car on the street, like 99% of us here are doing every day. And with the TDI, reduction or elimination of EGR as well as on the CR cars elimination of the DPF is already going to lessen the burden the motor oil has to carry. By a pretty big margin.

oilhammer said:

The operating temps of the coolant, and thus the oil, are regulated via a thermostat. The peak output of the engine only occurs during that peak.

I very much doubt a 200hp engine pushing a 3000 pound car through the air on a 100F day at 100 MPH is generating any more oil taxing situations than a 100hp engine doing the same thing, since in either case only ~50hp is being used anyway.

And the term "high horsepower" and "racing" are completely vague and ambiguous. VAG specs the same oil in a 2.0L 4 cyl moving a Crafter around, that has a payload that is more than a whole Golf weighs. THAT engine would be working harder potentially, wouldn't it?

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I can’t say that I’ve ever seen any of the extremes I’ve highlighted above, however I did read a thread here or on Bobistheoilguy.com about a guy in South America who drove a 2.0 TDI and had a flat-out high speed commute, including a mountain section. He was asking if oil temps of 270+f were acceptable. The OP was advised to use something else for his driving pattern due to the elevated oil temps.

So yes in the example above I think the stock cooling systems in the CR 2.0 is not up to the task in extreme situations.

Not sure about your hypothetical Crafter statement, don’t have any data on that to make speculations.

As was already said, it all has to do with oil temps. If the temps are elevated the operational viscosity is lower than design and you need to compensate for that. If the OP drives his 300 HP 2.0 like a grandma then 5w30 will probably be fine and will give him the best FE. If not, and he has elevated oil temps then some other higher viscosity should be used.

Interesting conversation. I guess to clarify, I do want to be able to track this car hard. What Darkside has found is that oil temps can get out of hand. I have added an oil cooler and upgraded radiator. Need to sort out an oil temp sensor yet.

The next question is what is a safe max oil temp?

travis45 said:

Interesting conversation. I guess to clarify, I do want to be able to track this car hard. What Darkside has found is that oil temps can get out of hand. I have added an oil cooler and upgraded radiator. Need to sort out an oil temp sensor yet.

The next question is what is a safe max oil temp?

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Yes, as previously stated oil temp is the main factor for consideration. I would do some experimentation with moderate-heavy driving to see where your at with a quality 5w40 as a baseline.

Safe max oil temp is really based on the oil type and viscosity itself. Heat accelerates oxidation and thermal breakdown. High end lubes with PAO and Esters resist oxidation better than group III based Walmart lubes. With that said, if ANY oil is operated at elevated temps for extended periods it will degrade faster and need to be replaced/changed sooner than every 10k miles. The actual ideal interval can be interpolated by using oil analysis which measure oxidation, nitration, TAN and viscosity.

Modern corvette and LS based GM vehicles are spec’d with 5w30 for DD and 15w50 for track use. This huge gap is due to operational viscosity and oil temps.

I think it’s reckless to assume 5w30 is OK to use in a 2.0 TDI with stock clearances making 2x horsepower. Especially if your driving it hard.

CleverUserName said:

Yes, as previously stated oil temp is the main factor for consideration. I would do some experimentation with moderate-heavy driving to see where your at with a quality 5w40 as a baseline.
Safe max oil temp is really based on the oil type and viscosity itself. Heat accelerates oxidation and thermal breakdown. High end lubes with PAO and Esters resist oxidation better than group III based Walmart lubes. With that said, if ANY oil is operated at elevated temps for extended periods it will degrade faster and need to be replaced/changed sooner than every 10k miles. The actual ideal interval can be interpolated by using oil analysis which measure oxidation, nitration, TAN and viscosity.
Modern corvette and LS based GM vehicles are spec’d with 5w30 for DD and 15w50 for track use. This huge gap is due to operational viscosity and oil temps.
I think it’s reckless to assume 5w30 is OK to use in a 2.0 TDI with stock clearances making 2x horsepower. Especially if your driving it hard.

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I appreciate the comments. I think I'm going to try the Motul Sport Ester 5w50. Along with monitoring oil temps carefully before any sustained hard throttle driving. I've been doing some AutoX, but that is only hard throttle for about a minute at a time. The other thing that I didn't mention here was that I have ceramic coated the pistons. This may be helpful for short hard stabs with high EGT's, but not so much for a 20 minute session on a big track. The other thing DS has done is added an electric water pump to keep the coolant moving a bit better.

I think the concern is more about overheating the oil to the point where you could melt a piston.

If you're generating enough heat to melt a piston, there's really no oil that is going to alleviate that. I think the Motul 5w50 should work out well for you. Many of the racing oils are pretty weak in detergency, so it’s probably best to reduce the change intervals. But if you're tracking the car a bunch I'm sure that was already part of the plan.

If your hot enough to melt a piston that's being sprayed with oil that is being cooled by the coolant, you have no point to add a coating. The failure point is going to be a melted turbo, not a melted piston. Well probably both, but honestly doing such is just a piss poor power build. You can gain crazy power with controllable egts if built properly. The biggest issue with egts is the turbo because as you get to that point, the exhaust is literally still combusting as its leaving the engine and going into the turbo, granted that's at high power output, but the fact is that whatever egt you are at, the piston. Its self is much cooler.

EGT's aren't a problem... For now that is

On long three gear pulls, the EGT's are topping around 500°C and actually tapering off. This surprised the hell out of me. With the smaller turbos I was hitting 1000°C no sweat in one gear. I have to assume the porting, cams, larger valves and turbo have made a good difference.

Even 2260 on the CRUA I hit 900C at the very top of 3rd. It's all your breathing mods plus turbo..that's super low. Or has Mark just not turned up the heat yet

We are working up the fueling. I expect to reach the limit of the pump at some point.

First working up rail pressure to max the pump can take to minimize injection duration. Hopefully this will also help to keep EGT's low. Once we hit the max the pump can take, back off a smidge and start adding more duration until we hit higher EGT's or lose rail pressure.

Mongler98 said:

The failure point is going to be a melted turbo, not a melted piston.

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(gasoline engine laughs in continuous 1800 degree f EGTs)

travis45 said:

EGT's aren't a problem... For now that is

On long three gear pulls, the EGT's are topping around 500°C and actually tapering off. This surprised the hell out of me. With the smaller turbos I was hitting 1000°C no sweat in one gear. I have to assume the porting, cams, larger valves and turbo have made a good difference.

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bigger turbo makes an enormous difference
with the smaller compounds I was running, the pyro would go full scale from 300f to... whatever it reads, iirc something like 1500f? in about 3 seconds
now, it slowly plods along and peaks at around 800F
there's a lot more air, but I think the thing that was getting such fast response out of the pyro was the really high exhaust pressure imparting the heat into the probe real fast. Used to be 70 psi in the exhaust, haven't checked with the bigger turbos yet but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it were below boost.

travis45 said:

I appreciate the comments. I think I'm going to try the Motul Sport Ester 5w50. Along with monitoring oil temps carefully before any sustained hard throttle driving. I've been doing some AutoX, but that is only hard throttle for about a minute at a time. The other thing that I didn't mention here was that I have ceramic coated the pistons. This may be helpful for short hard stabs with high EGT's, but not so much for a 20 minute session on a big track. The other thing DS has done is added an electric water pump to keep the coolant moving a bit better.
I think the concern is more about overheating the oil to the point where you could melt a piston.

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That oil looks weak with low detergency. I don't think it's ideal for a tuned diesel. https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/motul-sport-ester-5w-50.201042/post-3220524

If you want an ester based oil Valvoline Premium Blue Restore is mostly ester and it's formulated for diesels. VPBR comes in 10w30 and 5w40 .This is only available from Cummins dealers and it's like $80 a gallon because of the high ester content. This is not the VPB Extreme which is common and cheap, but it's called VPB Restore.

My spelling and grammar, didn't know I was in school teacher.
Really thicker oil is better, too thick and oil temps will rise.
But hey what do I know as it seems some out here are the oil gods and no one can give their opinion as they know best and they have nothing better to do then attempt to put people down for their spelling and grammar.
Who really gives a rats ass about my spelling.

Grammar N@ZIS have nothing usefull to contribute to humanity.

CleverUserName said:

<snip>
I think it’s reckless to assume 5w30 is OK to use in a 2.0 TDI with stock clearances making 2x horsepower. Especially if your driving it hard.

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False. The only reason you need a lot of viscosity is if you can't control the heat. It's going to be nearly impossible for a car driven on the street, even a modified one, to get oil temp high enough to matter.



Keep a synthetic oil under 300F and you have nothing to worry about. I've purposely (trying to cause a failure is a specific situation) run 5w30 synthetic in a TDI application up to a localized high temp of 375F without any long term reliability issues and no evidence of coking upon disassembly.

Kevinski4 said:

False. The only reason you need a lot of viscosity is if you can't control the heat. It's going to be nearly impossible for a car driven on the street, even a modified one, to get oil temp high enough to matter.



Keep a synthetic oil under 300F and you have nothing to worry about. I've purposely (trying to cause a failure is a specific situation) run 5w30 synthetic in a TDI application up to a localized high temp of 375F without any long term reliability issues and no evidence of coking upon disassembly.

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Your comment and experiences are completely anecdotal and not backed by empirical evidence or established practices.

Haha, Kevin. Tell him what your job is....