Don't know...think it is just a basic one from what I have read. Check **** over kinda one. Thx bro that sounds like a better plan. I'm just over 125,000k right now so a bit to go.

 

I am here everyday until Jan 5 from 12-9pm except Fri and Sat which will be 10-5.

 

Motor oil

 

POST *****! No wonder you're up to 11K+ posts

 

Guelph City Mazda

oh, and to the OP, some people from the states posting in here...dont listen especially to someone who isnt in the same climate as you. honestly you should take everyones advice with a grain of salt (except 01Racing's advice) and make your own decision based on your own research and what you think is best. but definitly dont think you can use the same oil as someone in california with the same success as them.

I use the mazda oil because its convenient. if i didnt work at a mazda dealer i would likely use castrol GTX 5w20. the biggest thing is non synthetic 5W20 IMO. thats the important part. the guys who designed the engine arent stupid, and we, the consumers, arent smarter than they are. I'll take their word for it. even after my engine warranty is expired, i wont be using anything else but 5w20 and of course OE mazda filters.

Greg

 

You're still assuming that the people who design the engine decide what gets printed in the manual, as opposed to the team who takes the product to market.

I'm not saying 5W20 is a bad choice. I'm saying choose it for the right reasons if you do choose it.

 

Castrol Gtx 5w20

 

Actually, the people who designed it specified 5W30, so do most countries where the RX-8 is sold. Mazda North America specified the thinner 5W20 in a vain attempt to squeeze out better gas mileage.

It's your engine, use whatever you think is best for it. I only use 5W30.

 

wow, lots of you guys like the 5w20.

royal purple 5w30 ftw.

considering RP 10w30 for the summer.

 

I thought it was a vain attempt at emissions...

 

No, it's for mileage.

HOWEVER, I will point out (as I do in most of the oil discussions....) that 5w20 is a fine oil, and cannot be made (and stay on spec) without substantial help from synthetic base oils.
If you do any kind of 'extreme service' - many cold starts, short trips, autocross etc. - I would recommend something a little thicker, but only in the second number, i.e. 5w30 or 5w40 to protect the bearings.

I use 0w30 or 0w40, the first number is the oil's 'thickness' at startup, and no oil is thin enough then..........

S

 

I'm gonna try the Castrol 0w-50 (when I can find some).

 

The lighter oil (5W20) will give you:
1: More horsepower (oldest trick in the book btw)

2: Better fuel economy

3: Lower emissions

If you don't understand #1 call any Sprint Cup crew chief that has to qualify a car on time that doesnt have a guaranteed starting spot. 1st things they do are light weight engine, trans and diff oils. Light weight mean less restriction, engine and gear spin easier and quicker. Only downside is it wont survive 4 hours of racing with the heat and stress they put on their parts. Street cars dont have the same problem. That is why synthetic oils give you better performance numbers as well.

 

Lies!!!

I"m telling you... freshly squeezed baby seal oil.. only way to go FTMFW!

 

I assume you are talking about a dino 5w20. Wouldn't a full synthetic 0w30/5w30 outperform on all those points compared to dino 5w20?

 

For a rotary application, a 0w50 or even a 0w30 would be damned near perfect for our motors. The problem is that these kinds of oils require massive additive packages to get them to work that way.

Greg has a point here. Type/brand of oil is important but honesly the weight overall is the biggest factor in my opinion. I would choose whatever brand and type of oil you trust and use a winter weight and a summer weight. I would suggest nothing thinner than a 5w-30 but a 10w-30 would work fine even for winter.

In the summer months I suggest a 20w-50 as long as you don't have cold temperatures during the summer months (sub 50 degrees at night). 20w-50 will flow through the OMP just fine.

While Greg is correct, the engineers for this motor are not stupid, the important factor to remember is the oil choice for the RX8 is based on factors beyond engine life and operation. Things like emissions and fuel mileage have to be taken into consideration.

Without blowing the top off an oil debate, one only has to look at Mazda oil suggestions for the RX7 and RX8 in various parts of the world. There was a time you saw Mazda suggesting 20w-50 for the RX7. One thing Mazda didn't include with the RX8 that they should have was an OMP bypass adapter. The sohn adapter is such a device.

There are hundreds of pages of oil talk and debate on RX8club. It's a lot to go through. I honestly don't know if the oil I'm using currently is the best stuff and I've done a lot of reading.

It's your choice!

Actually trying to compare race engines and street engines are apples to oranges. This is why there's a misunderstanding when people look at "racing" products for their street driven cars. Lighter oils do increase efficiency but at the expense of protection and wear. Race teams can afford to do this because they rebuild their motors as often as every race, if not multiple times a season.

A street driven car often never sees a motor rebuild. That being said, that doesn't mean that a lighter weight oil will work better in a street driven car simply because it doesn't see the kind of race car stress a race car does. Think about how many cold starts, stop and go, and different environments a street driven motor goes though. It needs the same kind of protection a race driven motor does, but it needs the oil to last longer since people don't change their oil every 200 miles.

 

Well... I "may" use Mobil1 0w20 with 0w40 mixed during the summer. I planned my oil changes along the days I went Auto-Xing during the summer though.

 

So which would be the lesser of two evils?

A 0/5 weight with more additives but less wear at startup.

A 10/20 weight with less additives but more wear at startup.

How much wear can these additives cause and how does it occur?

 

No need to pick any evils......

Old school dino oils needed additives to beef them up under hard use, modern synthetics are designed for their job, and most have a very high viscosity index 'naturally' (or maybe 'right out of the box' would be a better term, nothing natural about synthetics)

So a typical (old) 10w30 would have a lot of stuff in it to stay 'in grade', (metallic powders and polymers that don't last very long in rough service) while a modern polyalphaolefin synthetic might be 0w40 right out of the reactor, and the finished oil will end up with less overall additives, as a % of the oil in your bottle.

Any oil; 0w, 5w, is very thick at startup, way thicker than a hot oil, so there is never a need to worry that your 'first number' is too low - taint going to be.

Thicker oil MAY protect bearings under extreme service a little better, IF it stays thick and IF it can flow enough to do the job, but thin oil will
cool better,
flow better,
filter quicker,
get up to temp quicker,
cool in the coolers quicker,
and lower oil pump back pressure.

Simple hydraulics.....

S

 

And about sulphated ash... I am using an oil with a 0.99 wt. %, should I switch to one with a lower ash or will redlining alone keep carbon deposits at bay?