ok, so I picked up a new sponsor for auto cross (Amsoil).
the Amsoil dealer Mark Wendland (like my sponsor plug?) was telling me about H.P. gains, due to it's superior lurication, you know all that fun stuff. He offered to pay to get the car dynoed before and after to see what gains could be made.

anyways, to get to the point, we dynoed the car today with regular engine oil, and Royal purple in both the trans and the diff. (yeah it killed me to toss the Royal Purple with only 3,000 miles or so) the oil was well warmed from the 1/2 hour drive to the shop. all three pulls were very close to each other.

183.8 (fith gear pull)
183.x (fourth gear pull)
184.5 (fith gear pull)

we then changed all fluids to Amsoil fluids. now because I dont want to be called a "cheater" I must mention that Amsoil octain booster was also added. (the goal was to add all Amsoil products, there was also suposed to be an Amsoil air filter to replace the K&N, but it did not come in time)

three more pulls were made

193.6 (fith gear pull)
185.x (4th gear pull)
187.1 (fith gear pull)

9.1 H.P. max gain on our runs today.

things that need to be mentioned.
1) the 1st set of pulls were with the car and oil well into temps. with the 2nd set of pulls the Amsoil was most likely not fully warmed. I am curiouse to see if any more power could be realized if it we warmed more.

2) remember that there WAS Royal Purple in both the trans and the diff. I also would be curious to see what it would have been like with dino oil in all 3 locations first.

3) I do not know why the Amsoil was less consistant then the dino oil and Royal Purple. my only guess is it had something to do with the temprature of the oil as nothing else changed???

4) both sets of runs were made within an hour and a half of each other. and ambiant air temps were the same.

5) if you notice on the old oil runs the engine was droping off at about 7,700 RPMs. (which is why the dyno tech let off) with the Amsoil run it continued to produce H.P. untill redline.

6) (sorry these are comming at me as I am typing this) the engine oil was regular 5w 30 dinosaur oil with maybe 1,000 miles or so on it. the tranny and diff as I said before were Royal Purple with maybe 3,000 miles or so on it.

7) I wish the Dyno tech would have started all dynos at a lower RPM, and ended all runs at redline. (like I said, he saw that it was losing power with the old oil and let off as he didnt see any need to continue and didnt want to hurt the engine... wich I mostly agree, I still would have liked to have seen it all the way though)

8) if you notice the dyno chart shows that the old oils were producing more H.P. through out the power band (just a little) untill the engine started to fall off, then the Amsoil really started to show. I kinda think this might also be due to the temprature of the oil.... I really dont know, just my observation. I really wish we would have driven the car on the freeway or something to get oil temps up like the first set of runs.... then I wouldent have all of this "guessing".

9) This has nothing to do with the Amsoil vs other oils, but I was expecting closer to 190 h.p. on the before runs as I have an intake, pulleys, and flywheel. dont get me wrong, I dont think that is a lot of mods, but I have heard of some of you RX-8 guys getting into the 200 h.p. club with the same mods plus exhaust, & cat delete. (right?) this led me to belive that I would be right at the 190 mark.... I guess 184.5 (before Amsoil) is not far off huh?

10) the Dyno is a DynoJet.

well I think I pretty much covered it, I really dont know what else to say other then I was suprised myself that there was even any measurable differance.... especially over the Royal Purple. since you have to change your oil anyways, might as well do it with Amsoil if you are plannin on running synthetics. I know everyone at the shop was convinced.


oh yeah, if you are interested in running Amsoil (yes it can be shiped) please contact Mark at http://www.oil1.us/ or give him a call at (800)566-5707. make sure you mention me. (Casey with the Yellow RX-8)

also I have some video of the dyno runs... I will try to get them up pretty soon.















EIDT: These results are pretty much invalid.... take a look at this post. https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...63#post1685763 not saying that Amsoil does not pull more power, just saying that the results are invalid due to a problem with the car.




..

 

WOW! I didn't think that it would make that much difference. But after what I heard about Mazda voiding warranties I still think I'll stay with dino oil until the warranty is over. Thanks for the info though I have a friend that sells amsoil and he swears by it.

 

what weight were the oils? and nice write..


beers

 

thanks swoop, I will get that for you..... but off the top of my head it should be 5w 30 engine and the 90w for the other 2..... let me get that for sure though.

 

damn long a** write but very through and helpful. seems quite a difference to me (a amature when it comes to the nity-grity of the engine) i didnt realize our car only made 183~ stock, that is a lot of loss to mechanical.

 

Another happy Amsoil customer.

Nice writeup Speeddemon32!

If you could add which type of Amsoil you are running that would be useful as well since there are a few variations.

I am running the Series 2000 for transmission and rear diff (75w90).


5w30 Amsoil for the engine, believe it is the oil that claims 25,000 or 1 year drain intervals (which I won't be attempting with the rotary).

 

yeah, I will post the weights when I get a chance to..... the tranny and the diff are differant oils now. (with the Royal purple they were the same.)

thanks for the compliments on the wright up. it was a lot of work, but I wanted to make sure I gave you ALL of the information.

 

Great write up Speeddemon .
I'm afraid that the fact that the operator backed off at 8000 rpm in the first runs has spoiled it for me . Most dynos i've seen of 8's show more power up to 8500 .

 

yeah, me a little bit to, but he did have a point, when it started falling off, there was no reason in going farther.... but like I said, I would rather he had gone all the way.... all well, what are you gona do. he was just afraid of hurting the engine. :/

 

I can't understand why the Amsoil showed power loss (over 5 hp from what I can see) earlier on but more power at the top end . If it had shown a steady 5 hp gain all the way to 8500 rpm - that would have been impressive ......

 

how does the amsoil burn?. does it leave any by products. i know racing beat, back in the day used amsoil. but i think they were premixing. i could be wrong.

 

I don't know royal purple seemed more consistant to me.....since the royal wasn't ran as high rpm wise.....I can't really make an assessment on the peak hp.....if your a dyno queen seems your sponsors win there....if its overall performance...i'd go wtih royal

 

Dtorre, your right it was not run as high. as I said before the dyno tech saw no reason to keep running when the engine was falling off in power. I also said that I wish he had kept going my self just to see how far it would have died off. (or not)

I agree with some of you on some of it. I must say that I am suprised with the amsoil drop across the range but the increase in high RPM power. I really think that this MIGHT be due to the cooler oils, by being thicker at the moment you were seeing the "drop" in power, but in the high RPM range when the old oil was failing, the amsoil was at least doing it's job allowing the engine to continue to produce power. I have no idea if this is the case or not, just a tought that I am leaning towrds.

As team said there could have been better "controll" test. but there really was not much I could do about that. I dont think any of us were about to pull out the 1,000 mile oil, to put in fresh dino oil, just to pull that back out and put the Amsoil in. but come on, at least admit that 1,000 mile oil is not exactly burnt old junk oil. there was plenty of life left in it. it was still "almost" new. I would go get the temps up and try again to see if the lower power goes up, but then I know I will get people telling me that "because it was done on a differant day, the car was sitting on the rollers differant" or "but it might have been cooler outside" or "you might have better gas this time" so all well, I should have done a better job when I had the chance. :/

but there is no denying that there is a differance at least between the test that were done on the car. (weater it is good or bad is up to you, you need to take into consideration everything I thought of plus what ever I forgot). there is also no denying that there was more h.p. in the high RPMs when the older oil was failing. that at least is already proven in the dyno charts. the old oils (I imagine it was the dino oil) simply gave up above 7800 RPMs or so. I am not an Amsoil dealer, I get nothing out of any of this. I simply am calling it as I see it. I got my oils and dyno time out of the deal. he gets his name on the car for a season. this is just for you guys. this is also why I tried to have such a detailed post of exactly what happend today. there is also no denying that peak h.p. was higher on all 3 runs. again take that as you want.

I guess my biggest thing is I really was expecting to see 0 differance between the two oils. I mean come on, it's freakin oil. I was expecting to see 190 h.p with the old oil, and 190 h.p. with the new. I was at least proven wrong about that.

(for like the 4th time) I really wish I would have brought the car up to temps by driving on the freeway just like I did with the old oil. at least that way it would have taken all of this "guess" work out of it. that was my fault, and I have no one to blame but myself for that one. I certainly had the opportunity to do that, I just didnt take it.

 

Octane booster? What kinda fuel were you running? Premixed? Just gotta ask, thats a lot of gain.

 

Torque Loss? Or do my eyes decieve me...

 

great write up dude.. enjoyed reading it. Very interesting and of course people can talk about this and that from your post. But like a lot of us i appreciate your sharing your findings.
I would like to point out one thing. If your car is loosing power at 7K(even with the dyno oil)---somethings wrong man--check it out. Changing oil did not fix that problem.
A synthetic engine oil RP, Redline, Amsoil etc will increase hp by a little, it also will run cooler(this I KNOW). I dont think the cooler oil on that 1st run would have made THAT much differance. I also dont think the octane stuff made any differance.
Again thanks for posting.
By the way I think I like that ralley stripe on the side of your car.
olddragger

 

Oil can make a difference.

There are four refiners of "synthetic" stock. Amsoil, Mobil (Exxon Mobile now), Castrol, BP. It doesn't matter if it says Royal Purple, Valvoline, etc, the synthetic stock comes from one of the 4 refiners who makes it. Of course every reseller adds other compounds to their respective formula.

Synthetic does run cooler then petroleum oil. In part due to reduced friction, particularly when dealing with sliding seals. Rotaries have a lot more sliding friction then pistons do. At least thats the case on a 4-stroke. We've done extensive testing on 2 strokes and found no difference between synthetic and castor. Years ago I ran tests on a GM 3.1 liter V6 and found a 4% gain with Mobil (5-40w) 1 over Castol (10-30W). Viscosity could have played a part, but there was also a water temp reduction of about 10°. That was on a Stuska engine dyno.

Gearbox oil makes a difference. Ever seen those Lucas oil demo gearboxes at the local auto parts atore that tout how Lucas adheres to gears better? Its the one with two sample gearboxes with cranks - few people notice it takes about 30% more force to turn the Lucas oil gearset.....Turns out that extra adhesion costs power. Ever notice how ATF is usually a very light oil? Automatics generally have a lot more drag then manuals, thinner oil minimizes the drag. It's not the gear contact that needs a "thicker" oil, it's the synchros. Most modern synchros have been designed to last with thinner oils. Gearboxes are in effect splash pumps where the nature of the oil creates drag. Surface tension has almost as much effect as viscosity does - Lucas has very high surface tension. This is a modified property with additives. It's hard telling from one brand to another how they perform without testing. We did a lot of testing with our shifter karts, and hands down, Mobil 1 outperformed every other oil in the CR125 gearbox regarding drag. Including Amsoil.

Hypoid Gears have a little different demand then tranny gears. Most tranny gears are helical to keep them quiet but they benefit from being able to better control the contact and relief zones more so then a 90° ring & pinion. Without getting into in-depth discussions on gear design I think most everyone would accept that a 90° R&P consumes more energy in friction then a parallel R&P does. Lower viscosity synthetic with low surface tension helps quite a bit. Dry lubes like Moly or teflon helps the gears, but actually shortens bearing life.

I believe it's very possible to obtain 8 WHP just from lubricating fluids.

As far as Octane Boosters go, they're nothing more then snake oil or fountain of youth serums. While fuel has a great deal of influence on the performance, the only small fraction additive that will have any real effect on potency is a high oxygenate bearing compound. Most octane boosters are simply inhibitors to ignition. Not quite extinguisher grade but they have about the same effect. We did some testing on 104+ years ago - CO emissions quadrupled. Sure we could bump timing a bit more, even run a bit more compression but in the end it had less power overall. If you want some real power from fuel try fuel thats formulated properly like Phillips or VP race fuels.

 

nice post Kart! thanks for the great info.

 

added a picture of all of the oils used in the first post.

0w 30 in the engine. (yes this is that 1 year 35,000 mile oil - normal conditions, 17.500 miles - severe conditions oil)

75w 90 for the rear end

75w 90 trans fluid for the tranny. (it is a differant 75w 90 then the rear end.

 

[QUOTE=kartweb]Oil can make a difference.

.......Hypoid Gears have a little different demand then tranny gears. .....


Kart,

Do you have recommendations for different oils for differential vs transmission?

 

Team, I have much respect for you, you have done alot with your car for STU competition, and you seem to be a pretty down to earth kind of guy. I dont care if you dont want to change your fluids. I understand that there are some odd findings in my results. I was the first one to point this out. I am simply providing information.

I am also simply showing that there was a differance in the oils wich was to my suprise. weather it was a good change or a bad change is entirely up to you. I still think it was a good change. I still belive had the diff and rear end warmed up it would have at least evened out through out the range. and still stayed stronger in the high RPMs. but take all of this info as you please.

 

he he... yeah thats kinda what i think to.

you know what would be cool is if soemone else here did the exact same test. I would be curious to see what results they pull compared to mine. ???

 

oh yeah, what is your reason for not running it in a rotary?

 

congrats on the sponsorship

 

[QUOTE=KWS]Unfortunately I don't have a good enough knowledge of the RX8 gearbox to recomend any deviations from factory specs. I have some with earlier models but nothing I would recomend for daily use. I tried 10-50 on an 88 model RX7 back in 1988 raced on the IMSA Firehawk tour and we had to replace synchros after every race to maintain scrape-free shifting. The problem with the synchros was the from the design of the dogs that engage the sliding hub. In part the syncho rings were too soft and in part due to the geometry. It's kind of complex to explain in a text format, but the solution to thinner oils & synchro life were first developed by Getrag. That part of why GM bought an interest in Getrag many years ago. So if you've ever seen the Getrag synchro geometry and compared it to those found in thick oil gearboxes you'll know what I'm referring to. And thats not the same as the Porsche style syncho which uses a totally different friction ring concept.

To be on the safe side I would select a synthetic that meets the Mazda specs; I've always had good luck with Mobil 1 in gearboxes but I prefer Castrol synethic in most motors.

The Mazda Specs for transmissions;
API Service Grade GL-4
SAE 75-90W

Mobil Delvac Synthetic. This contains little to no sulpher-phosphorus found in GL-5 oils. Sulpher-phosphorus is a minor catalyst to copper alloy corrsion, and guess what synchros are made from? (Yet many people choose GL-5 without realizing that). The problem is few Auto Stores sell Delvac.



The Mazda Specs for differentials;
API Sevice Grade GL-5
SAE 90W

I'm still a fan of Mobil so I'd choose that, but unless you're really stressing it in sustained extreme heat or use, I might cut it with about 1/4 Mobile 1 synthetic motor oil. That will effectively thin it out a little yet provide film & shear strength equal to any petroleum based oil.

Probably the same for Amsoil.