What oil?

[IamFODI]

From what I remember, it's something that's unique to the Castrol in that it turns the head the brownish color you mention. And yes, I believe it's basically varnish. I cleaned it all off of the vanos when I rebuilt that unit, but it's impossible to do anything with the head unless you take it off and hot tank it. If I remember right, we basically concluded back in the day that the longer the OCI, the darker the varnish would be. Since the timing of this car correlated with the change to 15k rec'd intervals there's often some pretty dark, thick varnish inside the head.

Are you sure it's varnish, i.e. a laquer-like layer baked onto the metal surface? If it's just discoloration on the metal surface, it's probably just staining. Much less bad than varnish.

Don't care about cost savings. Just looking to lengthen the amount of time before I'll need to yank the motor for a full rebuild. I agree I don't think a change to any quality product will yield significant benefits, but that doesn't mean there isn't something better out there. Especially with the constant changes in Castrol.

There might be. But if there is...

1. We'd never know (see the post I linked), and
2. Any differences that exist are going to be extremely minor.

That's why people are saying just pick your fave. Might as well.

If it were my engine, I'd go with BMW 10W-60 from FCP Euro, because... FCP Euro. Second choice would be Castrol TWS.

[eacmen]

Use whatever oil meets the spec and priced so that your budget allows for short oil change interval.

[tnord]

What do you mean by darker color? I recently did some work and saw that the underside of my valve cover and the top of head in general had a brown look to it (varnished oil?).

From what I remember, it's something that's unique to the Castrol in that it turns the head the brownish color you mention. And yes, I believe it's basically varnish. I cleaned it all off of the vanos when I rebuilt that unit, but it's impossible to do anything with the head unless you take it off and hot tank it. If I remember right, we basically concluded back in the day that the longer the OCI, the darker the varnish would be. Since the timing of this car correlated with the change to 15k rec'd intervals there's often some pretty dark, thick varnish inside the head.

I don't really think it will, but I was kinda hoping that my short cycle OCIs and use of a different oil might start to clean that out.

Same as for DropTopKingM3. Whatever you like, as long as it meets spec and/or has a decent rep in these cars. You don't drive enough to see significant performance benefits or cost savings no matter what you do.

Don't care about cost savings. Just looking to lengthen the amount of time before I'll need to yank the motor for a full rebuild. I agree I don't think a change to any quality product will yield significant benefits, but that doesn't mean there isn't something better out there. Especially with the constant changes in Castrol.

[IamFODI]

not to stir this up again, but I'm getting rod bearings done before long and was looking around for what to put in. I've been on castrol TWS/Edge/Whatever since I got the car in 2010, using 7500 intervals when I was DD'ing it for a 3 years. Now I'm on annual OCI probably around 1500miles.

Same as for DropTopKingM3. Whatever you like, as long as it meets spec and/or has a decent rep in these cars. You don't drive enough to see significant performance benefits or cost savings no matter what you do.

found this interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvYW5DWJBWE

Neat looking, but not meaningful for engine oil. See this (talking about a different person doing the same kind of test) if you're interested why.

[Cubieman]

not to stir this up again, but I'm getting rod bearings done before long and was looking around for what to put in. I've been on castrol TWS/Edge/Whatever since I got the car in 2010, using 7500 intervals when I was DD'ing it for a 3 years. Now I'm on annual OCI probably around 1500miles.

found this interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvYW5DWJBWE

sidebar; when I did my valve adjustment the head had the darker color to it I'm guessing from the OP 15k OCI. If I keep changing it on this short interval, will the detergents eventually clean it up?

What do you mean by darker color? I recently did some work and saw that the underside of my valve cover and the top of head in general had a brown look to it (varnished oil?). I am the 4th owner and while the vehicle overall seems well kept I don't know how often/what oil was used previous to me buying the car in June of 2018.
I have seen photos of others with the valve cover removed and the metal components looked much more silver or metallic colored rather than brown like mine. Maybe they just had theirs cleaned up, who knows.

You can see the valve cover had varnished oil all over it, in the photo I wiped I down a bit, but none the less it shows the dark "burnt on" oil.

[tnord]

not to stir this up again, but I'm getting rod bearings done before long and was looking around for what to put in. I've been on castrol TWS/Edge/Whatever since I got the car in 2010, using 7500 intervals when I was DD'ing it for a 3 years. Now I'm on annual OCI probably around 1500miles.

found this interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvYW5DWJBWE

sidebar; when I did my valve adjustment the head had the darker color to it I'm guessing from the OP 15k OCI. If I keep changing it on this short interval, will the detergents eventually clean it up?

[DropTopKingM3]

Whatever bottle has the design that you like the best. To be fair, the 15W-50 that BW recommends is Redline which is probably about the same as the 10W-60 oils once they shear down.

But seriously, whichever one you like the idea of the most. What year is your M3? Is it pre- or post-recall?

Mine is a 2001 with the recall performed but the rod bearings are being done now as part of maintenance.

[r4dr]

70k mile M3 here. I’m about to have my rod bearings replaced for piece of mind. My car doesn’t get driven more than 1k miles per year and I change it once a year. Never tracked and proper warm up procedure every time. Few bolts ons - euro headers, cats, eventuri intake and exhaust, HTE tune.

Ive been using liqui moly 10w60 but was thinking 15w50 as per Bimmerworlds recommendation. I even see some s54 owners using 5w50 and Troyjeup swears by it for all his s65 builds.

what would you guys recommend for my car?

Whatever bottle has the design that you like the best. To be fair, the 15W-50 that BW recommends is Redline which is probably about the same as the 10W-60 oils once they shear down.

But seriously, whichever one you like the idea of the most. What year is your M3? Is it pre- or post-recall?

[DropTopKingM3]

70k mile M3 here. I’m about to have my rod bearings replaced for piece of mind. My car doesn’t get driven more than 1k miles per year and I change it once a year. Never tracked and proper warm up procedure every time. Few bolts ons - euro headers, cats, eventuri intake and exhaust, HTE tune.

Ive been using liqui moly 10w60 but was thinking 15w50 as per Bimmerworlds recommendation. I even see some s54 owners using 5w50 and Troyjeup swears by it for all his s65 builds.

what would you guys recommend for my car?

[Arith2]

Now these are the pedantic arguments I came into the oil thread for!!

Too bad these cars aren't LL01 specced, we could start wildly speculating on what exactly changed in the 2018 update and why M1 0W-40 suddenly doesn't have it, but does it even matter? Is LL01 even a current spec? Will my car blow up with LL01FE?

It's better to put sand in your engine. Certifications mean everything. Especially from BMW. It has nothing to do with them switching to Pennzoil in 2018.

[Arith2]

In all seriousness please don't run race oil in a street car. All the detergents are removed and replaced with anti wear. Great for enduro engines with inter-season or inter-race rebuilds but horrible for a street car with typical oil change intervals.


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It's all based on the oil. TBN is the number you're looking for. 300V 20w60 (Literally the Le Mans oil according to Motul) has a TBN of 8.25. 8100 10w60 X-power has one of 10 something. I can't find a data sheet for Joe Gibbs because they are probably trying to keep everything a secret. MSDS sheets have to be publicly available but they don't have to be easily accessible. We could actually use the 20W60 in our engines because the only thing that's really different is the cold viscosity and fewer detergents. 300V is an ester oil as well. This is comparing only Motul to Motul for consistency's sake here are the numbers and here's the source.

https://www.motul.com/us/en-US/products/300v-le-mans-20w60--2

https://www.motul.com/us/en-US/products/8100-x-power

	300V 20W60	8100 10w60 X-Power
Viscosity grade	SAE 20W-60	10W-60
Density at 20°C (68°F)	0.867	0.851
Viscosity at 40°C (104°F)	168.3 mm²/s	163.4 mm²/s
Viscosity at 100°C (212°F)	23.8 mm²/s	23.5 mm²/s
HTHS viscosity at 150°C (302°F)	6.3 mPa.s	5.8 mPa.s
Viscosity index	172	174
Pour point	-39°C / -38.2°F	-36°C / -33°F
Flash point	238°C / 460.4°F	242°C / 468°F
TBN	8.25 mg KOH/g	10.1 mg KOH/g
Sulfated ash	Not provided	1.09 % weight

300V is designed for an oil warmer, I would assume. Sulfated ash is important but I doubt it's worse in an ester oil. For 10w60, this is a lower ash amount. For those who don't know, it's the residue left behind. It is related to buildup and emissions.

[eacmen]

It was a race oil before it was a street oil. 🤷♂️ But we're way into the weeds here.

If your question is whether any oil with the word "racing" in the name is suitable for long OCIs, the answer is no.

If your claim is that those oils have no detergents, that is incorrect. Some don't but most do.

If your claim is that those oils are not suitable for any street use, that is also incorrect. Maybe they can't do 7500 miles but most could do 3k-5k.

If your claim is that those oils are not suitable for ANY street use, that is also false.

If you're genuinely concerned about whether any "race-specific" (by your definition) oils could make it to 7500 miles in a street engine, my speculation on that point is worthless. Someone would have to try it with a good oil analysis regime before anyone (including you or I) could say either way.

If none of this applies to you, feel free to ignore everything I posted.

Okay I will concede. Replace "all detergents" with "most detergents" and my argument still applies. All I am trying to do is prevent the average S54 owner from running a boutique oil intended for race applications because of a forum post. Most of the guidance from the S54 community is to take the factory OCI and cut it in half, so 7500 miles should be the standard that we use for a basis of discussion. I do it more frequently but our car is also primarily for track use.

If you know what you are doing and are informed about the oil then go for it and run it. But I would not recommend the average owner go out and buy 300v, or HPL, or any oil primarily intended for race applications and put it in their street car. Oils with less detergents will have a higher chance of developing sludge.

I have not run Oil Analysis on 300v or HPL, and not aware of anyone else who has for 7500 miles. If anyone has that data please chime in.

What I have done is run OA on LM 10w60 for 7500 street-only miles, and Edge 10w60 after 2000 miles and 8 HPDE days with 4 30 minute sessions each day. The OA came back both times from blackstone indicating that a longer oil change interval would be just fine.

Previous owner of our car ran LM Racetech 10w-60 and Motul 8100 10w60 at unknown intervals. Top end looked very clean. Bottom end had excessive rod bearing wear at 80k miles. Again mostly subjective but another datapoint for Motul.

[r4dr]

Now these are the pedantic arguments I came into the oil thread for!!

Too bad these cars aren't LL01 specced, we could start wildly speculating on what exactly changed in the 2018 update and why M1 0W-40 suddenly doesn't have it, but does it even matter? Is LL01 even a current spec? Will my car blow up with LL01FE?

[IamFODI]

TWS is an OEM spec'd oil for a consumer engine. It is not a race specific oil. The fact that it is used it race cars is irrelevant.

It was a race oil before it was a street oil. 🤷♂️ But we're way into the weeds here.

If your question is whether any oil with the word "racing" in the name is suitable for long OCIs, the answer is no.

If your claim is that those oils have no detergents, that is incorrect. Some don't but most do.

If your claim is that those oils are not suitable for any street use, that is also incorrect. Maybe they can't do 7500 miles but most could do 3k-5k.

If you're genuinely concerned about whether any "race-specific" (by your definition) oils could make it to 7500 miles in a street engine, my speculation on that point is worthless. Someone would have to try it with a good oil analysis regime before anyone (including you or I) could say either way.

If none of this applies to you, feel free to ignore everything I posted.

[eacmen]

Castrol TWS is a race engine oil (i.e. used in race cars), so yes, I absolutely would.

TWS is an OEM spec'd oil for a consumer engine. It is not a race specific oil. The fact that it is used it race cars is irrelevant.

Motul 300v is specially formulated and marketed for racing and I would not recommend running it with a long oil change interval.


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