I know this should start a interesting debate but I’m curious everybody’s opinion....

 

I want to change the oil in my Cummins turbo, curious what brands you guys recommend, previous owner ran Rotella 15 W 40 and change the oil every 7 to 10,000 miles, he also ran a quart of Lucas at every oil change, my question is what are you guys thoughts about running a full synthetic and which brand?

Amsoil AME 15w40 used to state a cold pour point of -44F, the current data sheet now lists it at -36F.

 

Anyone know what's changed in this oil?

 

 

Someone must of damaged something and they probably just covering their 

Usually companies try to improve not the other way.

Just like Michelin tires went down 10k on warranty but still a same tire.

It looks like it updated from -40° to -36° in May of 2016, thou I’m not sure why. 

 

I’ve done several UOA’s since then and haven’t noticed anything different. 

 

Probably a SAE standard change or Amsoil update without any reformulation. 

1 hour ago, Dieselfuture said:

 

 

1 hour ago, Dieselfuture said:

Someone must of damaged something and they probably just covering their 

Usually companies try to improve not the other way.

Just like Michelin tires went down 10k on warranty but still a same tire.

 

Dieselfuture - Fact or speculation?

 

21 minutes ago, AH64ID said:

It looks like it updated from -40° to -36° in May of 2016, thou I’m not sure why. 

 

I’ve done several UOA’s since then and haven’t noticed anything different. 

 

Probably a SAE standard change or Amsoil update without any reformulation. 

 

AH64ID - That rings a dim bell; I believe there was some industry wide CCS value vs pour point shuffle a while back.

 

I run HDD, but no complaints about AME on a barely used second gen.

 

Next - as far as Garret snails - anyone make a drop in for a second gen 12v that you know of?

Edited September 22, 20186 yr by ofelas

2 hours ago, ofelas said:

Fact or speculation?

Not sure really 

4 hours ago, ofelas said:

I run HDD, but no complaints about AME on a barely used second gen.

 

Next - as far as Garret snails - anyone make a drop in for a second gen 12v that you know of?

 

I ran HDD for several years and wasn’t happy wiTh the UOA’s. AME is a much better oil for these motors. HDD barely meets the specs for a 5w-30 in a 5.9. 

 

Garret made a kit for the 2nd gen, but I haven’t seen one for sale in a few years. 

On 9/22/2018 at 5:04 PM, AH64ID said:

 

I ran HDD for several years and wasn’t happy wiTh the UOA’s. AME is a much better oil for these motors. HDD barely meets the specs for a 5w-30 in a 5.9. 

 

Garret made a kit for the 2nd gen, but I haven’t seen one for sale in a few years. 

I'm curious as to why you weren't happy with the HDD UOA's, would be great if you would post the best & worst UOAs with HDD that you had, along with equivalent AME results.

 

Here're mine - the truck was overfueled somewhere between stock & what it is now - 

 

OIL USED: AMSOIL 5W-30 HDD

MILES ON SAMPLE: 5122

MILES ON TRUCK: 88484

IRON: 11

CHROMIUM: 1

NICKEL: 0

ALUMINUM: 2

COPPER: 8

LEAD: 5

TIN: 0

CADMIUM: 0

SILICON: 4

SODIUM: 0

POTASSIUM: 2

MOLYBDENUM: 0

BORON: 0

MAGNESIUM: 29

CALCIUM: 3865

PHOSPHORUS: 1234

ZINC: 1508

FUEL: .2%

VIS @ 100 C, cSt 11.59

WATER: 0

TBN: 10.42

OXID: 7.0

NITR: 6.0

SOOT: .1%

Here is what I came across. Last year it said CI4 this year it says CK4

Edited September 24, 20186 yr by Dieselfuture
Spelling

You found Valvoline CI-4 last year? I haven't seen it in a decade.

 

Never mind, the photo didn't load earlier and now I see it's CJ-4 vs CK-4. CK is a good spec, from what I can tell 

 

22 hours ago, ofelas said:

I'm curious as to why you weren't happy with the HDD UOA's, would be great if you would post the best & worst UOAs with HDD that you had, along with equivalent AME results.

 

 

 

What I saw was wear metals that increased much quicker, and higher, with the HDD. 

 

My theory was that since the high temp/high shear viscosity of the HDD was 3.5 cP and the minimum is 3.5 cP for a -30 oil, from Cummins, that it was increasing the wear. 

 

The Viscosity also reacted to the soot much quicker, and the soot seemed to climb a little quicker too. 

 

A lot of the soot was my stock motor, since the rebuild doesn't produce hardly any soot. Piston design is likely a big part of it. 

 

In the end, I just didn't see the need to run a 5w-30 when there was a 15w-40 that would provide better protection at increased power and loads. I don't need the protection below -36° that it offers. 

Edited September 24, 20186 yr by AH64ID

1 hour ago, AH64ID said:

You found Valvoline CI-4 last year? I haven't seen it in a decade.

 

Never mind, the photo didn't load earlier and now I see it's CJ-4 vs CK-4. CK is a good spec, from what I can tell 

 

 

What I saw was wear metals that increased much quicker, and higher, with the HDD. 

 

My theory was that since the high temp/high shear viscosity of the HDD was 3.5 cP and the minimum is 3.5 cP for a -30 oil, from Cummins, that it was increasing the wear. 

 

The Viscosity also reacted to the soot much quicker, and the soot seemed to climb a little quicker too. 

 

A lot of the soot was my stock motor, since the rebuild doesn't produce hardly any soot. Piston design is likely a big part of it. 

 

In the end, I just didn't see the need to run a 5w-30 when there was a 15w-40 that would provide better protection at increased power and loads. I don't need the protection below -36° that it offers. 

Well, nice edit.

 

Here's part of your original reply - "he viscosity of your sample is even lower than I ever saw as well. "

 

HDD's virgin viscosity is 11.70, and you find my 11.59 viscosity after 5100 miles "the lowest you've seen" ? Thats laughable. You do realize soot (as opposed to fuel dilution) THICKENS viscosity, right?

 

I understand your liking AME as you don't see cold temperatures, but for some of us that do, we like a thinner oil that is rated to a much lower temperature, and still provide outstanding high temperature protection.

 

I'm sure I don't need too school you in the greater benefits of HTHS as opposed to 212f viscosity.

 

I'd still like to see your comparative oil analyses between AME & HDD, wear metals and all.

 

 

 

 

Just now, ofelas said:

Well, nice edit.

 

I misread an old UOA... hence the edit. 

1 minute ago, AH64ID said:

 

I misread an old UOA... hence the edit. 

Understood.

 

Still interested in your HDD vs AME UOAs.

 

 

 

What truck do you have @ofelas?

 

1 minute ago, ofelas said:

I understand your liking AME as you don't see cold temperatures, but for some of us that do, we like a thinner oil that is rated to a much lower temperature, and still provide outstanding high temperature protection.

 

I do see cold, just not below -36°f or even below -20°f on a annual basis. I've cold started AME at -20°f (after peaking at -28°f) and the oil pressure builds about the same as 0°f. I've ran AME below -30°f, just never had to cold start it below -30°f. 

 

I don't think it has as good of high temperature protection as AME, just based on the specs provided by Amsoil. I wish I had run a mechanical oil pressure gauge when I had HDD to see what it's pressure does under heavy load. I know that the thicker, and higher HTHS, AME will drop from 60 to low 40's on pressure with elevated oil temps and thus thinner oil. I'd be curious how much lower the pressure would be with HDD at 230°+ oil temp. 

 

1 minute ago, ofelas said:

I'm sure I don't need too school you in the greater benefits of HTHS as opposed to 212f viscosity.

 

No, and the HTHS of HDD is one of the main reasons I stopped using it. 

 

Aside from the pour point the specs on AME are better across the board. 

 

Now that CK oil is out you have a better option with extreme cold performance. The initial reports are that CK is better than CI oil in most aspects, especially high temp operation, but it doesn't have the service life. Service life isn't a huge deal since I've never worn a oil out and these days I just change it once a year regardless of TBN. 

 

1 minute ago, ofelas said:

I'd still like to see your comparative oil analyses between AME & HDD, wear metals and all.

 

 

Here you go. 1-3 are HDD 4-5 are AME. Lube was changed between 3/4. 

 

You can see the difference in my 2 motors on wear metals and soot. Same oil and filter setup. 

 

 

 

This is my motor since the rebuild. I ran Delo for the first 10K miles then AME. re time towing these days than I did 8 years ago. 

Morning!

 

The UOA I posted is on an early 12v.

 

HDD certainly doesn't look good in your truck, the wear metals are oddly high. 

 

I see Copper increased from 14 on your first HDD sample, to over 500 in 10k miles with AME, was there a mechanical issue here? Still at 95 before the rebuild, which I believe is indicative of a tired engine, rather than an oil issue. The high iron...well, typical of Amsoil, not anything I'd concern myself about on a fresh engine if I saw that.

 

The numbers look good after the rebuild, which isn't necessarily the choice of oil.

 

Still, if it's doing good on AME, I see why you're sticking with it. I see before the rebuild, you had some soot thickening up the AME, but in your recent samples, much better. Thats quite a drop in used AME viscosity though, compared to fresh AME.

 

Looks like AME is on the lighter end of a 40w, which I like. Will try it for my annual fill when I change oil/filter over Thanksgiving.

 

I've been super happy with HDD's results as you can see from my UOA posted above, but AME may be a bit of extra protection against any potential overfueling/short tripping.

 

All a moot point, really, as I tend to hit the Webasto for a while in winter; a 70w oil would likely be just fine ;-)

 

As far as oil pressure - at 800rpm hot idle, in about 90f ambient, oil temp at 230f, the HDD is right at 25psi. The fill of AMO 3 yrs back was 30psi or so under similar conditions.

 

Thanks for the charts you posted above.

 

 

1 hour ago, ofelas said:

The UOA I posted is on an early 12v.

 

Great motors!

 

1 hour ago, ofelas said:

HDD certainly doesn't look good in your truck, the wear metals are oddly high. 

 

That's what I thought. The motor was still fairly new, but had had a good break in and by looking at the new motor it didn't "break-in" the same. 

 

 

1 hour ago, ofelas said:

 

I see Copper increased from 14 on your first HDD sample, to over 500 in 10k miles with AME, was there a mechanical issue here? Still at 95 before the rebuild, which I believe is indicative of a tired engine, rather than an oil issue. The high iron...well, typical of Amsoil, not anything I'd concern myself about on a fresh engine if I saw that.

 

 

The copper over 500 was still on HDD. No mechanical issue that ever manifested. The engine only had 32K miles on it at the time, and hadn't seen much heavy towing at that point in its life. 

 

1 hour ago, ofelas said:

The numbers look good after the rebuild, which isn't necessarily the choice of oil.

 

No, but between the oil and the motor it's doing quite well. I'm due for my annual change as well and will likely do it in November. 

 

I've been toying with the idea of running the new DME. It's slighty thicker when hot, has a better HTHS rating, very slightly higher NOACK volatility, and a slightly higher wear scar. The TBN is also lower, but I am not overly concerned with my OCI. 

 

The Amsoil rep said it would do better in every aspect, aside from extended drain intervals. 

 

 

1 hour ago, ofelas said:

Still, if it's doing good on AME, I see why you're sticking with it. I see before the rebuild, you had some soot thickening up the AME, but in your recent samples, much better.

 

That's the funny thing about 04.5-07 motors with that crappy piston design, some do well and others don't. That was all with a bypass filter as well, which helps but can't catch the soot in solution. That's one of the things I don't like about modern oils, they make soot too hard to filter out. I understand why with EGR, but it sucks for those of us with bypass filters :-)

 

1 hour ago, ofelas said:

 

Thats quite a drop in used AME viscosity though, compared to fresh AME.

 

AME starts at 15.0, so it never dropped when there was soot present. The lack of soot is probably why it's a little lower on the new motor, but it's very consistent. Cummins wants the oil to be between 12.5 and 16.3.  

1 hour ago, ofelas said:

I've been super happy with HDD's results as you can see from my UOA posted above, but AME may be a bit of extra protection against any potential overfueling/short tripping

 

Yes your UOA is quite good. 

 

Have you considered the new CK DZF (0w-40) or DEO (5w-40)?
 

1 hour ago, ofelas said:

As far as oil pressure - at 800rpm hot idle, in about 90f ambient, oil temp at 230f, the HDD is right at 25psi. The fill of AMO 3 yrs back was 30psi or so under similar conditions.

 

 

That's pretty good. I'm at 25 psi on a warm motor and 750 rpms. Warm being 185-190° on both coolant and oil. I do monitor oil pressure on the drivers side of the block above the ECM, which seems to give lower readings than the port in the oil filter head and appears to be effected by temperature more which all makes sense. 

I was literally about to hit the button on AME when I saw your post.

 

That DZF 0w40 has me curious. Wonder how CK4 would do on an old 12v that's happy with CI4+

 

Just a single full flow filter here; my UOAs weren't appreciably different with EaO80/Donaldson vs the plain old Mopar MO-285, but I change once a year regardless; approx 10k miles a year, not overly concerned with TBN either, Amsoil's way overkill for me but hey...:-)

 

Wonder what kind of Zinc CK4 has in the DZF multi vitamin flavor & how well it'd do with over fueling; I'm liking that "low for a 40wt" 4.2 HTHS.

 

 

6 minutes ago, ofelas said:

 

That DZF 0w40 has me curious. Wonder how CK4 would do on an old 12v that's happy with CI4+

 

I'm sure it would do fine. The 6.7's are still a flat tappet motor, and doing well on CK, with higher power than the 12V's ever had from the factory. 

 

6 minutes ago, ofelas said:

Wonder what kind of Zinc CK4 has in the DZF multi vitamin flavor & how well it'd do with over fueling; I'm liking that "low for a 40wt" 4.2 HTHS.

 

When I called and asked Amsoil about that they told me it was similar to AME. 

 

Amsoil is very excited about the CK specs, as they didn't like CJ oil any more than those of use still using CI. 

Noted.

 

The ~10 NOACK doesn't bother me as much as it should, as I'm ok with makeup oil if needed. 

 

I use about a pint of HDD between annual oil changes; never bothered topping it up as it happens during the last month or so of my annual usage.

 

So I dumped in 3 gallons of DZF 0w40 last week, along with a new filter.

 

Right off the bat it cranks similarly to the 5w30 HDD, so winter cranking should be very similar.

 

Whats interesting is the low -54f pour point of the 0w40, while having the highest 212f hot viscosity out of any of their new CK4 Signature Series oils, including the DME 15w40, and HTHS is an AME-like 4.2.

 

Oh yeah - ZDDP comes in at 1206 Phos, 1314 Zinc, and 99 Boron, and I was informed that shearing of VIIs is irrelevant in the DZF formulation - seems like a nice well rounded package.

I'll be changing to the DME this next change, which will be sometime in the next month. 

 

I just don't need the -54°F pour point, and the difference in 100°C viscosity is only 0.1 and the DME has a higher HTHS and lower NOACK. 

 

I'll be sure to do a UOA next year. 

While all you are worrying about synthetic oils and testing I'm heading back from the moon (236k miles to the moon). 356k miles and still rolling. When I'm coving 65k miles per year roughly the whole synthetic oil idea and testing is way outside my budget being I'm spending at least 500-700 a month in diesel fuel alone and then doing oil changes every 7k miles and that's at about every 5 to 6 weeks.

 

More or less the low side of a hotshot driver. After seeing the head off and seeing the cylinders and piston condition I'm not going to even concern myself on the "Premium Oil" I'll just keep doing what I've done for the last 16 years and clear half a million miles.