The Official 356Talk Forum

If you're interested in seeing the charts of the oils tested by Jim Comstock here's the link https://www.accessnorton.com/Oil-Tests/NortonOil.php

Be warned that there are around 30 oils tested so far. Also don't ask me how to interpret the charts since I have no idea.
I'm sure some of those with more active brain cells than me can figure it out.
He updates the results as he tests more oils.

Ray

Jim Comstock finished his testing here's his final post;

Well, I went ahead and upped the anti for five of the oils I was considering for my bike.
I set the tester up to start out with the normal 220 degree warm-up for 25 minutes.
Then I set it to run for 5 hours with a set load of 300 lbs, with only cooling for the oil -no cooling for the follower.

I thought I would compare the wear mark on the follower after the test.

Five oils:
Bel Ray V-twin synthetic
Mobil 1 v-twin with BG-MOA
Klots 25W60 with FR3 additive
Red Line 60 with BG-MOA
Royal Purple HPS 20W50

I didn't end up comparing the wear marks. Only one oil survived for 5 hours without breaking down.

And the winner is....... Royal Purple HPS 20W50

It looks like this will be the choice for my bike. Not what I expected.

I am now out of arbor races and the oil tester is being retired to the storeroom.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed to making this happen. I know I learned a lot. 240 arbor races destroyed in the process.

So if you're interested in how all of the oils he tested faired go to the Access Norton website and page through the testing charts. He conveniently has some charts that show recommended oils for different uses .

Ray

Wish you would have test the Porsche Classic oil, I'm really interested in how it would compare with those oils.

Chuck
P.S. I would be happy to send you some if you want to test it

Chuck
Obviously Porsche doesn't manufacture their Porsche Classic oil so if we could find out who they're rebranding it from it's probably one of the oils Jim tested. However I'm sure Porsche isn't going to tell us that very easily just to protect their sales.
Maybe if we could get the specs on their oil we could make an educated guess.
Just off the top of my head I would think since Porsche promotes Mobil 1 it would be very likely it's one of those products. I seriously doubt Porsche went to the trouble to do extensive testing the way Jim Comstock did.
Jim made a series of lists of oils on this page https://www.accessnorton.com/Oil-Tests/NortonOil.php ranked by expected use of engine from Highly tuned to those that would cause excessive wear. That should be qualified with the caveat I gave earlier that a 356 engine is not likely to see the high RPM abuse a Norton motorcycle engine would see (except for racers like Vic and CJ : ) )
Of course knowing the cost of rebuilding and parts I will probably opt for one of the better performing oils.
I just noticed this statement that Jim posted;

"I found a bad result in the oil tests.
It is the result from 15W50 Mobil 1 with BG-MOA
I got a very high result because the oil heater element had failed.
The BG-MOA only increased the load capacity to 148 in subsequent tests.
It is being removed" (BG-MOA = BG motor oil additive)

Ray

More discussion about "Synthetic" oil from Jim;

"Here is my rant on "synthetic" oils.

The term synthetic is a worthless and very abused word in the oil industry. The truth is all oils are made from the remains of vegetation from the Jurassic period. It will be made from crude oil or natural gas or maybe even coal dust.

If we are lucky we will get a highly refined lubricant in a bottle marked "synthetic". Most synthetics are made from highly refined crude oil.

But, there is no specification or regulation saying what may be called synthetic.
Legally an oil company could bottle some "Head and Shoulders" shampoo and sell it as synthetic oil.
By the way "Head and Shoulders" shampoo will pass a Timkin oil film test with excellent results.

It would be a lot more useful if oil was sold according to the class of lubricant.

Class 1 has minimal refining and contains impurities that reduce it's lubricating qualities.
Class 2 has more refining
Class 3 is better yet
Class 4 and 5 are what we would generally refer to as "synthetics" as they are highly refined
Class 4 are usually PAO bases and Class 5 are usually ester bases.

But oils are not generally advertised this way. Calling the oil company may get the answer or they may just say it is proprietary information.

Royal Purple and MPT said their "synthetics" are a blend of group 4 and group 5 oils.

Mobil 1 would not say. I would guess they're using some group 3 oils in their mixtures."

A quick overview of Mobil-1 products is available here:

https://mobiloil.com/~/media/amer/us/pv ... -guide.pdf

Of their products commonly available (you can find this at most Walmart's) the V-Twin Air Cooled Motorcycle 20-50 oil has the highest content of Phosphorus and Zinc of their recommended street oils. They show two other "0" oils which are only recommended for racing with a slightly higher Phosphorus and Zinc content.

For nearly 60 years starting at the first shop in Wilmington Ohio and continuing through our Porsche business we have used Kendall oil in almost all the air cooled Porsche and Volkswagen that we have maintained. Kendall has evolved positively through a number of name changes and serious upgrades from the days of Non-Detergent oil to its present configuration. I do not believe that we had a failure that could be traced to the oil. With the advent of synthetic oils we switched to Mobile One and now have changed to Motol. Perhaps you motor down the freeway at 5,000 RPM'S in your AIR COOLED Porsche for long periods of time. Living west of FT. Worth you can do that! Then you need a SUPERIOR oil. Engines do not make heat unless you make horsepower. A properly assembled engine driven at less than 70 MPH does not need and will probably not profit from the use of an exotic oil. al zim

Yeah, I agree. I started with Quaker State 10W 40 in the 1960s. That engine survived full throttle 3rd gear up hill race car tows. I still have it. In California I switched to Kendall 20W 50 on Dema Elgin's recommendation in the 1970s. When Kendall became something else, although with the same part number, but not even the same color and Brad Penn took over the old Kendall refinery, I switched the Carrera to 40 weight Brad Penn, and the others to SWEPCO. Now some of the 356s are on SWEPCO, and others are on 15W 50 Mobil one. At the time of the ZDDP scare, I was told that 50 weight oils were unaffected, in that they weren't of interest to modern car manufacturers, and retained the high levels of ZDDP. But that was a while ago.
Now I wonder, Al, why have you moved on from Mobil 1 to the more exotic Motol?

Here's another oil that can be added to the list. https://lucasoil.com/products/hot-rod-h ... -motor-oil
Even though I've been using Valvoline VR1 20-50 wt. I will eventually try this oil out when I go thru my supply of VR1.

1963B Normal. 133k original miles with about 25k on a rebuild. Have consistently used dino oil in the past. Is there any downside to switching to full synthetic at this point, such as Mobil 1?

It certainly should be fully broken in by now. This is a perfect time to convert to full synthetic. The only downside is possible leaks, primarily from the flywheel seal. I would switch and keep an eye on it for leaks. You can always go back to dino if it's a problem. Current synthetics are compatible with dino in any mix ratio, no need to do a flush coming or going. I used to use Amsoil on all my non-leakers. I use Mobil 1 as a 2nd best, largely because it is less expensive and readily available at Walmart, Costco, etc.

What weight do you use?

I use the same or close to the recommended weight for synthetic as for dino per the owner's manual. None of my air-cooled motors are running at the moment and were last run on dino, 20W50 in the 356 and 912 most recently. I will have to research recommended weight when the coupe is back on the road and fully broken in after the upcoming refresh. I would probably stick with 20W50. I am not a proponent of wider spreads than 30 points such as 0W50, etc. Also, those that are labeled "Racing Oil" lack the additive package that keeps particulates in suspension, although they may have higher zinc content, which is a plus. The upside of synthetic is it has a much higher breakdown temperature, which for any air-cooled motor, would be a big plus. It is also more slippery and will reduce internal friction and will run cooler.

Beyond that, there are many threads on this topic in the stickies, and I will defer to the general consensus as discussed there.

Mobil 1 15/50 is about as good as it gets. Has 1300 ppm of ZDDP and being a synthetic has a high coefficient of heat transfer as well as being a very slippery oil with a high shear strength. Used to be I only used it in the race engines because it cost way more than conventional oil but now it is so reasonably priced that I see no point in using anything else. Mobil recommend it for flat tappet and racing engines and very few of the other Mobil 1 synthetics have as much ZDDP or are recommended for flat tappet engines. Do not use anything below 10w or you could trash bearings as our engines are not designed to use 5w or 0w oils

David Jones wrote: ↑Fri Jan 17, 2020 12:03 am Mobil 1 15/50 is about as good as it gets. Has 1300 ppm of ZDDP and being a synthetic has a high coefficient of heat transfer as well as being a very slippery oil with a high shear strength. Used to be I only used it in the race engines because it cost way more than conventional oil but now it is so reasonably priced that I see no point in using anything else. Mobil recommend it for flat tappet and racing engines and very few of the other Mobil 1 synthetics have as much ZDDP or are recommended for flat tappet engines. Do not use anything below 10w or you could trash bearings as our engines are not designed to use 5w or 0w oils

I just now went on the "Sticky Oil Thread" for the 1st time.. Maybe when I can't sleep I'll go back and read through that whole thing.. I'd also rather take advise from somebody that know more on the topic then myself.

So David, you Recommend Mobil 1 15W50.. over Mobil 1 20W50 because it has more ZDDP for our 356's... My first thought would of been to stick with 20W50??

thanks,
-Bill