1LikesPowermaster/VP fuel 16R
09-07-2019 | 09:53 PM
#20
Tech Adept
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 125
From: Earth
Be a necessity with such a low oil content. The original blend Powermaster fuel we were adding castor oil to each gallon to increase total oil percentage. Guess if you aren't paying for your engines you want performance at expense of engine life.
09-08-2019 | 12:28 AM
#21
Tech Lord
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 14,046
From: Holland
Most people do indeed add 1 or 2% castor oil to their fuel when they know it has an 8 or 9% oil content as most top onroad fuels have. Adding 1% dus not hurt the performance to those who are not running at the top but does add a significant lifespan.
09-09-2019 | 05:14 AM
#24
Tech Fanatic
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 805
While synthetics are doing best things in real cars I have not seen any good fuel based on only synthetic oils. Yes, there are many fuels with a good performance but most of them give a bad lifespan on engine and bearings. To me the best fuels are the onse with a combination of synthetic and castor, but only that. Some fuels lower the real oils and add some low friction stuff like teflon based oils to it, again they do perform very well but if you want to get the best lifespan of an engine they are not the best choice.
Most people do indeed add 1 or 2% castor oil to their fuel when they know it has an 8 or 9% oil content as most top onroad fuels have. Adding 1% dus not hurt the performance to those who are not running at the top but does add a significant lifespan.
Most people do indeed add 1 or 2% castor oil to their fuel when they know it has an 8 or 9% oil content as most top onroad fuels have. Adding 1% dus not hurt the performance to those who are not running at the top but does add a significant lifespan.
Additives is great if they are used right, your daily driver wouldn't get far if you only used a base oil, but it needs to be done right.
I have been and still am a huge advocate of castor oil. I’ve run blends and even straight 12% castor. There’s very little difference between 12% castor and 6% castor/6% synthetic. Castor oil is a HUGE benefit for ringless engines. Some guys just don’t get the clue and run a high synthetic fuel. Then they wonder why they wear out quickly. PAG and even POE oils work for their intended purpose, but internal combustion - a little less so.
Both PAG and Ester (POE is just one of several Ester families, and there are thousands of different formulated Esters depending on their purpose), can be great for our engines as they can reduce friction compared to castor oil. But even PAG used for RC fuel has shown that some reduce friction by around 50% compared to others in tests, so it's completely impossible to say that they are all bad based on one or two tested oils.
You’re preaching to the choir to me on oils. I’ve done a lot of research and testing on oils. Not as much as some, but enough to know that refrigerant oils have no place in internal combustion engines IMVHO. Those oils were never designed or intended for internal combustion. In fact, they were designed for use in environments with NO AIR. So oxidation, hygroscopy, and unzipping is a real problem with them.
Oxidation isn't a big problem for a 2 stroke engine, and if you want to see what it really looks like you should try some castor oil in an engine that runs mineral based oils like a car or lawn mover, lets just say there is a reason why they print not to mix it on all castor based lubricant.
PAG is made in both water solvable and non water solvable versions, but that's not the whole story as it's a matter of how the water is held and some PAG oils is good for protecting against corrosion, methanol isn't exactly free of any charges when it comes to hygroscopic tendencies either.
09-09-2019 | 08:12 AM
#26
Tech Fanatic
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 805
While mostly all true, there are not many oils miscible in methanol that are suitable for our engines. Probably the biggest issue - aside from the corrosive properties of many pay oils when moisture is present - is film strength. The typical oils we have available are adequate for toy engines, provided they’re operated within the limits of the oils. If these synthetics were “up to snuff” to handle all of the loads imposed on it, then there’d be no need for castor anymore. The fact that so many people see such a marked difference when using a castor/synthetic blend - and more castor than synthetic - is poignant because it clearly shows that the synthetics lack somewhere that castor does not. For those of us in the United States, we don’t have as many options as you do in the EU. We are stuck using lower quality oils because the better stuff is either unobtanium or freakishly expensive. There has to be a balance. While racing does involve different stresses that bashing does not, there are as many that bashing does that Racing does not. Every application has different lubrication needs, so again, it’s all about balance.
I did obtain some old Fuchs Aerosave and Motul Micro 2T and tested a little bit, but Motul is a PAG base. Not a significant difference in operating temperatures (a good indicator) or performance. SPL Avenger is a POE base, and is touted as a very good oil, but I haven’t tried it yet. FWIW - the Aerosave and Motul oils are over $80 per US Gallon. That cost factor is a major reason why US fuel manufacturers don’t use it. PAG is dirt cheap by comparison. Used in a blend with castor, it works fine, to a point.
I did obtain some old Fuchs Aerosave and Motul Micro 2T and tested a little bit, but Motul is a PAG base. Not a significant difference in operating temperatures (a good indicator) or performance. SPL Avenger is a POE base, and is touted as a very good oil, but I haven’t tried it yet. FWIW - the Aerosave and Motul oils are over $80 per US Gallon. That cost factor is a major reason why US fuel manufacturers don’t use it. PAG is dirt cheap by comparison. Used in a blend with castor, it works fine, to a point.
Good oils cost money, yes, but this isn't the 50's when everything needed 20% castor oil to work. There are a lot of people here that uses 5% for airplanes with no ill effects, and for racing cars some have used less than that with full synthetic (but at that point it's not about caring about anything else then keeping it alive until the race is over). We have a lot of oils here that is far worse than the usual American oils, and if you do your homework you will see that the actual cost isn't that bad as you don't need to use as much oil, there is only so much space that can have oil in-between so fill it with something good.
Aerosave (PAG oil) was developed as an after run oil, it's really crappy for anything performance oriented as is the Motul Micro. For flying they might work, but they need to be used in Really moderate percentage.
The difference between the fuels that people use now and what is possible to obtain would create a lot of problems for many as they tune in a very different way, so the one question is if any company would be willing to spend more money on development (though I doubt some of them is spending anything right now either) and the product just to have a bunch of people complaining about how hard it is to tune the engine. It's clear that people usually isn't willing to rethink and try something out of their comfort zone, and even pro's have problems with tuning as it is...
09-10-2019 | 02:34 AM
#29
Tech Fanatic
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 805
I’m not picking one camp and never did. What started this long winded discussion was my mention that some well known fuels contain an opposite percentage of castor and whatever synthetic they use compared to what’s “normal” over here on this side of the world. Most fuels here are 80/20 synthetic castor blends, with some being 70/30 syn/cas. Regardless of that, people all over the world are adding castor to their 8-9% oil fuels (that’s already 6% castor in some cases!) to get to 10-11% oil AND noticing better tractability from the engines as well as a plethora of other positive attributes. That tells me even the best or better and highly regarded fuels still have a crappy oil package in it and adding cesspool castor to it makes it better. So there is something we can be certain of - the fuel companies are believed to “have it figured out”, but they clearly don’t. If they did, people wouldn’t “doctor” their fuel up.
Next thing to consider - while I don’t have the time, money, or resources to buy a pile of different brands of oils to test each one, some do. But the results are kept private (for good reasons). So that leaves doing research to find the right oil with the right properties in the right quantity. BUT!! when most of what’s readily available is either expensive and still junk, or cheap and still junk, you’re not left with much. We could all use Mobil turbine jet oil II (really badass synthetic oil that I believe is Ester based and chuck full of really good additives to prevent corrosion and such), however isn’t not stable over 400*F as it auto ignites at 400*F. If (according to Roelof) combustion occurs at 1,000* (F/C doesn’t matter), which seems quite high for a methanol fueled engine, is the case, no oil would come from the exhaust (providing lubrication) and instead would burn (and provide increased power & heat). What seems to be the best option (IMHO) is to use a double end capped PAG type oil (non-hygroscopic) in a ratio with castor oil. It’s still not a perfect scenario, but it can never be. I believe that to be a fact because there is only so many safe options for oils that mix with methanol and are easily tuned to. Personally, I don’t have much faith in any oil designed for refrigeration use as the environment of a refer system is very different than an internal combustion engine. The fact that a 400F flashpoint oil has to survive through combustion (on its own no less) is a feat not easily replicated.
You can point me to an oil that is safe to use as a stand-alone lubricant (without castor) and safe for use at less than 7% total content by volume anytime. I’d like to try it sometime. It would be nice if it was not carcinogenic. It seems the real good oils that can handle a high strung toy engine will eventually give you cancer. No bueno.
Next thing to consider - while I don’t have the time, money, or resources to buy a pile of different brands of oils to test each one, some do. But the results are kept private (for good reasons). So that leaves doing research to find the right oil with the right properties in the right quantity. BUT!! when most of what’s readily available is either expensive and still junk, or cheap and still junk, you’re not left with much. We could all use Mobil turbine jet oil II (really badass synthetic oil that I believe is Ester based and chuck full of really good additives to prevent corrosion and such), however isn’t not stable over 400*F as it auto ignites at 400*F. If (according to Roelof) combustion occurs at 1,000* (F/C doesn’t matter), which seems quite high for a methanol fueled engine, is the case, no oil would come from the exhaust (providing lubrication) and instead would burn (and provide increased power & heat). What seems to be the best option (IMHO) is to use a double end capped PAG type oil (non-hygroscopic) in a ratio with castor oil. It’s still not a perfect scenario, but it can never be. I believe that to be a fact because there is only so many safe options for oils that mix with methanol and are easily tuned to. Personally, I don’t have much faith in any oil designed for refrigeration use as the environment of a refer system is very different than an internal combustion engine. The fact that a 400F flashpoint oil has to survive through combustion (on its own no less) is a feat not easily replicated.
You can point me to an oil that is safe to use as a stand-alone lubricant (without castor) and safe for use at less than 7% total content by volume anytime. I’d like to try it sometime. It would be nice if it was not carcinogenic. It seems the real good oils that can handle a high strung toy engine will eventually give you cancer. No bueno.
Onroad is also very different from anything else for Several reasons, one of them is how they stress their engines, it's not about getting 10 gallons out of it but keeping it in one piece and castor is great for that. At the big races they can go through several engines during a weekend (at least they did, not sure if rules has changed that).
Some of the fuel mfg don't have things figured out, I agree completely, that they stay in business tells me how much the drivers knows.
There isn't really any need for anything to survive the combustion and anything will burn in that environment given the right circumstances, but it's a big difference in how the oil behaves at that time. That point in testing oils is often just a "go or no go" scenario, there is a long list of other properties that needs to be met.
If you're looking for health pretty much everything is off the table, the fuels we use is extremely hazardous, but I get your point.
Using something that works isn't finding the limits, for clear view sacrifice/failure is usually necessary.
Oil for any purpose is a lot like religion, people think the lack of failure is a testament of finding truth in their opinion.
Anyhow, maybe time to give this thread back, sorry for hijacking it.
