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Coyote engine oil for the track?

Eritas

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There is a balance between protection, flow, and heat. As oil gets hotter it thins out (obvious). The problem with high temps tracking 0w20 is that it becomes thinner than what Ford calls for, which is a standard operating temp.

The point behind thicker oils is that in these overly hot conditions, they will have equivalent viscosity and protection at these elevated temps. These thicker oils also tend to handle loading better. If you don't experience these high temps or track your car, thicker oil isn't necessary. However, going too thick can also be a bad thing since thicker oil does not flow or cool as well. Thinner oils have better heat transfer characteristics and cool off better.

Now Ford calls for 5W50 in the Ford GT, S197 track pack, GT500, and GT350s. I don't see any harm in using Motorcraft 5w50 or M1 0W40 (similar UOA weight to MC) in a Gen 2 coyote, however they require more diligent warm ups before beating on the car. You'll likely cause more damage at your local car show being a j@ck@ss and revving your cold motor with 0w40 or 5w50 than 0w20.

Again, if you don't track your car or have a supercharger, it's probably best to stick with the factory fill since it's the best for cold startup and driving away before letting your oil warm up.
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JohnD

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Does Ford's 5W20 recommendation specifically include track day driving? Even hint at it?

I'm sure that HPDE driving gets the oil a good bit hotter (and less viscous on an absolute scale) than was the basis for selecting 5W20 as being acceptable. Near as I can tell from a brief search, the viscosity of 30-weight oil at 250°F matches the viscosity of 20-weight oil at 230°F . . . a 20° improvement with respect to viscosity at operating temperature.

http://www.velcon.com/industrial/images/Graph1.jpg


Norm
Norm, Ford doesn't mention track use at all in their owner's manual for the 2016, not a single word on the subject. I don't know about 2015 or 2017, but they're all downloadable from Ford if someone wants to find out. There's 2 searchable versions of the PDF manual for 2016 and I have them both and the only place the word "track" shows up is in how to run the CD player/radio.

Ford clearly wanted 5W50 in the S197 Track Pack Gen 1 and they said so, and now they clearly say that they want 5W30 for track days in the 2018 Gen 3 which is making more power than the Gen 2 and thus under more stress. But not a word about that subject for the 2016's Gen 2 motor. That speaks volumes to me. Clearly, if they felt it was necessary to run heavier oil they would have said so as they have for the engine generations before and after this engine.

My experience with my car on that particular track is that the temperatures did not at any time get above what I see driving down the highway. And I wasn't poke-assing along, I was regularly over a G on corners and in the later sessions I passed way more cars than passed me. You don't have to redline the engine every shift to get big cornering loads and the corners are what a track day is all about to me.

Remember that the PP has a bigger rad than the regular GT and I feel it is very capable of handling what I do on track with my car. Guys who want to put heavier oil in your cars, knock yourselves out. I'll take my advice from the people who designed, built and pay warranty claims for my engine.
 

HeelToeHero

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From the 2017 manual:
"Using your vehicle on a dedicated road course may result in degraded function and failure of major systems such as the engine, transmission and rear axle due to the overheating of these systems. If you intend to use your vehicle on a dedicated road course, we suggest that you equip your vehicle with racing-type coolers to protect these three systems. In addition, if the vehicle is subjected to dedicated road course use, we recommend the following vehicle durability maintenance:
• Change your axle lubricant and friction modifier after the initial (first) hour of high-speed operation; thereafter change the axle lubricant and friction modifier every 12 hours (under these conditions).
• Change your transmission oil after each event where your vehicle is subjected to individual on-track sessions exceeding 15 minutes.
• Change your engine oil and filter after each event.
Additionally, perform a multi-point inspection on items specified in the scheduled maintenance section of this owner guide before and after dedicated road course use. See General Maintenance Information (page 422). See the vehicle service manual for removal and installation procedures. Replace with Genuine Ford and Motorcraft™ service parts as needed. These actions may not necessarily protect your powertrain from damage in dedicated road course use. Subjecting your vehicle to dedicated road course use even with these proposed precautions may render repairs non-reimbursable under the warranty."

Page 13 of the manual.
 

DickR

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Norm Peterson

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There's also an exception of sorts for "Hot Climate Oil Change Intervals" on page 352. It may be poorly proofwritten, but it basically calls for shorter oil change intervals if oil of a different spec is used. Which you'd do as a matter of course if you were tracking and running the oil temperature up for extended lengths of time.

It's kind of hard to accept the notion that heavier than 5W20 is actually called for in vehicles before 2015 and those after 2017 but not these years in between is a real engineering issue. I suspect it's a case of these engines being more tolerant than what Ford is officially comfortable allowing with respect to the margins against emissions and mpg criteria.


Norm
 

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HeelToeHero

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Ford abstains from any recommendation of oil other than 5w-20 in the 15 to 17.
I would be inclined to follow the 12 to 14 recommendations before the 18. 18 has a lot of changes. At least those engines are closer in design. That said I'm still undecided.
 

EFI

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rd abstains from any recommendation of oil other than 5w-20 in the 15 to 17.
I would be inclined to follow the 12 to 14 recommendations before the 18. 18 has a lot of changes. At least those engines are closer in design. That said I'm still undecided.
Except that the 11-14 recommendation is to use 5W50 oil for track use and 5W20 for street use. And the 15-17 engine is alot closer to the Roadrunner in the Boss 302 than the Gen III engine which once again recommends and is fine with 5W50.

That was more of a hearty jab at those who believe that anything other than 5W20 will ruin the engine since the engine was designed specifically to use only 5W20 and had nothing to do with emissions or fuel economy.
 

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wildcatgoal

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Okay, once again, absent my current oil cooler, I used Liqui Moly 5W40. It tested twice to be tip top with just a little sheering (which means it reduced to less than 5W40 by a little due to the high temps the engine/cooling/oil gets on a road course.

I did not have engine power issues, valve train issues, excessive wear (in fact, less than one might expect for my mileage), or any other issue. 5W40 Liqui Moly worked for me.

With an oil cooler, which I have now, 5W30 will go in. I won't bother with 5W40 any more and I may reduce to 5W20 if my oil temps are of no concern with 5W30 and the 5W30 does not show sheering in the analysis that I'll eventually do.

5W40 Liqui Moly can be acquired on Amazon in a 2-pack for a great price. I ran it on the street, but I don't drive my Mustang outside of two from and on a track much anymore.
 

TheLion

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I run Quaker State Ultimate 5w20. I've run 4 track days with this and the oil temp stays out of the yellow. Read 540Ratblog, try to read all of the information there and not just the oil ratings. You'll see why a thinner oil is better.

Don't try to outsmart the engineers that specify a particular oil weight and type.
I think many people associate "thicker oil" with "better lubrication" when in reality viscosity by itself has nothing to do with an oils ability to lubricate, which is largely determined by the additive packages and the grade of oil. Viscosity is determined based on bearing tolerances and oil pump pressure / flow rates withing a particular temperature range.

The only reason to use a heavier oil is if your running the vehicle outside of it's normal operating temperature range, thus inducing a higher heat load than the factory viscosity range was intended for. A higher viscosity at an abnormally high temperature will result in similar flow rates to the factory viscosity within it's normal operating temperature range.

Higher heat essentially "thins" the oil, thus reducing pump pressure and consequently flow rates. While fluids are essentially in-compressible, adequate flow is necessary to prevent massive shearing and boil off. If the flow rates drop too low under high load then of course you can start heavy shearing of the oil, boil away the oil due to prolonged exposure to excessive heat on the bearing surfaces and foul up the passage ways with deposits from the boiled oil, all of which can result in accelerated bearing wear / out outright failure.

For most applications where it's safe to use heavier viscosity of oil, the car is aloud to fully warm up to full operating temp 10 to 15 minutes prior to running the vehicle, so the oil is viscous enough to have adequate flow rates to protect the engine. You don't drive on a cold engine when using higher than factory spec oil viscosity, but you do drive a cold engine (lightly mind you, WOT on any cold engine is not good) on a daily driver using the factory spec viscosity, which was called out because it has adequate flow rates when cold for a lightly loaded engine.

Using a heavier oil weight in a daily driver is about the dumbest thing you could do. 60% of engine wear is during startup / warm-up. By daily driving with a heavier weight of oil your increasing the wear rates 99% of the time when you start the car (except on race day when you may wait for the engine to come up to full operating temp).

The Gen 2 coyote was designed with bearing clearances, operating temperatures and pump pressures that work best with a 5W-20 viscosity. It would be unwise to daily driver with a heavier weight oil. Why not instead change out the oil with a heavier weight just for race day, let the engine warm up fully on that day, then change it back out?

Most people will change out their oil every track day anyway. Is a little extra work to change the oil worth a spun bearing?
 

DickR

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I think this is relevant here, especially after the previous very detailed post.

I've noticed with my 18 GTPP that over about 3K rpm (about since it seems to vary) the oil pressure literally jumps from the specified 40 psi at 2K to around 80 or more psi. This is with fully warmed factory fill and now with 5w-20 Mobil 1. I don't recall this happening with my 15 GTPP. Both with Motorcraft filters.

The FSM and the parts manual both show a new oil system part for the 18 5.0: "Oil Pressure Control Solenoid" which appears to be a bolt on to the oil filter/cooler adapter. I cannot find anything anywhere that gives a hint about what this new part does so I can only speculate that it is used to increase flow and/or pressure with rpm. I did find some reference "on the internet" to a solenoid which Ford and others have used with variable vane oil pumps but the 5.0 doesn't have that from what I can see.

Anyone have actual facts on this? I can, and have, speculated enough so facts would be nice. :D

I realize it could simply be a faulty oil pressure senor or gauge or pump pressure relief valve but that doesn't make sense given what I see on the gauge.

Thanks!

Edit to add: As I recall from the FSM wiring diagram one of the 2 wires to/from the solenoid go to the ECU/PCM. I'll look again to get more or corrected info.

Edit #2: The solenoid is 2 wire. Power is through a 15A fuse. PCM connection is labeled UO2SHTR21 I haven't been able to find any reference to it in the FSM in regard to function.

Edit #3: This came up in another thread today. As I think about this I wonder/speculate if what is happening is that the new solenoid is being used as an intelligent oil pressure relief valve to increase fuel economy when neither the bearings or Ti-VCT control need the normal higher pressure with rpm that we expect. Mine "jumps" when the revs increase but "fall" in a relatively normal way when revs decrease. Despite lots of over 7K full throttle blasts after 1K miles of break-in my engine has no nasty or even "what is that" noises.
 
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Caballito

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So yea after reading this whole post I don’t think that I have come a conclusion on what oil to use for dd and track use lol.
I talked to a soul and they said the 5w-20 signature series will good enough for track days and dd and that was 3 techs that said the same thing they did ask me if I had my car modified which is not. I might just follow their recommendation
 

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↑↑↑ Be careful.

Dealership techs in particular stick to the mfr's recommendations. Otherwise, if there's a come-back it falls on them to fix a job already done and paid for instead of using that time to get paid to do a new job. Keep in mind that for most techs, cars only see "normal service with the occasional high-rpm blast", and that "track day" still means "a day at the drag strip", where the use/abuse is only a few seconds an hour. Not sustained over the better part of half an hour at a time. Between engineering jobs, I once spent the better part of a year working in a dealership service department as a utility guy doing a little of most everything except working on customer cars, so I've seen this from the inside.

Even techs in independent shops tend to think the same way (my son-in-law used to be one, and the "keep everything factory-stock" mindset might as well have been tattooed on his forehead). Those shops aren't seeing many road-race cars coming in for oil changes either.


Norm
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