One more liqui moly cera-tick

[CEHollier]

The bottle says that it will last 30000 miles, but what remains to be seen is whether the its the base oil silencing the tick or the nano Boron nitride particles. If the latter, I'd expect it to still be quiet after an oil change - as those particles are supposed to bond with the internals to create a coating. I don't think anyone here who has used Ceratec has had another oil change yet... I know I might not even get one in until the early spring now.. all depends on how soon the cold arrives.

I emailed the Liqui Moly corporation. Cera Tech can be used every oil change according to them.

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[88lx50]

Out of curiosity, I did a search for bbq tick on the F150's. I didn't find anything. Definitely not as prevalent on those 5.0 liter engines, which are very close to our engines. So I checked what weight oil they use in the 2018 5.0 liter F150 engines - 5w30 is recommended. I think the heavier weight quiets the ticking. I also believe the ceratec might be thickening up the oil enough to quiet the tick. I am going to run the heavier weight in my engine. I am not a fan of oil that comes out of the engine with the consistency of water.

 

[ValidusTalon]

Out of curiosity, I did a search for bbq tick on the F150's. I didn't find anything. Definitely not as prevalent on those 5.0 liter engines, which are very close to our engines. So I checked what weight oil they use in the 2018 5.0 liter F150 engines - 5w30 is recommended. I think the heavier weight quiets the ticking. I also believe the ceratec might be thickening up the oil enough to quiet the tick. I am going to run the heavier weight in my engine. I am not a fan of oil that comes out of the engine with the consistency of water.

There are literally hundreds of threads if you search for "F150 igniter tick" as an example. I've read a good number of them, and while I'm not an expert I can reasonably say this has been an issue with the Coyote and other Ford motors for some time. I am also one who has had luck w/Liqui Moly Cera-Tek, been nearly a month after adding the bottle (300ml) and it's gone, or so quiet I cannot hear it any more....

 

[88lx50]

There are literally hundreds of threads if you search for "F150 igniter tick" as an example. I've read a good number of them, and while I'm not an expert I can reasonably say this has been an issue with the Coyote and other Ford motors for some time. I am also one who has had luck w/Liqui Moly Cera-Tek, been nearly a month after adding the bottle (300ml) and it's gone, or so quiet I cannot hear it any more....

I could be wrong, but igniter tick didn’t bring any videos on youtube for the F150. Definitely seems to be less of an issue. How thick is the ceratec? Curious if it thickens the oil.

 

[ValidusTalon]

I could be wring, but igniter tick didn’t bring any videos on youtube for the F150. Definitely seems to be less of an issue. How thick is the ceratec? Curious if it thickens the oil.

Out of the bottle it is very thin, almost water-like or perhaps a melted milk shake (looks like a melted orange milk shake). I don't know that it thickens the oil, forum contributor TheLion has done a substantial amount of review on it. I'd recommend reading some of his posts as well as the threads here.

 

[CEHollier]

Out of curiosity, I did a search for bbq tick on the F150's. I didn't find anything.

A quick search. Your Google Fu is lacking Grasshopper.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1363528-5-0-coyote-tapping-ticking-knocking.html

https://www.fordf150.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=123008

 

[88lx50]

A quick search. Your Google Fu is lacking Grasshopper.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1363528-5-0-coyote-tapping-ticking-knocking.html

https://www.fordf150.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=123008

Neither is described as a bbq or typewriter tick and the second link describes a rhythmic tick, which the bbq tick is not. It is very random. Every model vehicle is going to have issues but this one seems more prevalent on the Mustang 5.0 and not the F150.

 

[TheLion]

Just wanted to provide an update on TriboTEX aka the "expensive" option. I believe I have confirmation that the hBN is the primary mechanism for quieting down the "BBQ Tick" in those using Cera Tec. TriboTEX does NOT have a carrier fluid (well not much) like Cera Tec does. It's mostly combined with a very small amount of Ester base oil which provides the body and suspension and some catalysts mixed in. It's just a larger syringe you squirt into the oil as opposed to pouring 500mL of Cera Tec.

I did it on a cold engine, then started the car up and let it idle for 5 minutes just to be extra cautious and take note of any changes. I didn't notice any "quieter" operation during the 5 minute idle, but it absolutely was quieter once I got home and pulled into my garage. You can still hear valve train noise mind you and it still does that "whhhomp whhhomp whhhomp" sound some times when it settles into a low idle, but it's always done that and I bought my car with just 5,600 miles on it, now at 21k so I have a decent amount of experience with it and what is normal and what is not.

So far I did not have any "rattle" or "ping" when cold during up shifting, which I believe is actually mild pinging and not piston slap when cold. Yes it's ok to have mild pinging when cold, but heavy pinging or detonation is not ok. It only occurrs in the first 15~30 seconds of driving and only when letting out the clutch on the next higher gear when load suddenly increases. It did it stock as well as with the Power Pack 2 just for reference, so it's not changed since the Power Pack 2. Here's the interesting part, the car just feels like it's making more torque. It has a new "torqy pull" that I have never really experienced before even in ideal weather.

Sure, it's a bit stronger some days than others, like all engines it's power output varies with environmental conditions and fuel quality, but with 21k on the car, 4,000 of which have been with the Power pack 2 and catch can, I have a pretty good feel for what to expect. I regularly flog the car and top out 3rd and 4th gear on back roads when it's safe to do so in an HPDE fashion. I did not notice this improvement on the first day when I drove home (27 miles) but I was also in heavy traffic most of the way so I never really got a chance to push it the first day on the way home. Not enough driving to be 100% sure, but I did get 25 mpg on the way home the first day and I normally get that only in the most ideal conditions.

This morning was a true confirmation however. I hit 28 mpg cruising at 75 mph on hilly highways, same ones I take every day. I have never achieved over 25 on those highways. The car is just using less gas cruising. Nothing mechanical or in the ECU has changed at all. I have about 1,000 miles on the Mobil 1 Advanced Synthetic since the last oil change at 20k. About the same weather as well, still in the mid to high 60's, moderate humidity. Same route, same speeds. Normally I could only achieve 28+ mpg cruising at about 60 mph on flat terrain. Given that there is less friction, the car has to be making more torque as there are fewer losses and it's enough to notice. The "seat of the pants" and the fuel economy back each other up given there are no other changes to the car. Not even "fresh oil" as it already has about 1k miles on it.

Now the MSH takes about 500 miles on average to achieve full effect, but most people report noticeable changes within 50 to 100 miles, mostly in the noise reduction department. I've done an immense amount of research on MSH and hBN, both are good and have very similar lubricating properties and wear reduction, but MSH has a bit more ideal properties due to it being "immune" to water absorption before it's bonded which is an issue with hBN. In fact hBN if it absorbs water before it's bonded will fail to bond and actually increase friction. However synthetic MSH is more expensive to manufacture than hBN and is a more recent discovery where hBN has been around since the 1980's, but was not easily mass produce able in nano sized particles until the last decade.

But getting back to my observations and some key points, the 5.0 is not a torque monster like the LT1 6.2 or 392 aka 6.4L Hemi. And no, MSH or hBN friction modifiers won't "transform" your 5.0 into one, but it will benefit greatly by improve torque output, especially in the higher rev ranges where friction losses are the greatest. The 5.0 has greater volumetric efficiency than either of it's cam in block big bore rivals. Consequently, it also suffers greater friction losses than either one and I think DOHC designs, which are the most common, will benefit the most.

1. Cylinders, the losses in the 5.0 at higher RPM's is substantial, it generates a lot of heat which is waste energy, there's simply more heat due to more revs per a minute as the big bore rivals can only dream of hitting 7100~7500 RPM (depending on 5.0 generation and power packs) and use half the valve train.

With current oil additive packages, modern motor oils still have marginal boundary layer lubrication performance and there are four benefits to reducing friction losses (we often forget, you loose 50+ hp just in the drive train friction losses aka resistance): more power to the wheels due to an increase in torque, lower wear which is especially important in high revving engines due to the sacrificial layer, better fuel economy, less blow by and waste heat which helps the oil to maintain it's most ideal performance for longer intervals, especially during hard use like a HPDE traction session.

2. Valve train, there's slightly more than double the valve train of it's cam in block rivals and consequently 2x the friction losses in the valve train comparatively. DOHC designs have two draw backs for the primary gain. A. higher friction losses. B. increased weight and size. But what if we could reduce the losses of A. substantially?

The Voodoo 5.2, Power Pack 3 2nd Gen 5.0 and 3rd Gen 5.0 would benefit even more from a substantial reduction in friction due to their even higher rev ranges. So far initial impressions are VERY favorable. The real test will be how well does the synthetic MSH coating hold up in the 5.0? Will it really provide the friction reducing benefits for 40k miles? I'd be happy even if I only got 20k miles of performance before needing re-application. That's less than once a year I would spend $130 for substantial benefits.

Remember however that dosage is critical. Running "half doses" or even "third doses" will not have the ideal anti-wear and friction reducing benefits. Concentration is critical and if you do not achieve the optimal concentration the coatings won't provide those benefits even if they do still dampen noise. In all of the R&D papers on both hBN and MSH there is ideal concentrations that must be achieve to see measurable changes that make it viable, so keep that in mind. With TriboTEX you need to use their "Diesel" concentration or two of the regular for the 5.0 application.

 

[TheLion]

BTW, there is even a review of an op on their site who had a Toyoda Tundra with the 6.2 V8. He used a single tube of the regular for over 1k miles. No improvement in fuel economy, noise etc. He gave it a second try and added another of the regular tubes. Shortly after he had measurable and noticeable improvements in fuel economy, engine noise and even "peppiness" of the truck. Just like spark advance is critically tuned for given RPM, load and environmental conditions, so is lubrication additive packages like ZDDP and other friction modifiers that are added to motor oils. Both hBN and MSH are chemically inert and do not react with base oils or the common additive packages and both to some degree use your motor oil as a carrier until heat and pressure induce bonding to the metal bearing surfaces that result in an ultra low friction coating on all contact points. I also recently discovered that some very high end super cars actually come from the factory with ceramic friction reducing coatings on internal contact points and that's part of how they are making high horse power. It's just one more piece of the puzzle.

I would not expect hBN or MSH to have any meaningful impact on rod bearings, main bearings or cam bearings as they are hydrodynamic. It may reduce a small amount of cold start wear, however given those bearings are riding on a fluid film 99.9% of the time they will have little to no impact unless you loose oil pressure and the film collapses. In that case they could potentially save your engine if you catch the issue in time. My father in law races late model dirt oval cars, they run chevy small blocks making about 800 hp and revving out to 8,000 rpm. Obviously they run Group V Ester or PAO racing oils with some heavy duty additive packages. Well he lost oil pressure one time and ran 8 laps with no oil pressure (yes there was oil in the pan, but the pickup tube some how disconnected to the oil pump).

They did an engine tear down expecting to be replacing the crank and rod bearings. But to his surprise, there was no visible scarring. The additive package in the Joe Gibbs aka Driven racing oil was enough to prevent damaging metal on metal contact despite the collapse of the hydrodynamic bearings when oil flow and pressure was lost. Without fresh oil supply hydrodynamic bearing films collapse very rapidly due to extreme heat and pressure. Just another data point to illustrate some benefits of good boundary layer lubrication and it's benefits.

I'll report back in maybe a 1,000 miles to see how things are progressing. Sorry for the super long post, but there was a lot to cover. Results are very favorable presently and well worth the cost just for the noise improvement (even though I didn't really have any significant issues) and fuel economy alone, let alone the other benefits. But the true test will be to see how the car performance once the coating process is completed.

 

[TheLion]

Figured I'd add some information I forgot about when I did my R&D: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261171062/download

I found a research paper analyzing friction losses in an engine. 36% is in the pistons / cylinders, 16% is in the valve train, 9% is in the Crankshaft, 27% in pumping losses (free valve can reduce that) and 13% in auxiliary systems).

Some interesting data to show where losses occur and what type they are. Obviously increasing boundary layer lubrication performance will not affect pumping losses, but it will reduce friction losses due to the skirts contacting the cylinder walls and the rings pressing against the cylinder walls. It will reduce losses in the valve train due to cams contacting the finger followers or the timing chains sliding against the tensioners and in each link against it's bearing surface. That is all power that could be converted to torque instead of heat and wear.

 

[TheLion]

Just wanted to add a thought regarding oil additives in general. Be very careful about the additive and how it interacts with your oils existing additive package. Typically the oil your using has a very specific and well tested additive package, but like all things it's not possible for every new technology to be immediately adopted and implemented. Many of the existing additive packages already contain micro and nano sized dry lubricants like ZDDP or MoS2 to enhance boundary layer or even mixed mode lubrication (in which boundary layer lubrication occurs at lower rpms and hydrodynamic lubrication occurs at higher rpms).

And we know that too much ZDDP can actually increase wear rates and friction and it's primary pupose it reduce wear, not necessarily friction as it's a sacrificial additive, but it does have some mild friction reducing properties. It also has a tendency to interact with other materials in a negative way in some cases. For example I had found a study of one particular DLC coating know as a-C: H or amorphous hydrogenated carbon that interacted negatively with ZDDP and increased wear by over 4x!

So when using a-C nano particle coating with ZDDP in the oil it had the opposite effect, thus it was not compatible with existing oil additive packages which contain ZDDP. a-C was just one more type of DLC that has been studied for it's anti-wear capabilities, but on top of incompatibility with ZDDP, it also has a susceptibility to water similar to hBN, so I'm not aware of it's use in engines presently: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/06/f32/ft014_qu_2016_o_web.pdf

Generally I would agree that most additives are snake oil, they simply do not provide any meaningful benefit or measurable performance gains and in some cases can actually be the cause of issues. However there's been a great deal of R&D into DLC coatings over the last decade and it appears that hBN and MSH have emerged as the most practical solutions for automotive applications with very notable and measurable benefits for reducing friction and wear in boundary layer or mixed mode lubrication (I realized that cams can in some cases function in mixed mode, at higher RPM's they become hydrodynamic, but at lower rpms the run at boundary).

Also note that lower friction does not always mean lower wear, but they often do correlate. That's why some hot rod builders who added ZDDP to their oil ended up with worn out cams in 25k miles on their flat tappet engines. Adding more ZDDP to their existing oil or using an oil with a less than ideal additive package resulted in excessive wear.

I did find this as a somewhat decent reference as to why many of the "additives" are ineffective aka snake oil: https://ultimatesyntheticoil.com/facts_about_aftermarket_oil_additives/

However the author is pretty biased as a "pro AMSOIL" guy and seems to be unwilling to accept that AMSOIL itself use additives and they play a key role in the oils performance. They just use a proprietary additive package they created and tested. I always hate the "everything this or everything that is bad". Not ALL additives are snake oil, but many are is more true to reality.

I suppose XL-3 additive from Ford that is supposed to be used with their 75W-85 hypoid gear oil in the Torsen 3.73's is "snake oil"? Because it's and "additive" it must be right...? Obviously there are legitimate friction modifier additives that can or even NEED to be used. So just use discretion.

Regardless, TriboTEX has at least undergone multiple ASTM standardized tests for wear that are often used for automotive applications including the Four Ball Wear Scar test AMSOIL themselves use to benchmark their oil for Boundary Layer lubrication capabilities, as well as the "Block on Ring" wear test and even the Weavden hypoid gear test which is widely used for industrial wear testing applications. So we shall see how it performs longer term.

 

[CEHollier]

Neither is described as a bbq or typewriter tick and the second link describes a rhythmic tick, which the bbq tick is not. It is very random. Every model vehicle is going to have issues but this one seems more prevalent on the Mustang 5.0 and not the F150.

Many others do.

 

[Kong76]

Lion is the Cera Tec ok to use in the factory motorcraft semi synthetic? I don't think I have room for a full bottle and planned only using half tomorrow. I am at the top of the cross pattern on dipstick.

 

[CEHollier]

Lion is the Cera Tec ok to use in the factory motorcraft semi synthetic? I don't think I have room for a full bottle and planned only using half tomorrow. I am at the top of the cross pattern on dipstick.

FYI about 1/8 to 1/4 inch from the top full line will accommodate a bottle of Ceratech.

 

[Catax]

Is this the product on amazon? I'm thinking of giving it go myself.
https://www.amazon.com/Liqui-Moly-20002-Friction-Modifier/dp/B001CZODH8

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