What Oil Do u guys use??

[Holmsey24]

Santa Pod eh.  Make sure you take it easy after watching the Grand Prix.  You wouldn\'t want to have a Minardi moment and then have to catch the bus home!!

Have a gud un!

Matt  

[Mart160plus]

I\'m not ready to wreck my clutch so I\'ll watch and not take part this time ! Maybe several more thousands miles and a few bucks down the road when I have a single turbo et al...... !

[gsb876]

Mart,

long journey for you buddy??

Was it you i spoke to at the Jap Show at Pod awhile back??? when it kept bloody raining???

Sorry if i got the wrong dude.:rolleyes:

[Mart160plus]

Last time I went to the Pod I was in a GT-Four, but I won\'t hold it against you !!! That motorbike geezer that used to be on Top Gear in it\'s previous format was in the burger queue with us.
Bit of a journey, yes !! Did it last weekend too, I can get about 21 to 23mpg if I\'m really reserved, then as soon as I get off the motorway I go mental round the roundabouts in Milton Keynes, can\'t really help it.

Any ideas how much oil the RX takes ? Don\'t wanna overfill it.

[gsb876]

If you mean from empty then i\'d say put in a fair bit but keep checking the level by the measureing tip. Dont wanna overfill her.

[Mart160plus]

3.7 quarts I just read on one of the US \'How to\' pages, so that\'s 3.7 litres (as found on a conversions page).

I could frankly give up work and spend 8 hours a day every day reading about and modifying my car. When I said one of the reasons I wanted an RX was because it is new technology to me and I wanted to learn about it I didn\'t know there was so much stuff online !!!!

[MillSpeed]

I found mine took just over 4 - 4.5 litres, need to top mine up a bit aswell.

[Pete C]

This is interesting, do you guys all use mineral oil in your turbocharged FDs? Is this what Mazda recommends?

You see, I\'d always been told that the very high temperatures that oil has to endure in a turbocharged engine (rotary or otherwise, the turbo will get just as hot) would break down mineral oil very quickly, and therefore fully synth oil was the only kind that would survive for any amount of time.

I mean, I use Mobil 1 Motorsport 15W/50 fully synth in my Nissan (conventional turbocharged inline-4), and I change it every 3000 miles, and it\'s still really black and horrible when it comes out

So just curious, can anyone explain why mineral oil is best? And not just \'cos Mazda said so LOL

[MillSpeed]

This debate has raged for years and there still isn\'t a definite answer one way or the other. Perhaps the principal reason for using mineral oil is the fact that in a rotary engine, a metered amount of oil is injected into the combustion chamber as part of normal operation. Supposedly, when synthetic oil burns it leaves behind a sticky residue which coats the rotor faces, gums up the seals and leads to increased wear. In addition, there have been reports that synthetics attack the oil seals used by mazda, hence the recommendation to use mineral oils. However, plenty of people do use synthetics in their rotaries with seemingly no ill-effects. Personally, I\'m gonna stick with the GTX for now, change it regularly and add a healthy dose of pre-mix just for good measure!

[banned advertiser]

Im using royal purple, and not just because I sell it, John helps has been using it for a couple of years now, and his car has held up very well, went single turbo at 60000 miles and still going stong i believe. I went royal purple because it was the only fully synthetic which is double estha and only one recommended for rotaries, and i believe that knightsport use it.
Most use mineral like me originally on price, 5ltr fully synthetic £37.5 +vat racing £61.75 +vat. Since useing Royal purple have discovered its pretty amazing stuff. Working with manufacturer at moment to put some facts together. Was hoping to get the guy to Pod on Sunday but he could not make it, he was going to bring his lab tester to show you just how crap mineral is and with test kit prove how weak and easily it is broken down.
http://www.rotarytarts.com/acatalog/News.html
http://www.rotarytarts.com/acatalog/Royal_Purple_Oils.html
They also have a massive range, so drag racers can have different oils to track car, and diff oils for road cars.
Will post facts later when complete.

[banned advertiser]

talking to the guys at royal purple, it is normally the detergents in the mineral oil that bugger the rubber oil seals and there synthetic will help preserve them, and some times switching to fully syn after mineral will wash the crud off the seals to reveal there weakness caused by the mineral oil.

[Pete C]

Originally posted by MillSpeed
This debate has raged for years and there still isn\'t a definite answer one way or the other. Perhaps the principal reason for using mineral oil is the fact that in a rotary engine, a metered amount of oil is injected into the combustion chamber as part of normal operation. Supposedly, when synthetic oil burns it leaves behind a sticky residue which coats the rotor faces, gums up the seals and leads to increased wear. In addition, there have been reports that synthetics attack the oil seals used by mazda, hence the recommendation to use mineral oils. However, plenty of people do use synthetics in their rotaries with seemingly no ill-effects. Personally, I\'m gonna stick with the GTX for now, change it regularly and add a healthy dose of pre-mix just for good measure!

Thanks for the reply, that\'s really interesting - I didn\'t realise that rotary engines burn oil as a matter of course

They say you learn something new every day

I guess it\'s better to stick to mineral in that case, espcially if you use a fair bit, \'cos the oil I buy costs £35 for 4 litres!

I have heard arguments on my board (I am a member of the SXOC) that a really good mineral oil should be as good as a synthetic one anyway

How much oil do they use, just out of interest?

[MillSpeed]

Just under a litre every 3000miles is about the norm I believe.