Nano oils, any good?

On the Velocity channel when I'm watching Wheeler Dealers they keep having a nano oil commercial and show it's now being sold at an auto parts store near me.

The concept of nano oils is valid, but is the actuality of the nano oils up to the hype?

I've got an '02 S2000 that I bought new and can't see me getting rid of it any time soon so if there's a benefit over regular synthetic oils it might be worth the extra money.

I've only got 77,000 miles on it and don't daily drive it any more. It's almost time to change the engine oil, transmission fluid and diff fluid so before I use the regular stuff I wanted to see if it was worth looking into.

Is a nano oil similar to this stuff? Because this stuff (while expensive) allegedly shows gains on the dyno.

http://www.motoiq.com/MagazineArticles/ID/2669/Tested-RS-Rs-Ran-Up-Oil-Treatment-Power-in-a-Bottle.aspx

i will tell you the same thing I tell all our customers that analyze their oil samples. Use a quality oil. Monitor the condition and change as needed. Miracles in a bottle, or some new fad is just crap. The current trend is some potassium borate additive from a company that has a name like March Coil or something. It's an additive that's been used in EP gear lubes for decades. If you're doing what you're supposed to there's no need for the junk.

Sorry but that is a terrible MotoiQ article, normally they are much better then that. Any car with a "road dyno" is going to show STDEV around 5-20hp.

Good oil, with reasonable change schedule, and some analysis if conditions dictate it is 100% the way to go.

FWIW, I've had conversations with the folks at Performance Racing Oils. (Millers Oil) They incorporate Nano technology within their oils. Now, they have forgotten more than I'll ever know about lubricants, but the take-home message was that their Nano technology enables the oil to hold up longer. They have studies showing a heavily track-used Porsche 911 that shows the oil holding up better than a traditional synthetic when used for repeated track days. One of their selling points was that you don't need to change your oil as often.

Here's more information from their website: nano tech

That link just takes me right back to here.

The holding up under extreme conditions or revs is the aspect that would interest me rather than longer time between oil changes.

Minimizing wear and giving me another million miles out of the engine is another thing that would make it attractive.

Sorry about that ---- the linky should be fixed now.

Their description of the motor oil is almost identical to AMSOILS .

OK, they are just spouting the theory, which is valid and why I was wondering if reality had caught up with theory yet.

On a car you're going to keep for a long time this could be important

iceracer wrote: Their description of the motor oil is almost identical to AMSOILS .

The last Amsoil I bought didn't mention nano tech. Have they changed?

No knowledge or opinion on this topic here, but nano seems to be one of those recent, popular marketing words.

Amsoil, Royal Purple, Pennzoil Platinum, and any other pure PAO base stock oil are all of the "nano" type by definition. Just they all don't see a point in marketing it that way.

wearymicrobe wrote: Sorry but that is a terrible MotoiQ article, normally they are much better then that. Any car with a "road dyno" is going to show STDEV around 5-20hp. Good oil, with reasonable change schedule, and some analysis if conditions dictate it is 100% the way to go.

I've thought about going to a local dyno, strapping my Mustang on it for a baseline, then dumping that stuff in the crankcase and dynoing it again.

...But I don't want to spend $50 on that additive plus dyno fees.

Add any of the latest power inducing fluids, fuel or oil and the butt dyno will show an impressive gain in power.

The only thing I know about nano tech is it's the real deal alright, just depends on what the application is. If they've got it working in oils now, I'd do it in a heart beat. Man, I miss working with the engineers.... oh well.

To understand the Nanotech that is used in certain lubricants today you need to have a bit of background,.. in 1985 inorganic Fullerenes were first discovered at the University of Sussex. Comprised of Carbon at the time, these Nano particles were called Buckeyballs and are on the order of 10^-9 meters in size. To give you a way to understand this size,.. if you compared a Soccer ball to the Earth, the same relative size relationship exists between the Soccer ball and the Nano particle. So significant was this discovery, the team that discovered how to produce these Fullerenes won the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1996. It was later discovered that these Fullerenes could be made from other inorganic materials, not just from carbon.

Fast forward to 2007 approximately,.. it was just around this time that industry started to exist that was producing nanoparticles in enough quantity that they could start to be incorporated into other products. Martyn Mann at Millers Oils in the UK started to conduct experiments to find what the incorporation of certain Nano-particles in oils could do (there are now many different versions of Nano particles, not just Carbon). Early testing on the Millers Oil friction rig showed that certain Nano particles significantly reduced friction,... a typical friction coefficient for oil is about .11 to .14 at 100 deg C depending on the exact type of oil tested. The initial testing which incorporated Nano particles showed numbers in the .085 region at 100 deg C and in today's formulations we are seeing friction coefficients in the .05 range at 100 deg C without significant change to the base stocks used, which in this case are an optimized formulation of Group 3, group 4 (PAO) and three different Group 5 oils(Esters).

The earlier posted comment that other "PAO base stock oil are all of the "Nano" type by definition" is simply incorrect. As mentioned previously Nano tech has only been around a very short time where as PAO base oils have been commercially available for around 40 plus years.

The benefit of Nano particles in lubricants is from a wear perspective. With the significantly reduced friction you get greater protection of sliding metal surfaces inside your engine, any additional power gains is insignificant when compared to the protection aspect. Anyone who is interested to learn more can read a 4 page paper regarding Nano particles and the incorporation of the particles into Millers oils products at the following link. http://performanceracingoils.com/PDF/Racetech_mag_article_Tiny_Tech_Big_Breakthrough.pdf

Thanks for the information Karl! Without being an oil systems engineer, it's kind of hard to wrap the mind around all the science that is incorporated in today's oil production. We appreciate your input.

Nano is so last week. I'm putting Buckminsterfullerene in my oil.

So Karl are there any legitimate nano oils on the market today? I mean oils with enough of the nano-ites to actually do some good and not just be a marketing ploy?

iceracer wrote: Add any of the latest power inducing fluids, fuel or oil and the butt dyno will show an impressive gain in power.

The only thing the butt dyno ever shows correctly is when i hit the nitrous button

carguy123 wrote: So Karl are there any legitimate nano oils on the market today? I mean oils with enough of the nano-ites to actually do some good and not just be a marketing ploy?

Karl works for Millers Oil---- they are the only company I'm aware of that uses nano tech. There may be others, but Performance Racing Oils / Millers introduced me to the technology:

Performance Racing Oils / Millers

Friction coefficient is only part of the tale of oils. I wonder what effects this has on things like fuel dilution, resistance to thermal breakdown etc.

Lower friction due to the Nano particles in Millers Oils(can't speak for any others) will lead to less heat generation and help the oil stay measurably cooler. There is zero effect to fuel dilution as that is a function of injector health , tuning, engine ring health etc... The major contributing factor to thermal breakdown resistance is simply base oil used to blend the product and the viscosity improvers that are used to tailor the end product to its viscosity goals. Typically high end synthetic base stocks are very resistant to break down, however the viscosity improvers are much more prone to breakdown.

I have a recent Blackstone Labs test result from a customer with a 2012 Corvette with a supercharger making big HP that ran the Millers 10W50 NT in his engine for 2886 miles and the viscosity was dead in the center of the window at 14.68 cSt (spec is 12.2-16.3) when tested. Comments from the customer " I had about 680 track miles during two HPDEs at Virginia International Raceway (VIR). The rest of the miles were commuting to VIR for the two HPDE events (1200 miles) and some Corvette social/show event participation. Very pleased!". The report also has Amzoil data on it,.. if anyone is interested in seeing it just let me know. Point of this story is that oils can hold up under high stress for many miles without viscosity loss if the product is designed and blended correctly.