Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Your Engine's Worst Enemy: Friction

Copyright © By Ray Thomas

When you rub two pieces of metal against one another they resist it and heat is generated. Keep it up and accellerated wear results. When this friction happens in your engine it speeds up the wear factor and shortens your engine's life. Conventional oils are just barely able to handle this in today's engines, especially in those "four-bangers" designed to operate at a higher temperature than before. This adds wear to your engine.

Remember the ad for an oil additive where the announcer says, "You are about to hear the worst thing you can do to your engine?" Then you hear the sound of a car's engine starting. And this ad is merely for an oil additive using synthetic ingredients. This is because with conventional (fossil) oils, the oil drops to the bottom of the pan when the engine stops, meaning that first "split second" after you start your engine, you're running "metal-to-metal" with no oil between as a "cushion. Synthetic oils cling to the parts when the engine stops, leaving a thin film of lubrication so there are NO "dry starts." This alone stretches out the life of your engine, to your financial advantage.

Automotive lubricants really never advanced beyond the original formulations (except for certain additives) until Al Amatuzio, a jet pilot, observed that his jet engines used a different, better kind of lubrication than that ised in his car. It could operate at higher OR lower temperatures than conventional lubricants while causing a lot less heat. What's more, the lubricants used in his jet plane seemed to last forever.


The same was true in aerospace. They just could not operate in outer space using conventional lubricants because of the extremes of high and low temperatures they encountered. The only kind of lubricant they could use was synthetic, which could be manufactured to whatever specificatons you wanted. Then only obstacle was cost. Some of the lubricants used in outer space cost as much as thousands of dollars an ounce.

He decided he could design a synthetic lubricant for automotive use at a cost people could afford, that would be a lot better than any conventional oil, not only save them money on the cost of the oil itself (because it lasted 25,000 miles, meaning they only had to buy four or five quarts and two filters in 25,000 miles rather than 40 quarts and eight filters), but on the overall cost of driving their car.

He was successful, and "breakthrough product" was born, obsoleting the entire conventional oil industry. AmsOil was the first successful synthetic lubricant to hit the automatic market about 30 years ago, and conventional oil makers were scared to death. They actually lied to the public about it, hoping to frighten customers away from it. One even came out right away with their own synthetic oil that actually cost more, was good only for 15,000 miles, and was not compatible with conventional oils, so you had to clean out your entire system to use it. They've since reformulated it, but aside from now being compatible with conventional oils, it's no better than it was.


Al's synthetic oil was supremely successful, creating a market for the "average Joe," since it wasn't sold in stores, but by individuals who could form their own marketing teams without having to buy thousands of dollars in inventory to fill up their garage. Al wasn't the first, but he was the first successful manufacturer and marketer of synthetic lubricants, not only for automobiles, but for other applications, as well (I use AmsOil grease on the runners for my automatic garage opener, and it stopped the garage door from getting stuck in very cold weather). Hitler was trying to develop a synthetic lubricant during WWII because on the Russian front his guns froze up and his tanks wouldn't run. Had he been successful we'd all be speaking German right now.


The result is a lubricant that is a "breakthrough product" that will make conventional oils obsolete once the world "tumbles" to its superiority over conventional oils in cost and performance. This is a product much like the automobile itself, which obsoleted many industries, including the buggy whip industry. Now everybody has a synthetic oil in their line, usually at higher prices and which are mostly less effective, since AmsOil has more than thirty years headstart in research and development.


With synthetic lubricants you can start your car on the coldest day of winter just about anywhere because it doesn't "gum up" like conventional oils do at any temperature below zero. Not only that, since the oil "clings" to the parts there'll never be that split second of "dry running" you get with conventional oils. That makes it a lot easier on your battery and starter because neither are working as hard to start your car. This alone is worth changing over.


With significantly lower friction synthetic oil is "super slippery", causing a RPM increase of about 200 RPM as soon as you put it in. Race drivers like Mark Martin, Al Unser Jr. and Sr., and a number of others whose names you would recognize just take advantage of the extra RPM to go faster and the oil to make their engines last longer. The average driver just "idles it back" to the original RPM and saves about 10% in gas mileage. That's a lot of money saved these days.


With your engine not working as hard, it runs cooler. You break down less often, and the engine itslelf lasts longer, saving you a lot of cash. Furthermore, with your engine running cooler, there are no more vapor locks on hot days.


Conventional oils "thin out," losing their viscosity (thickness) when they warm up. Synthetifc oils do not "shear back" and maintain their design thickness throughout.


It runs a lot cleaner than conventional oils as a natural part of the way it was made. The cleaning additives last longer, allowing you to go 25,000 miles between oil changes without voiding your warranty since it not only meets, but exceeds government and warranty requirements.


America is the biggest importer of Saudi and other fossil oils in the world. Why should we continue to buy billions of dollars in oil from people who hate us and have no interest in reducing its cost? We taught them how to bring it up in the first place, but they count that as "interference" and raise the price some more. What would happen if a significant number of people all over the world (not just in America) switched to synthetic oils, thereby reducing the amount of conventional oil purchased by 1/10th the amount we now use? Their prices would soon go down because they need that oil money we helped them to obtain. Then the cost of gasoline would drop like a stone (But we'll have probably come up with a synthetic gasoline by that time).


Since you only have to use four or five quarts vs. 40 or more quarts, plus two filters vs. eight with conventional oil intervals, that means you spend a lot less money and have to dispose of a lot less used oil, which usually works its way into the environment. This helps the environment because there's less synthetic oil to be disposed of.

Whatever kind of synthetic oil you use, you're going to benefit and so is the entire country. AmsOil is the best because they were the original manufacturers and marketers of synthetic lubricants to the automotive market and still maintain that thirty-year headstart. If you want more information about it, write me at the address above or send me an e-mail.