What is the best oil for my 1300 and what's the petrol (mix) to use?

Dan

castrol gtx2

Castrol GTX 2 is recommended and used by many vee dub owners...

Petrol is Unleaded or Premium unleaded...
91 RON is what is needed.. and thats Unleaded standard..
I am going to add 25% premium unleaded in My Beetle..

Lee

Hey Danny,

Just do not use a fully synthetic oil as it rejects heat, and our little engines need the oil to help transport heat from the heads etc...

Matt

Whats this about putting 2 stroke oil in your tank?

Dan

it lubes the valve and prevents valve resesion into the head. the best is flash lube which can be purchased from repco and other places. it is an auto feeding system that is hooked into the manifold and 1litre treats 1000 km and 1000 litres of fuel. i ran this in my 72 sbug with a 2 litre on premium unleaded and had no problems :alien

Fact not opinion.

I know a guy who fitted a Fuelstar inline tin cannister to his old Holden motor which was in good condition and had the head off and inspected before the cannister was fitted. There was no valve seat recession evident. No hardened valve seats were fitted, just the standard cast iron head. It was run on unleaded with no other additives.

After 5 years and 100,000 km's the motor was runing rough and the valves could not be adjusted any more. The head was removed and the exhaust valves had buried themselves up to 2mm into the head. One looked even more than that.

yeah seen that had a 1700 in the bug before the 2litre and it dropped a piston because of the lead replacement fuel does not have a high enough octaine rating.but flash lube has a life time guarantee on it for any damage to the moter if fitted correct and no other additive is used in its system, and at $75-100 dollars a kit and a fair bit less for refills its worth it.

I used to add a small amount of 2-stroke as upper cylinder lubricant for years, but if you do that it should be the marine type 2-stroke oil ,
I now use flashlube & standard unleaded

have you found that it has a slight power increase or it runs smoother as well when running on the flash lube.

IVE HEARD THAT LRP IS JUST STANDARD UNLEADED WITH A FEW THINGS ADDED I HAVE RUN PREMIUM SINCE I BUILD MY MOTOR AND IT RUNS GREAT I ALSO PUT SOME FLASHLUBE IN WHEN I REMEMBER I RUN PENRITE HPR 50 IN MINE NICE THICK OIL I DONT LIKE THIN OIL IN MY VWS I THINK THAT THIN OIL SHITS ITSELF QUICK WHEN IT GETS HOT SO WHY WOULD YOU PUT IT IN A AIRCOOLER MABY FOR RACING WHEN THE MOTOR ONLY HAS TO MAKE IT A RACE TO GET EVERY BIT OF POWER OUT OF THEM

hmm I use HPR 5 , wonderfully thin
Flash lube is residual, doesnt matter one bit if you miss a few tankfuls, Kombi usuallonly gets it now if I am doing a trip

no sorry mate it you thats wrong. the ron(octaine rating) of LRP is 93 unleaded is 92 and pulp is 96-98. the 1700 dropped a piston because it was pinging due to low octaine rating. the story behind the problem was that super was 94-96 ron fuel and when they changed it over to LRP the octaine rating dropped and the anti knock additives were changed and reduced. i was not alone with this problem as most of the people around at the time had this problem in two different states ie vic and nsw. ask your local mechanic if you dont believe me. because ive still got the piston to prove it.

Hasn't the whole synthetic oil debate been resolved? Synthetic oil is better in the long run, it doesn't thermally degrade as quickly as mineral oil I don't think there is any arguement there. But in our VW engines with no oil filter where the oil change interval is only 3000km, the oil is stuffed by impurities long before it thermally degrades or oxidises. Besides, who can afford to pay $25 for each oil change? The point is that it isn't worth the extra cash in this application.

As for synthetic oil "rejecting heat", WTF does that mean? Syn oil may be more heat resistant, meaning that it doesn't break down not that it doesn't absorb heat.

The final reason I don't use it is that all the syn oils I've seen are 5W or 10W, which seems a bit thin for an old engine with loose tolerances. Oil this thin in my engine would probably leak 2.5L before it was time to change it.

Mudbasher, Penrite HPR50 is a 40W-70 oil, it's very thick. It's specifically designed for old large capacity motors which are leaking oil, speedway competition or towing in the outback! Shit mate the stuff is practically solid. One good reason to use a thinner oil is that 75% of wear occurs during the first 5-10min after start up (sounds like an ad). Your Penrite HPR 50 probably stays in the sump for about 30min until it's hot enough to crawl out. Change to Penrite HPR30 it's a 20W-60, if you think GTX2 is too thin. I wasn't aware that lower viscosity oils degraded any faster.

i run a mulivis which is 30w55 which is recomended for most cars at that age and younger.

So i'll go for the GTX2 and some flash lube in with normal unleaded. Yea?

Dan

yeah most of the oils are the same so it just marketing hype but stay away from the ones in the supermarkets and such.

I personally prefer polunsaturated oils.

We use Penrite HPR30 in all the vehicles & bikes
EH Holden
'75 1800 Microbus
'70 1300 Beetle
'77 Honda CBR750
'84 Honda CM250

Seems to suit all of them pretty well seeing as they are all older style motors. I change the oil very regulary and to make it easier I get the oil in a 20 litre drum.

Petrol is a bit different.
We use Premium in all vehicles/ bikes except the EH is LPG and the Beetle cops any shit.

I run Penrite Desiel I think it is similar to the HPR 30 in specs ( have to check, juts always walk in and get it :o) I believe it has more detergents and similar additives, which may help with no filters on a standard engine. I just run straight PULP and the engine is fine. no flash lube or anything, as I thought all vw engines cam with hardened valve seats?

The Beetle engine is very resistant to any old crap. Petrol in the 40's was very variable in quality. Our petrol is much more consistent.

Unleaded petrol

http://www-static.shell.com/static/au-en/downloads/fuels/tds/shell_unleaded_p...

91 RON
< 100 ppm sulfur content


PULP

(hard to find unless you're in the country)
95 RON
< 150 ppm sulfur content

LRP

http://www-static.shell.com/static/au-en/downloads/fuels/tds/shell_lead_repl_...

"Lead Replacement contains a pre-mixed additive that protects your engine the same way lead does, without the harmful lead compounds. The additive Shell uses is Valvemaster which protects wearing on the soft valve seats of older cars (pre-1986). Post-1986 cars have hardened valve seats and do not need leaded petrol."

96.3 RON
< 150 ppm sulfur content

Optimax / BP Ultimate / Mobil 8000

There's only a couple of refineries for this, and depending on your market, this fuel is identical no matter who you buy it through.

http://www-static.shell.com/static/au-en/downloads/fuels/tds/shell_optimax_td...

98 RON
< 150 ppm sulfur content

Personally, I run my Type 3 (when I run it) on Optimax.

On oils, mineral oils vs synthetic. The main difference is that synthetic oils simply do not break down and are very stable. And pricey. The oil as coolant argument also doesn't hold sway as the oil's thermal properties are very similar (compared say to another liquid such as paraffin). Get the correct viscosity for your engine, and you're okay. However with 3000 mile oil changes, there's simply not enough time for the average half-decent oil to crap itself.

Putting oil into the petrol tank is illegal as your engine will be emitting buckets of crap into the air and will fail emissions testing in every state (except Vic, which doesn't seem to have any).

Andrew

Barls

I AM a qualified mechanic and later on I also worked for a large metropolitan oil distributorship in Sydney as a tanker driver and later on as a products tech rep.

i think I have a fair idea of what is going on with regards to fuels makeup and oils.

I accept your retraction of what you posted earlier.

I suggest that you closely scrutinize and research for yourself what some "mechanics" are telling you.
they will often dazzle you in science rhetoric when they dont really know what is the problem.
A hell of a lot of them have no idea what they are waffling on about when it comes to fuels and oils.

L8tr
E

as an electronic technician specialising in hydraulics and pneumatic and more than 10 years working in the automotive industry before i became a technician, i think that i know what im talking about. most of what i'm talking about has been taught to me by my father who did his apprenticeship on vw more than 35 years ago(he's still going and is the main vw mechanic in the manning valley) and what i have found out for myself through reseach about fuels. i admit that im not a expert but i have a fair idea about vw and fuels:cussing

still i prefer to run optimax or bp ultimate with flash lube and not run the risk of valve resession plus my bug seemed to run smoother on ether of these fuels. but thats my preference becuase of the consistency of the octaine rating as it varries greatly because there are many different rating that they use ie pump rating, tanker rating, refinery rating and no two of these are meassured the same. this is my final word on this as it comes down to personal choice.!!!!!

I use bp, as i am british, lol, nah i use any type as i live in tassie and is prob full off salt water from the bass tard straight, well as long as my vw runs i dont give a toss...

Andy

Hmmmm...Well, I have no experience in any of those fields but I do know what I have learned from experience.
I noticed that LRP was giving me worse fuel economy and less power. It also seemed to make the motors run hotter.

I run PULP in all my cars (optimax when I see it), and they seem to run okay, once I have tweaked the timing a little anyway. I put the flashlube in too.

I'm still wondering if it had anything to do with the dropped valve seat. My engine hasn't done a massive amount of kms since it was recon'd either.

As for oil, depending on the climate where I live, it varies, but I run 20w50 normally. and NOT Valvoline!!
I've seen that destroy engines. Usually the topend goes first. It's like the oil doesn't lubricate unless it's forcefed to the parts!

i use optimax and gtx2 now however originally used magnatec until someone from here suggested that i shoukdn't, funnilly enough my motor ran 2 deg cooler on magnatec. i do not use flashlube however i think i may in future cheers david