Civic Type R at the track, goods and bads! Let's share our experience.

JTPitsch

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That is what I am leaning toward since I am not in cold weather.
I think as far as the 0w-20 goes, the Motul 300v is a much more robust oil that doesn't thin out like most resource conserving oils such as off the shelf oils which are designed to do just that.

That being said if you run a robust ester based oil like Redline or Motul 300v, 0w-20 should be more than sufficient for track use and potentially keep oil temps down. However using a Mobil 1, Castrol, Pennzoil.... I'd most likely step up to a 30 weight.
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Hello: Since your CTR is sees lots of track duty, did you consider a higher viscosity oil such 0w30 or 5w30?
If no/yes, share what steered you back to 0w20. Warranty concerns?
My thought process is very simple. The manufacturer designed the engine for specific operating conditions/loads, selected an oil spec for those and tested the engine according to their test plan with that specific oil.

Assuming that Honda had track duty in mind for the CTR, they chose an oil viscosity that can take the bearing loads at high operating temps. I have no access to their bearing design calculations to be able to tell how a higher viscosity would affect the bearing performance, so I'd rather stick to what Honda designed and just make sure I use a quality oil that will maintain the desired properties during track abuse.

I see a lot of people saying that they went with a higher viscosity oil because they live at a warm place....that could be a valid argument for the 0W, but not for the 20. The 20 is the viscosity at high temps (100C) and once you are using your car at the track, my opinion is that the ambient temperature is irrelevant (the oil will be hot!).

I have 22 track days on my car so far using 0W20 oil.
 

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Nailed it :slow clap:
 

SBPerformance

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Excellent feed back! You have answered nearly all my track questions skimming through this thread. I just picked up my 2019 CTR a few weeks ago and am working on "the break in process" with normal day to day driving. I have about 700 miles on the car now and am hoping to get out to Buttonwillow in March with the car for their small autocross event on the go kart track to get me familiar with this car (I have had a few years experience driving my 350z and Evo, so I am quite excited to see what the FWD CTR has to offer after reading many awesome reviews on them)

I am going out with stock tires and stock brake pads, wish me luck!
 


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For autocross you’ll be plenty fine on stock everything don’t even worry.
 

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My thought process is very simple. The manufacturer designed the engine for specific operating conditions/loads, selected an oil spec for those and tested the engine according to their test plan with that specific oil.

Assuming that Honda had track duty in mind for the CTR, they chose an oil viscosity that can take the bearing loads at high operating temps. I have no access to their bearing design calculations to be able to tell how a higher viscosity would affect the bearing performance, so I'd rather stick to what Honda designed and just make sure I use a quality oil that will maintain the desired properties during track abuse.

I see a lot of people saying that they went with a higher viscosity oil because they live at a warm place....that could be a valid argument for the 0W, but not for the 20. The 20 is the viscosity at high temps (100C) and once you are using your car at the track, my opinion is that the ambient temperature is irrelevant (the oil will be hot!).

I have 22 track days on my car so far using 0W20 oil.
Love all the info you have contributed to this thread, but I think there's room for discussion on the oil front.

We already know that Honda is recommending oil based on region. There's screenshots of South African manuals that recommend 5w30 and 10w30 based on ambient temps. Our US manuals have a flat recommendation for 0w20 across all temps, but I'd wager top dollar that's all emissions based VS performance.

Ambient temperature is far from irrelevant. The ability of the cooling system to maintain a target temperature is directly related to ambient temps. Once the thermostats are wide open, oil and coolant temp will rise proportional to ambient temp. Even knowing what ambient temp allows the system to run away from regulation is good info to have on hand.

As far as picking a different oil weight, that depends on what temperature the oil is actually running at. Sounds like the normal operating temp is around 90°C, but track temps even with an additional oil cooler are up at 120°C. For continuous high temp operation, ideally we would pick an oil that has the same viscosity at the 120°C mark that the stock 0w20 has at 90°C.
 

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As a quick followup,some rough numbers:

Based on the specs I found for Honda Ultimate Full Synthetic 0w20
  • Viscosity is down to ~6.1 cSt at 120°C
  • Viscosity is at ~10.8 cSt at 90°C
Red Line 0w40 chosen to maintain viscosity at track temps
  • Viscosity is at ~10.5 cSt at 120°C
  • Viscosity is at ~19.2 cSt at 90°C
And a compromise for shits and giggles, Red Line 0w30
  • Viscosity is at ~7.9 cSt at 120°C
  • Viscosity is at ~14.6 cSt at 90°C

Clearly the heavy weight oil is all wrong at every day operating temperatures (and even worse at start-up), and is going to cause a large decrease in efficiency. However, it's a much better solution when running the car at continuous elevated temperatures. Shy of "fixing" the oil (and coolant) system, the oil choice is always going to result in a bad compromise if you want to both track and daily the CTR.
 


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I think as far as the 0w-20 goes, the Motul 300v is a much more robust oil that doesn't thin out like most resource conserving oils such as off the shelf oils which are designed to do just that.

That being said if you run a robust ester based oil like Redline or Motul 300v, 0w-20 should be more than sufficient for track use and potentially keep oil temps down. However using a Mobil 1, Castrol, Pennzoil.... I'd most likely step up to a 30 weight.
What is the difference in the Motul Ecolite 0W-20 and the 300V version? The Motul site recommends the Ecolite. After a little reading the 300V seems to be more for the track cars with more frequent oil changes.....
 
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As a quick followup,some rough numbers:

Based on the specs I found for Honda Ultimate Full Synthetic 0w20
  • Viscosity is down to ~6.1 cSt at 120°C
  • Viscosity is at ~10.8 cSt at 90°C
Red Line 0w40 chosen to maintain viscosity at track temps
  • Viscosity is at ~10.5 cSt at 120°C
  • Viscosity is at ~19.2 cSt at 90°C
And a compromise for shits and giggles, Red Line 0w30
  • Viscosity is at ~7.9 cSt at 120°C
  • Viscosity is at ~14.6 cSt at 90°C

Clearly the heavy weight oil is all wrong at every day operating temperatures (and even worse at start-up), and is going to cause a large decrease in efficiency. However, it's a much better solution when running the car at continuous elevated temperatures. Shy of "fixing" the oil (and coolant) system, the oil choice is always going to result in a bad compromise if you want to both track and daily the CTR.
So essentially if you are on track you would recommend Redline 0W40?

thank you for all of the research ! very helpful
 

JTPitsch

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What is the difference in the Motul Ecolite 0W-20 and the 300V version? The Motul site recommends the Ecolite. After a little reading the 300V seems to be more for the track cars with more frequent oil changes.....
The 300V is an ester based oil which is less prone to breaking down with high stress/heat situations such as being on the track. You can daily drive with it but don't expect to run 10k oil changes, more like change it every few track events type of oil.

The Eco-lite is more of a traditional off the shelf style oil which most likely use better base stocks than say a Mobil 1 or Pennzoil. It is designed to sheer and become thinner for the sake of fuel economy and can be ran much longer intervals.
 

jmark

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The 300V is an ester based oil which is less prone to breaking down with high stress/heat situations such as being on the track. You can daily drive with it but don't expect to run 10k oil changes, more like change it every few track events type of oil.

The Eco-lite is more of a traditional off the shelf style oil which most likely use better base stocks than say a Mobil 1 or Pennzoil. It is designed to sheer and become thinner for the sake of fuel economy and can be ran much longer intervals.
Thanks. So a 5000 mile change interval would work with 300V? I don't plan to exceed that on the CTR. I ran an ester based oil Red line in my G37S which was known to generate alot of heat as well.
 

JTPitsch

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Thanks. So a 5000 mile change interval would work with 300V? I don't plan to exceed that on the CTR. I ran an ester based oil Red line in my G37S which was known to generate alot of heat as well.
I'm sure its fine but the only real way to know is get an oil analysis done to make certain. The racing oils have a lot less detergents in them than normal oils. If you are just doing mostly street driving you'd be better off getting something like Mobil 1 EP or Pennzoil Platinum paired with an OEM filter for much cheaper at your local Wally World.
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