racerx169

Valvoline VR1 20W50 is a very good oil. Especially for harsh racing conditions. I use it in my race motorcycle engines and on annual engine tear downs the cams, valve bucket areas which usually show signs if oil film break down (i.e. metal wear, marks, grooves) is very minimal and the top end is is great shape. As someone pointed out 20W50 is much thicker than the usual oil people put in their Porsches but I tend to see 10W40, 15W40, 15W50 in the 986 for 10 degrees C (or 50 degrees F) but if they spec 20W50 too then you should be okay. especially in warmer weather like say L.A. or the hot Sacramento summer days you have there. Just make sure to idle your car until it's warmed up before driving off. Almost no one does that. Usually people are in a hurry to drive off. Also part of the reason Valvoline's VR1 20W50 protects the cam/bucket area so well is elevated levels of zinc-phosphorus. This is much higher than any usual 5W40 or similar oil you can find legal in the US for street use. The regulators limit ZINC in 5W30 and 5W40 oils more than in 20W50. It's sounds odd as ZINC is an important metal-on-metal inhibitor but ZINC in the oil has a slight (and I mean slight) detrimental life expectancy effect on catalytic converts. This is why they limit it in the newer and more popular thinner oils newer vehicles tend to use. So while SH, SL/SM have different additive levels, additive levels greatly change between a identical manufacturer 10W40 and 20W50 oil. Generally the thicker higher performance oils have more ZINC. There are other benefits to fully-synthetics over conventional oils but in short don't kick yourself for putting VR1 20W50 in your Porsche. It has much higher zinc-phosphorus then any Mobil-1 and probably is better for your IMS bearing. (I've done oil analysis tests of the VR1 20W50 and Mobil-1 5W40) But honestly I would do more research before putting a new oil in my Porsche that deviates from the norm.... especially if you plan on owning it a long time! Hope this helps. Regards Peter In addition, I thought I would mention that you can sometimes get a hold of the engineers at the oil companies themselves especially if you contact them about their racing oils. They are very helpful and willing to explain how their different offerings vary and give recommendations for your specific needs. FWI, Valvoline also makes a synthetic VR1 too.

Hi Everyone, I really question the basis for not being able to mount the tires on in the counter rotation orientation if the vehicle is used only in the dry. I would be interested in everyone’s input on the technical reason for this. As for the tread pattern, yes there is a high dependency on water clearing characteristics depending on the orientation. Unless the tire manufacturer lists the uni-directional tires as “front only” or “rear only” the forces on the belts inside the tires are in completely opposite directions under high acceleration and braking. The front tires will take the majority of the braking forces while the rears the majority of the acceleration. Swapping the direction means that now when you accelerate you are stressing the tire as if you were braking. In either case, the tire has to be constructed to be able to bear these loads. As for side to side, uni-directional tires can be mounted on left or right so there is no lateral force dependency there. This is consistent with being able to dismount and remount tires from left to right as someone mentioned in a post earlier. So while you would be sacrificing wet traction (possibly dangerous in the rain) I suspect the tires are constructed to handle forces needed to mounted in the counter-rotation direction. Please understand that I by no means recommend you run your tires counter-rotation but this is simply a technical discussion. Thanks

Does anyone know a dealership that gives out the IPAS codes with proof of ownership and ID in the BayArea (Northern Cali)? I am getting resistance to obtaining that info. Also, I notice that the 944/993 non-remote key heads take the newer style key blanks too. Also there is a compartment for a immobilizer pill too. It makes a nice spare key that can drive the car without the remote function. Does porsche sell the immobilizer pills separately? Thanks PG