There are always lots of opinions on motor oil flying around the internet these days. I normally skip chiming in on any of the conversations as someone, in the end, goes away with hurt feelings but not today!
Back in December, we ran our 2015 Mazda 3 2.5 Skyactiv at the 25-hours of Thunderhill race which like the title says is a 25-hour non-stop race. In the spirit of doing things which are a bit, insane CorkSport entered our Mazda 3 which no one had done before in this long of an endurance race.
For an event like the 25-hour, the internet says you should run a bit thicker oil due to the high rpm and non-stop abuse on the track. I am more at the end of the arena of doing what the engineers at Mazda designed the car to use so we ran 0W20 oil in the car. We did use a great product, Motul 0w20 racing oil to prove a point that with modern engines and oils you don’t need to up the viscosity.
After 25 hours of non-stop racing the car to the redline and never giving the car a break, we drained the oil and sent it off to Blackstone laboratories to get an analysis done on the oil.
Based on the internet knowing everything we would expect to see the oil viscosity wiped out from the non-stop running and heat as well as there being lots of impurities found in the oil from the same. In reality, the comments from the report are pretty boring really. They mentioned the lead found in the oil which was from race gas we burned up in the car during testing as this motor is completely stock so there is no lead in the engine bearings. There really isn’t anything else to say about it.
So the next time someone tries to tell you that you need to change to a non-stock weight of motor oil in your Mazda send them to this blog and run what the engine is supposed to have with a good quality oil.
Happy Mazda Motoring!
-Derrick
Was there any fall off in pressure with the use of the stock oil?
None at all. We used the stock weight of oil but the Motul synthetic for the brand.
Nice analysis. I’ve used Blackstone on all my cars since 2009. Makes a great selling point when you’re trying to sell the car and want to assure the potential buyer you’ve taken care of the engine.
Also, big 2nd on doing what the engineers tell you w/r/t oil, coolant, thermostat, etc. They know what they’re doing, and unless there is a financial driver influencing the design, there’s no reason to continue their R&D on your car.
I’m assuming that the Blackstone is the oil that the dealer uses. All of my vehicles are Mazdas, and all use the Mazda synthetic oil, even my Speed3 with over 100,000 miles on the car. Good news, as I admit that I was worrying about using the “generic” Mazda oil with all of the brands out there telling me that theirs is better.
Thanks for the objective analysis
Can you write the type of oil used or the specifications (API, ACEA, ILSAC, etc ..)? Thanks