Odd question for you guys. For the past 10000 miles, my car has always ran oil temps of 160°f around town and 210ish on the track (low i know). I just switched from Rotella T6 5-40 to Valvoline VR1 10-30. Now I am seeing 200° around town and who knows what i will see on my next track day. Temp probe is in the pan and putting an IR gun to the pan gets me within 5° of the gauge. Anyone experience anything like this when switching to a different weight oil? Seems a bit odd to me.

 

VR1 isn't really good oil. I'd switch back to what you were running.

 

What do you mean by that?

 

Exactly what I said.

It's simply not on the level of other oils. I've noticed it runs hot in a few cars just like OP has found it to run hot. It running hot is a good indicator it's not lubricating as well. I've also found it to have a faster burn off rate than other oils in the same engine.

 

Interesting, the three blackstone tests I did with track use before my whole ordeal showed VR1 normal and syn to be up to task. *dunno*

 

And your engine mysteriously pumps oil through cylinder #3

 

This is true, but the data is the data.

 

Great.... so this is not a first then. And I am not going crazy. I am going to run it during my next race and then change it. Then send the sample out and see what they say. Probably going to throw some Lucas in next and see what happens.

 

As another data point. I saw zero difference in oil temps going from pennzoil 10w-40 to VR1 conventional 10w-30 to VR1 Syn 20w-50

This was blackstone after 3,600 miles using VR1 and 600 miles of use and a hard track day (oil temps of 265F or so) on the current oil:

 

Related/unrelated? But I switched to VR1 because FP recommended it with their turbo. I killed a brand new FP Green within an oil change or two. Lost my one and only brand new turbo housing in the process. I actually do remember on track temps being highish.
Anyway, went back to Rotella. No problems with HTA71 @450WHP. Recently tried Castrol. Also no complaints. Both seem to deal well with heat.
Rational thinking or not, I won't go back to VR1.