A KEY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RACING OILS AND REGULAR MOTOR OILS

A car that makes a short drive to work 5 days a week needs more TBN (Total Base Number) than a race car that runs 100 laps each weekend. TBN is the measurement of how much acid neutralizing power is in the motor oil. You may not realize it, but corrosive wear is one of the major forms of damage in your engine. In fact, one of the main reasons for increased engine life today has been the reduction in corrosive wear. That’s right, many older engines did not wear out and led to corroded.

Short trip driving is the worst for producing engine killing acids. Water is a by-product of combustion, so some water vapor always makes it way into the crankcase of your engine. If the engine does not run long enough to get warm enough to evaporate the water vapor out of the engine, the water vapor builds up. When the engine cools down, the water vapor condensates, and now you have water in your engine. The water mixes with the sulfur in the oil and the partially burnt fuel to create a very corrosive chemical cocktail.

To fight this, our engineers have designed and implemented excellent detergent and dispersant agents to fight corrosion. The power of these additives is related to the TBN value of the oil. A very strong detergent and dispersant package will have a high TBN value, and that signifies an oil that is good for frequent short trip driving.