Will "Graphite" Help Motor Oil Performance? Let's find out! Vintage Arco Graphite vs Quaker State

is it possible that motor oil can actually be improved by adding graphite to it back in the 1970s there was a brand called Arco that actually sold motor oil that had graphite in it even nowadays you can actually go out on Amazon and buy a graphite additive for your motor oil so the question is does it actually work today we've got quite a few tests lined up to see if this product can actually improve fuel efficiency and performance so let's get the testing underway will test the arco oil and a fuel-injected generator to see if there's any improvement to fuel efficiency will test the graphite in a worn engine to see if it improves compression will compare quaker state conventional motor oil against the vintage arco graphite oil to see which oil is the best resisting thermal breakdown or evaporation well test both brands of oil to see which offers the best anti wear protection we'll see which brand flows the best when the oil is extremely cold had the graphite oil tested by an independent oil testing lab and we'll go over the details of the oil at the end of this video we'll be testing this Arco multi grade motor oil that contains graphite this oil is API service SF se s FCC and SEC C and the oil change that Arco graphite motor oil will help provide improved gasoline mileage and reduce piston ring and cam wear exceeds manufacturer's warranty requirements for engines requiring SES ECC quality motor oil this is a container of graphite powder I picked up at a tractor equipment dealership this particular product was actually sold as a lubricant for seed planning equipment it claims to reduce wear on seed meter components let's take a look at this graphite and see what it looks like I'm actually going to be adding a little bit of extra graphite powder to the motor well we use in a small engine we'll be comparing the arkeville oil against this Quaker State SAE 10 w 40 advanced durability motor oil meets or exceeds the requirements of API SN in all previous categories according the marketing material on the back of this quick restate container the number of checks indicate the performance versus industry standard testing conducted on 5w30 viscosity Quaker State gave us advanced durability three checks for unsurpassed wear protection but for some reason only one check for extends engine life with an oil that's called advanced durability you'd think you'd get more than one check for durability one check for more performance one check for extreme temperature protection finally one check for prevents and reduces oil leaks before we begin our first test I need off the Arco oilton oil testing lab I already sent off to Quaker State to lab a while back wow that's a dark motor oil the oil testing lab will provide us with a lot of great information on the oils anti wear additive package detergent and dispersant content as well as the oils total base number a graphite is known for being extremely tolerant of the heat what about the base oil Waker State only gives its oil one check mark for extreme temperature protection but is it any better than the oil that's 40 years old we'll see how tolerant these oils are of the heat in our first test well measure out two hundred grams of oil into each of the oil containers then crank up the heat to around 400 degrees Fahrenheit for two hours I'll rotate the oil containers every 10 minutes just in case one burner is hotter than the other I'll also monitor the temperature of both oils throughout the test to make sure that they are very close to the same temperature at all times both oils will experience an equal amount of time on each burner both oral seem to be putting off a lot more vapor than usual especially the arco brand while the graphite in the arco brand might be able to withstand high heat the base oil appears to be really struggling high quality oils resist evaporation and thermal breakdown at the end of this test we'll find out how much evaporation has occurred with each brand then we'll be using the cooked oil for additional testing to see which oil is the best it's been run out two hours so I'm going to go ahead and take the oil off the burners when we come back we'll wait each brand of oil to see how much evaporative loss occurred the Quaker State oral started off at four hundred and thirty point one six grams and now weighs four hundred and fifteen point seven four that's a loss of fourteen point four two grams our coal oil start off at four hundred eleven point zero seven and now weighs 380 point eight two that's a loss of thirty point two five grams definitely a Quaker State wind will definitely want to compare the cold oil performance of both the new and the cooked oils for each brand and we'll do that near the end of this video to ensure accurate test results we'll go ahead and place the oil in a freezer that's set to 40 below zero Fahrenheit until tomorrow when we test the cold flow of both brands in the next test we'll be comparing the lubricity or film strength of each brand we'll begin by adding 40 milliliters of oil that's been exposed to the heat into the test cups the test will last right at ten minutes the oil has cooled off in this first lubricity test provide us with some great information on how the oil performs when it's cool after the test we'll compare the size of the wear scars on each of the bearings to determine which oral provides the best film strength while this test doesn't simulate engine operating conditions perfectly it will provide us with some great information [Music] this is the Arco oil check out it looks like there's a layer of sludge at the bottom of this container I've never seen anything like if this stuff is a mass [Music] what perceives on the left and Arco graphite oil is Honda right wow what a huge difference between the two I really did not anticipate seeing this I thought both oils are produced about the same size whereas car the anti wear additive package in this Arco graphite oil is very interesting I'm also very curious to see those lab results when they finally come back to see if it also has a higher level of zinc in the next test we'll be using a fuel-injected generator to test the fuel efficiency of both the Quaker State and the Arco motor oils imma go ahead and change the oil I'm gonna put the Quaker State in first and then we'll put in the Arco I'm gonna start the engine will have to warm up once it's fully warmed up then I'll go ahead and fill up the fuel tank all the way to the top and then we'll see how long this engine will run with just a Quaker State motor oil [Music] forty-four minutes in 30 seconds with Quaker State we're gonna add the Arco graphite of oil next and see if we get a better run time it's the last time you had to use a spat like this [Music] in order to purge out all the air from the fuel system I'm gonna go and run this generator for about five minutes and then we'll start the test after I felt the fuel tank you 45 minutes and 30 seconds was the time to beaten unfortunately with the Arco oil it only ran 44 minutes in about ten seconds so about 20 seconds short with the Arco oil so fortunately the arc oil did not help the fuel efficiency of this fuel-injected generator when it comes to selecting a high quality motor oil cold oil performance is a huge factor in oil that flows easily when cold will begin lubricating moving parts of an engine far sooner than an oil that doesn't flow easily let's kick off the cold oil flow test to see how each oil flows when very cold new Arcos in lane one cooked are : to cook quicker state lane 3 and new quaker state lane 4 none of the oils seem to be aware that the race is started but the quaker state is beginning to move and the new quaker state is the first to hit the track with the cook Quaker State trying to catch up the Quaker State has already made a lot of progress down the track but here comes the cook Darko can the graphite help the Arco catch up with Quaker State and the new arco is finally out of the gate heading down the track but team Quaker State is nearing the final stretch that he really put a hurt on both cooked oils causing the Quaker State to gain viscosity why the are colossus casa t and the new quaker state crosses the finish line first the cook Quaker State finishes ahead of the cooked Arco by over 4 inches what a great race by Team Quaker State I'm going to mix this 5w30 Haviland motor oil with this graphite in the next test and then we're going to run it in a lawnmower engine for right at about 30 minutes and we'll see if there's been any improvement on compression Wow take a look for that motor world it'd be kinda really dark that actually mixed together very well [Music] [Music] [Music] the world level is full [Music] Quaker stays on the left and the Arco oil is on the right with some very interesting test results no sort of trace metals in the Quaker State but there's definitely a problem with this Arco oil with six parts per million of iron definitely on the high side Quaker State has a hundred and sixteen parts per million of moly Arco doesn't have any moly in it the Quaker State has 67 parts per million of boron and the Arco only has one part per million this is where things become very interesting calcium is a detergent disperse it and the Quaker State has one thousand four hundred forty seven parts per million the R Co has 1985 I completely understand why the Quaker State did not do nearly as well as the Arco on the lubricity test machine craigory state only has four hundred and seventy-five parts per million of phosphorus which is an anti wear additive compared to almost three times as much with the Arco zinc is also another excellent anti wear additive and the Quaker State has under six hundred parts per million why the Arco has nearly three times as much so when you factor in the Arco oil has the graphite which is a lubricant on top of that it has three times as much anti wear additives that really does help explain the tremendous difference as far as performance on the lubricity tester the quaker state in the arco both had normal viscosity the flashpoint of both oils was very close 415 for quaker state 410 for our co the TPM is the oils ability to resist becoming acidic so the vintage arco actually had a higher TBN than the newer quaker state i'm really curious if you've ever used graphite in motor oil or if there's some other type of additive that you've used that's delivered great results if you have used graphite what kind of results have you seen i was really surprised to see a compression increase in the lawnmower however we did not see any sort of fuel efficiency gains so the question is would I use graphite in a modern engine absolutely not unfortunately I think it would cause more harm than good especially if your engine has a catalytic converter all my video ideas including this one come from viewers I hope you'll take time to leave a comment giving me some future video ideas thanks so much for watching the video please take care and I look forward to next time

Channel: Project Farm

Views: 2,145,824

Rating: 4.9196157 out of 5

Keywords: Seafoam, project farm, graphite, graphite motor, graphite motor oil, vintage motor oil, vintage graphite motor oil, vintage arco graphite motor oil, motor oil additive, zddp, zddp motor oil, zddp motor oil additive, zinc motor oil, quaker state motor oil review, graphite motor oil test, motor oil additive graphite, 10W-40, 10W-40 graphite oil, motor oil testing, 1970s motor oil, Arco Vintage oil, graphite vs zddp, engine oil review, engine oil additive

Id: aqz5330Srdc

Length: 13min 13sec (793 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 13 2020