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The SM spec from API has been finalized, and is working its way through committee bureaucracy on its way to final approval.
Petronas, the Malaysian oil company that also supports F1, has announced an SM product already (jumped the gun a bit, haven't we boys?).
SM will offer more and less of what we have comes to expect in a modern oil:
More fuel economy.
More resistance to vaporization.
More resistance to HT/HS (high temp high shear).
More fuel economy.
Less deposits.
Less wear.
Less viscosity change (either thinning or thickening).
I think you will see it mostly in 0W formulations (0w30, 0w40).
It will be interesting to see if it can earn a Starburst (*) in those higher grades since today only the 0,5, and 10w30's (of course 5w20) can achieve the fuel efficiency performance needed to get the burst.
I noticed that this SM spec showed up on the Motorcraft GF-4 that I put in my car this weekend. Really confused me because they are calling the 10W-30 a "Premium Synthetic Blend" now instead of a "Premium Motor Oil". Also, how different is the Motorcraft GF-4 from the Havoline? Do they come from the same supplier?
I have been running SM rated Pennzoil Platinum synthetic 10W-30 in my S2K for almost 6K miles now (5K mile OCI's). I've been very happy with it's cold engine start-up properties (no valve train noise) and gas mileage seems to have improved (my driving style varies so much that it would not be very scientific to give you a MPG comparison to an SL oil). The engine seems to continue to run flawlessly throughout the entire powerband too. I'll do a UOA on this OCI and post the results. Since I use a K&N air filter (puts me in the dusty/severe category I figure), I'm not interested in extended intervals.
Here is a recent UOA of Pennzoil Platinum 10w30 SM rated motor oil from Blackstone Labs. It was a 5K mile OCI done at 30K on my S2K. The previous UOA was done on Valvoline MaxLife synthetic 10W30 SL motor oil at 15K miles with a 4K mile OCI. Both of these synthetics seem to work extremely well in the F22C. I switched to Pennzoil Platinum when I moved to Texas due to unavailability of MaxLife synthetic in local stores. I hope the image is readable. If not, I'll spell it out for you.
04-09-2004, 10:51 AM
SM API-spec is coming soon.
