Publisher's Note: Welcome to our sixth edition of Tech Tips Tuesday on "Advanced Engine Technology: Oil’s Pivotal Role".  We'll be re-publishing an edition of AMSOIL Tech Tips for you every Tuesday.  Click on the Blog Category "AMSOIL" to see everything published to-date.

Advanced Engine Technology: Oil's Pivotal Role

John Gardner: Vehicle engines are chock-full of technology today, and you know what the common denominator is? Well, most of them use oil to get the job done. Welcome to this AMSOIL Tech Tip. It's all about the new technology. Let's start right here with VVT (Variable Valve Timing). This is pretty cool.

So, you can see this engine right here is a dual overhead cam, and this one actually has Variable Valve Timing, but it's driven by oil pressure. Check this out, I went and took one apart for you guys. You can see it right here. Now, what happens, these little wipers with oil pressure are going to move the camshaft while it's connected here, and the timing is connected there. So, when it moves, watch this, bam, with oil pressure, mind you, you're going to go ahead and vary that timing. That's one technology, there's plenty more.

Right here, you can see I actually have an oil-driven timing or chain belt drive right here. This is actually a pressure tensioner that's going to hold tension on those belts and chains with oil pressure. You don't have oil pressure, the right pressure, man, you could jump some time and you can bend a valve. Not a good thing.

Another one, direct injection, right here. Direct injector pump, even on gasoline direct injection, up to three thousand to six thousand PSI. It takes a monster amount of pressure to go ahead and push that in. Once again, oil has to lubricate that.

Now, you probably heard of displacement on demand. Chevy trucks use a lot of this. You can see this right here actually diverts the actual oil from certain lifters to cancel cylinders out, so you can get better gas mileage. All of it's oil-driven.

You can see right here, it all started back with VTEC. VTEC actually used a big rocker arm and oil pressure to drive it, and there's our Variable Valve Timing. Man, oil with new technology goes hand in hand today, doesn't it?

Len Groom: It is. And one of the things we're talking about here, we've got many, many different viscosities, but what we're looking for in this particular one, when we look at all of these different technologies, is consistency. Oil is affected by temperature, and it's directly related to oil pressure. And we need consistency, so building the oil properly, using the right additives, using the right base oils, most importantly, provide the consistency that you need to operate all of these different technologies the way that they're designed.

John Gardner: And that's the keyword there.