supercharger oil...

does anyone know of a cheaper alternative to the GM oil for the supercharger in my '01 Grand Prix GTP?

they seem to have a monopoly on the stuff, and based on the blank stares i got from 8 people at 3 different parts stores today, not too many people have tried to find an alternative to giving the GM parts counter guy almost $20 for 8 oz of oil....

teh googles is telling me to use everything from 5w-30 to gear oil, but i can't find anything about the specs of the oil to see if there is a comparable alternative that is labeled and marketed for a different use. it's not like this is some limited edition thing that was only out for a year or 2- GM used the same basic supercharger for almost 20 years, and it was also used by Ford, Mercedes, and a few other companies as well so you'd think that every parts store would have a few bottles of special "supercharger oil"- i mean, come on, put a few bottles of it in the bling bling section and every 17 year old kid would buy it to make their car faster...

Have you tried giving Redline Oils a call? They've always steered me right in the past. I believe their contact info is on their main site (that is where I have found it in the past).

the lady at the local NAPA has their oil distributor on the case.. she's curious about it, too.

i was standing there when she called him, and his response when she asked for "supercharger oil" was "what?"..

That's an Eaton supercharger I believe. You might call Eaton and see what they say. When you find out let us know. I need to replace the drive adapter on the Super Coupe.

you'll likely have to do a lot of digging. Even then if you think you found an alternative, do you really want to chance it? My rotrex sc has it's own closed oil system and at $100 per liter it hurts when I had to buy it. However it does not need to be changed nearly as often like motor oil. My guess is these sc oils are very specialized with unique friction modifiers not typically found in off-the-shelf oils.

The GM stuff seems to be what to get. Or at least the cheapest/easiest to get. That's basically the default supercharger oil for MINIs. The MINI response to low oil is to replace the whole thing. Of course, if a MINI s/c is low on oil it likely meens the inner seal has worn, so R&Ring the supercharger isn't a bad idea.

Maybe?

https://jonbondperformance.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=26_15&products_id=29&zenid=oeqj2p8v2o2fdr1lnucl67dgr1

For 10 years I maintained the heat treating furnaces in the largest carburizing facility in North America. What does that mean to you, other than the fact that I probably saw some of the final drive and transmission gears that are in your GM cars? I maintained a dozen blowers very similar to the one you have. There are supercharger specific oils, and they are good. Motor oil will work. If it were me, I'd probably use a synthetic screw compressor oil in ISO 100 viscosity, or slightly greater. A good synthetic 75W gear oil will work fine, too. It's two gears, two bearings, and two seals. There's not a lot going on there. We used ISO 220 (non syn) gear oil in ours. The RPM was only 3500, but they ran 24/7/365. In 10 years the only failures we had were due to lobe contamination, so nothing in the gear boxes.

Redline Power Steering Fluid is what Redline recommends for the supercharger application. I ran that in our Olds LSS 3.8 supercharger for about eleven years. The rest of the car fell apart, but the SC was still running quiet and pulling strong.

The oil lasts basically forever. It outlasts the donut coupling, anyway.

$20 is cheap! Price out Redline Shockproof gear oil, that stuff is expensive. $15 a quart and it only lasts 5,000 mi before it becomes not-very-shockproof so you have to change it again...

Ranger50 wrote: Maybe? https://jonbondperformance.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=26_15&products_id=29&zenid=oeqj2p8v2o2fdr1lnucl67dgr1

maybe.. the one mechanic that i talked to said the GM stuff is dyed blue- it probably is the GM stuff in a different package without the "Official GM Part" Ransom added on.. and that looks like a much better value, since i'll probably change the oil, drive it for a while, pull the snout off to check the coupler and maybe pull the spinny bits out to inspect and lube the rear bearings, then put it all back together again..

I have been using the $20 GM oil in my S/C GTP with no issues for the last 150K miles. The good thing is the fluid is easy to find as most GM dealers have the oil in stock.

Paul B

What do Ford and Mercedes call for?

Kenny_McCormic wrote: What do Ford and Mercedes call for?

According to some of the threads I read getting the above link, stuff that is the same and more expensive then the GM oil.

I used 5w20 in my redline's m62.

Based on the number of bearing failures I've seen in superchargers that were being worked hard, I'd spend the money for the known right stuff. We've got a bottle of Whipple oil on the shelf for Whipple oil changes. Eatons are supposed to go 100,000 miles between changes, right? And you're grouching about $20 worth of oil that often?

In reply to Keith Tanner:

GM service claimed my m62 was "Lubed for life" and refused to tell me what it took......and as the cobalt community is about as useful as a bag of dildos, I just added normal stuff......it made the s/c not as noisy and it still wasn't noisy 25k later. Supercharger oil is just oil......figuring out what weight you need, that's the hard part.

It's $20.00

You probably could've earned $20.00 in the time you'll spend screwing around trying to find something else.

I realise it's not "grassroots" to used the expensive stuff but sometimes it all gets a bit silly.

I run the GM stuff in my SC. It lasts long enough that I don't consider the price out of line.

i'm not actually looking to change the oil right now- and i'm trying to come up with something that can save a lot of people money over the long haul..

the lady at Cenex/NAPA called the oil distributor to ask them. they put 4 people on it because they wanted to find out, too... they called all sorts of people at GM, Ford, Mopar, Mercedes, Eaton, oil companies, and everywhere else they could think of.. they came to the conclusion that the oil was engineered by GM and that everyone else pays them a royalty when they put their logo on the bottle..

but i also came across that one GM service bulletin from the 90's that said to use Mobil1 5W30 motor oil in it and just change it twice as often..

I'd just call Magnusson directly if you really want to know.

novaderrik wrote: but i also came across that one GM service bulletin from the 90's that said to use Mobil1 5W30 motor oil in it and just change it twice as often..

But Mobil 1 doesn't smell like a cross between old fish and Ford Limited Slip Additive.

Keith Tanner wrote: I'd just call Magnusson directly if you really want to know.

Eaton made the supercharger, and the people at the oil distributor did call them.. they seem to think that the specs of the oil is a state secret that would lead to the downfall of society if it were to get out..

novaderrik wrote: i'm not actually looking to change the oil right now- and i'm trying to come up with something that can save a lot of people money over the long haul..

Seriously? How much money do you think you can save? It's $20/pt every 100K miles... or 50K... or whatever... In a world where you can easily spend $3 on a cup of coffee, BFD...

There's a reason why nobody has gone to great lengths to come up with an alternative: it doesn't make financial sense.

Ian F wrote:

novaderrik wrote: i'm not actually looking to change the oil right now- and i'm trying to come up with something that can save a lot of people money over the long haul..

Seriously? How much money do you think you can save? It's $20/pt every 100K miles... or 50K... or whatever... In a world where you can easily spend $3 on a cup of coffee, BFD... There's a reason why nobody has gone to great lengths to come up with an alternative: it doesn't make financial sense.

50 cents is too much to spend for a cup of coffee.. and you'd have to pay me at least $10 to drink the stuff..

anyways, i just kind of accidentally stumbled across a mention of an oil made by a company called NYE Lubricants called "Nye 605".. so i googled it, and found this:

NYE synthetic oil 605

i don't know what most of those numbers mean, but it says it's compatible with GM and Ford oils, and people on a few different forums say they've had all 3 oils in their possession at the same time and they appear to be identical...