Racing fluids, Oil, trans... what would you use for an endurance race? Options

[ThePaintedMan]

All right boys and girls, I DID use the glorious search function, but didn't find quite the answers I was looking for. After talking with John (FourBlades) at the PCA DE this weekend about brake fluid for a track car, I thought it might be pertinent to have some of you racers weigh in on your choice of fluids. Keep in mind, the *goal* is 14 hours at Sebring. Quite likely that the first motor won't make it that long, but to give us the best chance possible, what do you think would be a good engine oil and transmission fluid to go with for a long race like that? I think 20-50 is still the go-to, but would something like Brad Penn stand up to that long of a race at temps that high? How about Swepco for the transmission? I would think both of these would call for some kind of chemistry designed for racing, but have never heard of what endurance guys use in their aircooled Porsches for long races like these.

Don't worry about the brake fluid - I think we've already decided that SRF is the only way to go.

[ThePaintedMan]

Thanks for the replies all. I would go with the ATE Super Blue, as I plan on going fairly easy on the brakes (a la TC's advice that most of Sebring is just brushing/dragging the brakes). But since there will be several drivers in the car other than John and myself, there is no guarantee that we will all treat the brakes the same. I like Motul as well, but not looking forward to flushing the brakes twice in a season. We plan on doing at least one DE in April before the race in September. This is why I had initially planned on the "one and done" Castrol SRF. Then again, I'm probably just being lazy. Eventually I'll need help selecting pads as well, but that's another story.

I thought the trans fluid was more of an issue, but seems that it is not. I've used Redline before, but thought any of their products would be too slippery for these boxes.

I didn't know that Brad Penn made a racing oil, but that's a good solution. I'll look into the Royal Purple too. Was just curious if BP was capable of standing up to the heat for that length of time. Regarding the cooler, as TC mentioned, he convinced me I need one somewhere. I have a Mercedes diesel cooler that would probably conform more to the Chumpcar "value-added" equation. I'd consider the Setrab if we could make it not look fancy. In order for us to be grandfathered into the $500 no-penalty category, the car has to be pretty much stock, though I think we could argue an oil cooler could almost be a safety thing - keeping blown motors and oil on the track to a minimum.

Aaron, what I'm more concerned about is how to mount one. I would ideally like to put it up front, but I've never gotten a straight answer on what else needs to be done to do so. I've been told everything from having to full-flow the case to larger volume oil pump, etc. What I have in my head - cooler up front, rubber lines down the sides, high volume pump and MOCAL sandwich adapter. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) Don't know if that means we'll have enough pressure in the lines to push the oil to the front and back or if it will raise the pressure in the engine to a point where it will blow seals?