VCT Phaser issue?

[JustDSM]

I'm starting to fiddle around with my 2020 Mustang GT and I'm curious if I should be concerned about the erratic behavior of my cam phaser (specifically on the intake cam). I dyno'd the about a month after I picked it up (406hp/379tq) on whatever gas the dealer filled it up with. I logged the dyno run - see here: New-dyno.hpl
StockDyno-New.JPG

In the graphic and log from above, you can see the cams very closely and very precisely were able to follow the commanded angles. Now in the pull I made this afternoon (granted it is in 2nd gear) you can see the intake cam specifically seems to struggle. Is this indicative of a failing phaser or some other issue? Log - Today.hpl
2ndGear-Current.JPG

I'll throw up my tune that is currently in the car:
Mig v2.21.hpt

Drop-in Filter and a Corsa cat-back is all that is fitted to the car engine wise. Car has 2300mi and had the factory fill oil changed to Pennzoil Platinum 5w-20 @ 1000mi.

[murfie]

The new dyno log, was the car started and then immediately(with in a minute) ran on the dyno, or was the engine running for at least three minutes before the pull/log? looks like the exhaust cam was being limited at low RPMs and intake limited at higher RPMs, by what I suspect was engine run time in the combustion stability limit tables.

Then I am suspicious of letting these gen 3 coyotes idle for long periods of time and getting too much aeration of the oil, causing phaser issues. 10 quarts is good for high RPM, but thats a lot for low RPM operation. The higher the viscosity the oil and the smaller the entrained air bubble size, the longer the air release time (Stoke's Law), and the greater amount of entrained air an oil will hold. I know the what oil do you run? question is beat to death, but I'm a thinner oil pusher., as thin as possible for the heat you are planning on putting into the engine. the opposite of going right to 20W-50. I run 0W-20 unless I plan on doing road course/ long street pulls, and even then I will try to only use 0W-30. I am in the tropics so W doesnt matter. I also think flow>pressure.

[aaronson]

Those cars have an issue with dropping out of phase it gets worse when your oil is old. I hate to tell you to do this but you might want to change the oil again and run either motor craft full synthetic 5w-50 or Castrol edge 5w-40. It?s not just 2020 it?s 2018+. Especially with e85 and direct injection or just in general the oil gets fuel washed very easily which lessens the viscosity and increases its ability to shear. Best thing run full synthetic a thicker oil and something designed for GDI motors. Like the castrol. And no running thicker oil won?t hurt it all my customers run thicker oil and they don?t have those issues as much

[murfie]

Lower viscosity oils usually have a lower shear stability index value. Lower the better.

[aaronson]

[QUOTE=murfie;633850]Lower viscosity oils usually have a lower shear stability index value. Lower


Low shear stability is specifically for low temperature, the problem is when your add fuel into the oil, like in the GDI case the shear stability of a already low viscosity oil exponentially decreases, especially at 150*C. It also depends on brand and their blend. Nonetheless there?s plenty of research papers about the outs and ins. Speaking in a purely data driven manner, from my experience and others with a known problem, (kinda like the illusive BBQ tick) I?ve found higher viscosity oils perform better on our cars in a performance setting.

[murfie]

No it is not just for low temperatures. Its a rating for change in viscosity. its a property across all temperatures, but its normally determined at 100*c.

OPs running 5W20 ILSAC GF-6 oil.(May 2020 license to label it came out). Its not Motorcraft, but its arguably as good if not better. He is also not using E85. I said stay with thinner oil, because I knew the first thing someone was going to do is tell him to switch to thicker oil. If he is having an aeration issue, a thicker oil is going to make it worst. If you change your oil switch to one that has 0/0 ASTM D892 i/ii/iii and ASTM D6082 30/0 or 20/0. all it takes is googling those ASTM and the weight you want to use.

Do you even know what exponentially decreases would mean for oil life?
Gasoline and E85 evaporate out of the oil, water(heavier than oil) does to, It doesnt even need to be at operating temp for this to happen it just happens quicker at temperature. Once the engine is running they will go into the PCV back into the intake to get burned, kind of why it exist, they don't want that stuff going directly in the atmosphere.

Purely data? Anecdotal data, lets see this data.

[aaronson]

No it is not just for low temperatures. Its a rating for change in viscosity. its a property across all temperatures, but its normally determined at 100*c.

OPs running 5W20 ILSAC GF-6 oil.(May 2020 license to label it came out). Its not Motorcraft, but its arguably as good if not better. He is also not using E85. I said stay with thinner oil, because I knew the first thing someone was going to do is tell him to switch to thicker oil. If he is having an aeration issue, a thicker oil is going to make it worst. If you change your oil switch to one that has 0/0 ASTM D892 i/ii/iii and ASTM D6082 30/0 or 20/0. all it takes is googling those ASTM and the weight you want to use.

Do you even know what exponentially decreases would mean for oil life?
Gasoline and E85 evaporate out of the oil, water(heavier than oil) does to, It doesnt even need to be at operating temp for this to happen it just happens quicker at temperature. Once the engine is running they will go into the PCV back into the intake to get burned, kind of why it exist, they don't want that stuff going directly in the atmosphere.

Purely data? Anecdotal data, lets see this data.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.am...is-it-bad/amp/

[aaronson]

[QUOTE=murfie;633853]No it is not just for low temperatures. Its a rating for change in viscosity. its a property across all temperatures, but its normally determined at 100*c.

OPs running 5W20 ILSAC GF-6 oil.(May 2020 license to label it came out). Its not Motorcraft, but its arguably as good if not better. He is also not using E85. I said stay with thinner oil, because I knew the first thing someone was going to do is tell him to switch to thicker oil. If he is having an aeration issue, a thicker oil is going to make it worst. If you change your oil switch to one that has 0/0 ASTM D892 i/ii/iii and ASTM D6082 30/0 or 20/0. all it takes is googling those ASTM and the weight you want to use.

Do you even know what exponentially decreases would mean for oil life?
Gasoline and E85 evaporate out of the oil, water(heavier than oil) does to, It doesnt even need to be at operating temp for this to happen it just happens quicker at temperature. Once the engine is running they will go into the PCV back into the intake to get burned, kind of why it exist, they don't want that stuff going directly in the atmosphere.

Purely data? Anecdotal data, lets see this data.
I guess you could say anecdotal data. I don?t have the million dollar machines that API does. However the data I?m referring to is the fact that when switched to the oil I suggested they switched to the intake cam phaser no longer fell out of phase. And if you really want a professional opinion and don?t care to regard what I?m saying go ahead and email [email protected] and ask them of the issue. I bet they tell you the same things....then again they are only a multimillion dollar company that?s knows what their talking about and I?m just a mathematician

[murfie]

Actually I think they recommend using what the owners manual says too.

[aaronson]

Actually I think they recommend using what the owners manual says too.

You?re probably right. It?s probably likely then the OP car doesn?t like Pennzoil.

[murfie]

Or it's an excessive fuel wash issue, from a mechanical defect.

[veeefour]

Purely data? Anecdotal data, lets see this data.
I guess you could say anecdotal data. I don?t have the million dollar machines that API does. However the data I?m referring to is the fact that when switched to the oil I suggested they switched to the intake cam phaser no longer fell out of phase. And if you really want a professional opinion and don?t care to regard what I?m saying go ahead and email [email protected] and ask them of the issue. I bet they tell you the same things....then again they are only a multimillion dollar company that?s knows what their talking about and I?m just a mathematician

Definitely not a multi-MILLION. They tune a lot, do know a lot but they are not "god all mighty omniscient"...and sometimes they are so wrong.

[ishyne22]

I'm starting to fiddle around with my 2020 Mustang GT and I'm curious if I should be concerned about the erratic behavior of my cam phaser (specifically on the intake cam). I dyno'd the about a month after I picked it up (406hp/379tq) on whatever gas the dealer filled it up with. I logged the dyno run - see here: New-dyno.hpl
StockDyno-New.JPG

In the graphic and log from above, you can see the cams very closely and very precisely were able to follow the commanded angles. Now in the pull I made this afternoon (granted it is in 2nd gear) you can see the intake cam specifically seems to struggle. Is this indicative of a failing phaser or some other issue? Log - Today.hpl
2ndGear-Current.JPG

I'll throw up my tune that is currently in the car:
Mig v2.21.hpt

Drop-in Filter and a Corsa cat-back is all that is fitted to the car engine wise. Car has 2300mi and had the factory fill oil changed to Pennzoil Platinum 5w-20 @ 1000mi.

Pennzoil platinum is a thin 5w20. The ULTRA platinum is a little thicker and AMAZING. If you must switch to a higher viscosity id suggest the Ultra platinum 0w40. The cold start is the most important part of the process. I try to keep the weight as light as possible. Good Luck.

[Vaderperformance]

similar issue with my gt350 it also loosing phasing / disables

[superman07]

There may be something more too it. I cant and dont feel like going back to find older logs in which I had issues with the cams following the "expected angle". But I have seen it no less than 3 times while running my GT350 for 4+ years. The issue never, never had a direct association, or remediation by new / changing oil or brand / viscosity. In every case in which I found my cams would not track as expected the behavior simply disappeared with updated files / calibrations being loaded.

It never happened in low speed or moderate driving. It was always when pushed and the cams were being expected to move through their ranges and the ECU was moving through load ranges and rpm changing from FE / FED / OP or shortly after getting locked into OP and at WOT. It was also prevalent in the meat of the pull in a single gear and did not seem to be a transient response to a shift.

For what its worth I have used Amsoil for a while, I run the 5w-50 now, I have in a pinch ran the castrol full syn 5w50, and in super high temp and load even ran 20-50 and full 60w racing oils. At the advice of a very well known engine builder, and a calibrator I trust I keep 10.5 quarts-ish in my car. for what its worth I have seen little ill or beneficial aspects to this.

I have boundary OPG's. Might be tolerances however I have seen slightly lower pressures at low RPM with these versus OEM gears. Higher load and RPM however is always at 100 PSI. There was never, and I mean never a shred of evidence the issues I witnessed on my car were related to or had any correlation to Oil pressure. I do not know what effect aeration would have on a phaser versus a pressure sensor however a simple look at phaser duty cycle might be helpful.

When my cams didn't track the car did not detect or set a code. The computer did not see, or believe there was a response time issue with the phasers whatsoever. Cleaning up map points, using the graphing tools Murfie posted here a long time ago helped me visualize what the cams were doing and I made the plan "simpler".

This, and only this fixed the issue in every case on my car. smooth transitions to and from mapped points that are defined - and completely calibrated to the best of my ability for both torque and Virtual SD. I personally believe that having a lot of mapped points, larger transitions, blending, and calibration errors all have the ability to throw off the HDFX or whatever Ford calls its cam logic. In my case the evidence suggest a software coding issue somewhere. I have a Whipple /FP OS. YMMV.