The Lotus Grand Tourers

Since it has been reintroduced I use Dear old Duckhams 20w50 in my 2 elans. I have been using Valvoline VR1 20 50 in the excel but as the duckhams is available in 20l drums at a decent price I am tempted to use it in the excel largely as a simplification of stocks rather than cost saving. Dare I ask if there are any strong views amongst the membership. I ask because the duckhams website does not recommend its 20 50 for that vehicle but I also note that all the recommendations on Opie Oils are all for 10w60 or 20w60 oils and the handbook states a 20w50. I also read a very interesting article in a Q/A format from an oil tecnician from Fuchs that on the basis of the physics he questioned why anyone would want a 60 grade oil at all, it seemed a very sensible article from some one who knew what they were about. Thanks in advance for comments.

There is much on the forum on this so try a search using 20w50. As some say it was around when the engine was designed so why go different. Mineral or synthetic is probably the biggest change of choice. I too use VR1

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Considering these engines ceased production in the late 90s, I doubt they decided to update the oil wear characteristic requirement, and SJ as a wear characteristic was only defined/introduced in 1996, Lotus would have built and designed these engines to run on oil with a much less protective oil. So, SJ, SL or even better will be way in excess of the level of protection that Lotus decided was the minimum standard. Duckhams classic is SL, VR1 is SL.
There is also the zinc content aspect, but even those are close, Duckhams at 0.11% and VR1 (street legal version) at .13% (non-street .14%).

I cannot see any problem running these engines on Duckhams, it's certainly a lot more effective at protecting the engine than Lotus could have specified at the time these cars were built.

Good to see Duckhams available. More choice for our cars of decent quality oil benefits everyone. I personally use VR1 and that reminds me I have to get another 5 litres ordered.