Titanium Disulfide Friction Reducer in powertrain

Has anyone used or have experience with Tungsten Disulfide in automotive applications?
It is pretty popular in the SXS world for friction reduction in diffs and gearboxes.
I was curious if it could be used in a transfer case or differentials for reduced wear.
It is pretty expensive however its does not seem like much is needed?
Any thoughts?

 

This is a great question! I am surprised no one has answered...

There has to be someone on this forum with some insight

 

Hello to all,

Brand new post, so don’t be skeptical, I’m a realist, troll-loathing, mechanically inclined guy wanting to debunk the false and contribute to some new, helpful, information.

With that short intro out of the way, I do have some limited experience with both Moly (molybdenum disulfide) and the “better” tungsten disulfide (WS2).
I added some of each into all parts of my Fj Cruiser engine/drivetrain EXCLUDING ANYTHING WITH A CLUTCH. So far with a mixture of roughly 0.5g of each per quart of oil I’ve noticed more power -and burnouts- with decreased rolling resistance.
I have yet to get a number figure on gas mileage but that will be found out later on...

Seems like this stuff really does work, and funny story, I remember wayy back -like as a child- going to top fuel nitromethane drag races getting totally gassed out by the exhaust from their tune ups in the pits.
To all that have been to these kinds of races, nitromethane has a very specific smell and I notice this smell from event to event; namely with nitro rc cars (which use something like 20% nitromethane to 80% alcohol in their fuel) and ALSO after I added moly/ws2 to one of my old worn out 2-stroke weed eaters!
I suspect the hard core racing teams use this material to not only increase hp by reducing friction, but as to also supplement lubrication when the power is just too much when the thin oil-film layers are pushed from obscene forces occurring within one of the 10,000hp beasts.
Tungsten disulphide supposedly can take up to 400,000 psi of force before the microscopic film breaks. With engines running on nitro, these forces are definitely up there.

So, try it at your own risk and don’t be an idiot and add it to your wet clutch, auto trans or limited siht differential!
Good luck and I’ll do my best to answer any questions.

 

Great first post!
Welcome to Tacomaworld!
How long have you been running it in your engine?
Will the WS2 will be captured by the oil filter and just cake up the pleats?
Curious if you've ever checked an old filter?
Thanks again for the good information!

 

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Hell of a first post. Thanks for your input!

 

Thanks guys!

For those with keen eyes, I’ve canged the dosage on that fist post from 5g to 0.5g because I botched my calculations. So I hope you can forgive me for I am a noob to auto forms. But in actuality the difference is not critical; just not recommended per any sources I’ve come across.
From the studies I have read (one good example: https://usbr.gov/research/projects/download_product.cfm?id=312) a good target is 700ppb, so I added 0.5g per quart -which is above recommended. I’ve chosen the above partly because I’m stubborn, but I also judged the amount of additive based on the existing product Liquimoly https://products.liqui-moly.com/additives/oil-additive.html.
Now I’m not going to say buy this and that and add it to expect crazy hp gains, I’m just documenting what I’ve done and giving you nice people a somewhat scientific view of any results.

To answer your question Mark, I do not believe 0.5g/qt of either additive could clog an oil filter for a couple reasons...
1. With 0.5g/qt not 5g/qt, sorry again guys, the concentrations would not be high enough to impede oil flow if it were to get all trapped in the oil filter. If it were all to get trapped it would just be a thin evenly distributed film just like all the other trapped particles in the engine.
2. The products I have used contain very finely ground particles that can probably pass right through the fiber/paper filters in most or any oil filters. I’ll post the links to what was used at the end of this post, however the particle size of the WS2 is said to be 1/2um! Which is very very very small. For the Moly, I don’t have the numbers, but under a microscope the particles were all close to the same size and shape as the WS2. Basically the particles should pass right through the filters.



With just 1 car to test this on I can’t say one or the other leads to better performance (which is why I just added both), BUT the WS2 seems to win everywhere else technically, except on price and avaliability. Tungsten also wins on smell. Moly is stinky stuff, and messy, but both are really messy anyways.


Product sources:
Molybdenum Disulfide MSO2
https://products.liqui-moly.us/mos2-antifriction-for-gears-2.html

Tungsten Disulfide WS2
http://www.microlubrol.com/MicroLub...Powder-Ultra-Fine-0.5-micron-1-oz-Bottle.aspx

 

@schmittie123 , Great information Robert !
Howerver im a bit confused on the measurement. At .5 g per quart , does the g stand for gram ? If not I would appreciate some education.

This ws2 really interests me , Thanks ! and Thanks to op @StuckinOhio for starting this thread !

 

Yes that is in grams by weight.
Also, I’ve been running this for 200 miles or so and I’ve been pumped about this subject lately because I feel much better performance, less vibration and hopefully better mpg.
And all that above should be expected when you reduce the friction in the motor/drivetrain by ten or so times.
COF motor oils: ~.7- .2
COF Tungsten Disulfide: ~.07-.03
COF molybdenum Disulfide: ~.15

 

So are you just weighing out the ws2 on a scale in another container and then adding it to the engine, transfer case, etc. ?

 

Schmittie I agree, 0.5g is probably not enough to clog a filter.
I was following a commander forum where it was tested in a engine and the filter was able to capture some of the WS2.

 

I have used this company’s stuff in engines, gearboxes and differentials for last 10 years: http://www.rvs-tec.com/

Works fine, I can recommend.

 

First to answer your question Ryan, the way I’ve been adding this stuff to my drivetrain components is to weigh out the powder on a scale and add it to a quart of oil (engine or gear oil depending on where it goes).
I make the mixture 4 times denser (I.e. 2 grams to a quart) if I’m going to add that mix to my engine which uses ~4-5 quarts of oil total.
Mix it well and you’ll get a homogenous grey mixture with no streaks or clumps of WS2.

And a little bit of an update on mpg:
About 1.5 tanks of gas later this is what I’ve found:
15 mpg city (with worst driving habits including; driving in mud, idling, full throttle, avg speed below 40mph)
17 mpg highway (high cruising speeds over 80 -yeah I’m guilty, sorry- and some traffic)

This appears to be an improvement over my original mpg figures which were ~1mpg less even with better driving habits than above.

These tests are just after addding both moly and WS2 to my engine, rear diff and transfer case.

Obviously economy wasn’t a concern in the past few tests....

 

To be sure I understand: you’ve added both the moly and WS2 together to your oils?

 

Well, after a couple hours of research I decided to give this a try.

I ordered the lm MoS2 cans for my engine, and the smaller tubes for transmission, transfer case, and diffs.

Went ahead and ordered some WS2 as well.

I can’t see why it would be harmful - but... Any reason to not add to a locking diff?

 

I first added Moly because that was the only friction modifier I knew of at the time, but turns out Tungsten Disulfide is chemically more stable with all of the common engine materials (brass, copper, aluminum, alloys, iron etc.). WS2 also handles heat better and has a much lower coefficient of friction than that of molybdenum.
So if anyone does decide to use an additive, there is no real reason to add molybdenum if you're able to get WS2.

And Rujack, do you have an electronic rear diff? My fj has the factory toyota rear electric locker which still works like it should with additives. Im not sure if it has clutches or how it works really...