Technical Switching grades and types of engine oil and its affects on engine noise, exhaust etc.

All I'll say is this, I switched my 36, 327 powered with aprox 100,000 miles on it over to 15-40 from 10-30, and the bottom end is noisier than before. No oil usage, no other noticeable differences except for a little more bottom end noise, particularly from the front of the engine, chain was new six years and 15000 ,miles ago. She's still my girlfriend, built it myself twenty years ago, it has never let me down, most reliable vehicle I own.

 

I really appreciate your responses to us and appreciate the time you have taken with us. I have used Rotella for decades. I have 3 Mercedes with over a million miles. One is a gas engine with 352K on it and I was going to switch it over to Rotella. Now I know that engines are different, but my diesels are much quieter than any of the other diesels that are in the mechanics shop. My old one is a 1982. Why are the engines quieter? I am a Pennsylvania kid and have always used PA oils, but I think a loud engine is a bad engine. Is there anything that we can add to oil that will reduce engine noise? Thank you again and if I have missed a post, I promise to go back.

 

Any truck shop will have it.

 

I don't recommend adding anything to a fully formulated lubricant. You're likely to just screw up the formulation resulting in poorer performance.

 

FYI, for those using HD Diesel Engine Oils, like Rotella T, they are about to change. New API performance classification CK-4 & FA-4 start rolling out Dec 1. While I expect some lube companies to keep a CJ-4 product around for a year or so, most will be making the change right away. This is not a bad thing, as the CK-4 spec retains all of the performance requirements of CJ-4, and adds some improvements to shear stability, oxidation control and aeration control. CK-4 is backwards compatible. I do not expect zinc levels to drop with this change, because there is no requirement for that, and ZDDP is the most efficient (read best performance for least cost) anti-wear and anti-oxidant on the market. New FA-4 oils are a new category of low viscosity oils for improved fuel economy, and are only intended for new 2017 engines. It gets a little more complicated than that, but I won't bore everyone to tears, just wanted to give a heads up that the new CK-4 spec is coming online in just days from now. Read about it here:

http://www.api.org/news-policy-and-issues/news/2016/11/18/new-api-certified-diesel-engine-oils-are

 

Aw Blues!!! Havent you been listening man? That ZDDP shit doesn't do anything, its all a plot!

 

You know, I haven't even read that crap. The mechanics of how ZDDP works and what it does is pretty well established science, anyone claiming otherwise is a fool. I'd love to see them present their theories to the annual meeting of the STLE or the SAE, and watch them get raked over the coals. I've seen it happen, and it aint pretty.

 

Check out the Speedtalk thread I posted earlier about 540rat, hes the "guru" of this little religious movement that these fools are quoting, man he took a sh@tkicking on there, but then that's a forum for engine builders...
http://speedtalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=35731


pretty much all of his disciples are guys that specialize in posting on internet forums rather than guys that build motors, for pretty obvious reasons. If they ever actually attempted to put what he preaches into practice in any motor with a half decent flat tappet cam, they would only do it once.

 

I think I still have some 30 wt Havoline from 1971.
Are you tell'n me I shouldn't use it in my antique 327.

 

I skimmed it, some of what he wrote I would agree with, some not. Note that he leaves the details of how he runs his test completely out of the post. Without that info all of his testing doesn't mean anything. I read technical papers every month on research that is going on, and in every paper they always go to great detail in explaining what they do and how they do it. Excruciating detail. If you want to be taken seriously, you have to do that. I'll write more on this later, but I have an amplifier out on my bench that needs my attention, I'm gonna go out and work on that now.

 

Guys on Speedtalk have been asking him to demonstrate his "testing procedure" for as long as I have been on there, that was long before I joined the HAMB. And he has always refused, wont even answer any questions regarding his testing equipment. General consensus is he is doing a load test with a "one-armed bandit" rig, totally meaningless in terms of what is happening with a spinning lifter on a cam lobe in a running engine. But it sells well to the internet crowd.
On a side note, some people in the industry on there have also mentioned that the company that he uses for the lab tests, Blackstone, has issues with accuracy and repeatability. I have read where a couple guys (not all of them on the same forum even) who sent them two vials from the same sample and got substantially different numbers on both samples.

 

I just found this, this is GREAT! I cracked up. None of this is news to you or I, but it may be "edifying" for those that are buying "the oil guy" aka 540rats "ZDDP doesn't do anything" bullshit, to actually see his testing procedure in action.

So there you go guys! The real unvarnished truth! Those oil companies ARE scamming you! You don't need ANY of those fancy pants boutique oils, or any overpriced additives! Just head down to Wal-Mart and get a bottle of Head & Shoulders, and dump that in there, and Bobs yer uncle. Don't forget to post a video...

 

I haven't looked in a while but unopened cans of vintage motor oil (50s and 60s) used to go for a pretty good price to collectors on that auction site. I don't think anybody is actually running it, they just want to keep it on the shelf. I guess.

I may still have a pour spout for the metal topped cardboard oil cans like Penzoil and everything else came in, it was jammed down into the top. Totally useless these days, but by golly I better not throw it away, ha ha. Seems to me Castrol was among the first to package their oil in those plastic bottles, or that's how I remember it cuz that's what I ran in my murdersickle.

 

So, I realize this thread has gone stale, I think folks got tired of it, but I wanted to respond to that link from falcongeorge about the guy that tests oils and makes some unusual claims, so I'm gonna go ahead and post anyway. If no one reads it, that's OK, but I said I was gonna respond, so I want to do that.

As I posted above, some of the things the guy writes I would agree with, but he's way off on other's. There's an old saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, that would apply here IMO.

So let's get some basic facts of lubrication out first. There are 4 modes, or "regimes" of lubrication, i.e. how lubricants prevent contact of moving parts and reduce wear and friction. They are Boundary Lubrication, Hydrodynamic Lubrication and Elasto Hydrodynamic Lubrication, and then there is "Mixed Film" which is a transitional period between the other 3 regimes.

I won't go into a great dissertation on how each regime works, you can google the terms and find better things than I could write here, but flat tappet cams and lifters go through all 4 regimes, kind of like gears. As the cams rotates the tappet slides along the surface of the lobe. Before the engine is started everything is at a stand still, as the cam starts to rotate the slow speed and the lack of any oil flow put the surfaces into a boundary lubrication condition. Under these conditions there is insufficient oil film to keep the parts separated, and contact between the cam and the tappet will occur. This is where zinc comes into play.

Zinc in the form of ZDDP (zinc dialkydithiophosphate) plates out on the interior surfaces of the engine, in areas where there is contact between moving parts, to provide a self sacrificial layer. Whenever the speed of the cam is insufficient to develop an oil wedge at the point of contact, or when the load from high spring pressures exceeds the strength of the oil film, the layer of ZDDP provides protection from wear. But when that occurs the layer of ZDDP is worn off the surfaces, so additional ZDDP compounds in the oil then "adsorb" to the surface and take the place of the ZDDP that was worm away. Here is where Mr Oil Tester dude is correct, the tribo-film developed by ZDDP only develops so thick, it is limited to about 1 micron thick at the most. So once that thickness is achieved it won't increase anymore, no matter how much ZDDP is in the oil. He is correct about that. So why do we need more zinc than what it takes to form that 1 micron thick layer? That's a good question.

The only thing I can come up with is that, as I already mentioned above, as the film is worn away you need additional ZDDP in the oil to replace that which is worn away, and once the fresh ZDDP in the oil is depleted it can no longer replenish the film, and wear will soon start to occur. Well, that and the fact that ZDDP is also used as an anti-oxidant additive to prevent oxidation of the oil. In fact, that is what it was originally developed for, it was only afterward that researchers found that oils with ZDDP added would provide higher levels of wear protection, though they didn't know why. It took years for other researchers to actually figure out how the ZDDP plates out on surfaces.

Keep in mind that not all ZDDP compounds are the same. There are at least 2 different types of ZDDP, "primary" and "secondary", and after that there are several different mfgr's of the additives, and each one has their own proprietary formulations, with differing performance levels and different characteristics. They don't all provide the same level of protection, and they all don't plate out at the same temperatures and/or pressures. And they have different costs. An oil formulator has to balance performance and cost, and I'm afraid some blenders just focus on cost and use just the cheapest crap they can find. So just because a motor oil has X ppm's of zinc in it doesn't mean it will perform better than another oil with less zinc content. It could very well be that the oil with less zinc has a better ZDDP compounded additive package in it and it may provide higher levels of anti-wear performance.

Also keep in mind that it takes some heat and pressure from close contact between moving parts to activate the ZDDP and cause it to plate out, and if adhesive wear occurs before this happens, you can have agglomerated metal deposits that exceed the thickness of that 1 micron thick tribo film of ZDDP, so once that has happened it's only a matter of time before the cam lobe is wiped out, nothing will stop it.

Also keep in mind, that because the max thickness of the tribo film is only 1 micron, than the average surface roughness of the cam has to be below that, or it doesn't matter how much zinc is in the oil, it's going to fail. If the cam grinder doesn't get the surface polished correctly, it's simply not going to last. And you can't identify a surface roughness or say 6 - 12 microns rms, it takes very powerful magnification to see that, so you're at the mercy of the competency of the cam grinder.

I'm still of the opinion that at least some of the cam failures blamed on low zinc oils was actually the result of cams with insufficient hardening and possibly insufficient polishing. But I don't think that explains it all.

Back to that crazy dude with the oil tester. His understanding of lubricants is lacking, that is obvious, but so is his logic. He puts everything on the test he uses, though he wont say what that test is or how he performs it, and that is a huge red flag. There are people all over the world that work in the field of tribology, and just like in every other scientific field of study, when you perform experiments and tests, if you want anybody to take you seriously, you have to go into excruciating detail about how you set up and perform your tests; if you won't or can't do that, don't bother trying to tell anyone about your results, because nothing you say means diddly squat. Results mean nothing without all the information about how they were achieved. If you refuse to reveal your methods, that screams scam. It indicates you have ulterior motives, not just research for the sake of advancing the field, as he claims to do. SO I don't know what his game is, but he's not worth arguing with or about.

 

Blues, I think you and I are the only ones left here. Not surprising really, we are actually getting down to the nitty-gritty now. One, I think the fault landed more with junk lifters that weren't hardened enough more than the quality of the aftermarket cams themselves. There were a couple threads on Speedtalk where this was mentioned, and a couple guys were even Rockwell testing the face of some of these lifters, and there were some that were very soft. Doesn't really matter which side of the equation fails, the lobe or the lifter face, once one goes they both go.
I don't know whether this is correct, and I cant even remember where I heard it, but I recall reading something to the effect that the P(hosphorus) part of the ZDDP was as important as the Z(inc) part, and the zinc actually helped the phosphorus bond with the base metal, thereby forming the tribo film. Is this sort of the right idea, or is it a mis-interpretation?

 

Blues and falcongeorge, you still have at least one follower trying to understand why I lost 3 cams, ( Crane Cams [RV grind with no excessive spring pressures] in a 460 Ford, around 2003/2005),
and don't want to lose another one in an upcoming build of a 200 inch Ford 6cyl...... Thank you

Lynn W

 

I don't have anything to add here. But I'm reading it all. Please keep going it you all will.

 

I may not retain all this information but I sure enjoy the reading/ learning of it,
thanks to all contributors.

 

I am in it as well to learn but it STILL is in my own personal red flag area... It seems that no matter what you guys find in the chemistry and research of the oils and additives... Nothing can break the Oil companies formulas open! They keep it hidden from us all and claim proprietary reasons on the formulas BUT we are the guinea pigs. THAT is the hard pill we have to swallow.
If they stop careing about the protection we get on our old motors and old cams and other moving parts then we lose and spend more money. Thats the game. They spend as little as possible and we spend more on our hobby.
And sadly, they are moving towards the future with the big car makers in mind and us less and less.
So its great to have you guys trying to figure this out, but its really just about doin your own experiments with oil and your motor. And posting it on here. One hotrod at a time. Or one custom at a time
Maybe the oil companies are the real reason everyone and there mother are doin Ls swaps!!!! Easier.
New gas sucks.
New oil sucks.
New tires suck.
New prices suck.
But old cars RULE!
I read that they have tested and are ready to roll out a 10 speed automatic trans!!!! WTF? Why? And more importantly... what space formula oil is that going to require? $$

 

Mass spectrometer/gas chromatography.

Google CAFE standards. They will explain why carburetors has to go, and why the number of gears in the transmission are increasing.

The short version:

There is absolutely NO WAY that the auto manufactures can simultaneously satisfy US domestic horsepower lust, and match the CAFE standards. They MUST take every single advantage that they can to increase efficiency.

To the average muscle-headed hot rodder, efficiency is a bad word. The thing is, it actually is not. Waste does not equal power. Efficiency equals power. Contrary to popular belief, shitty mileage is not actually a selling point. If fuel is turned into heat, or goes out the tailpipe un-burned, it did not make power. If the engine is pushed repeatedly above and below its efficiency peak, by say having 2, 3, or 4 gears in the transmission, efficiency suffers, fuel economy suffers, and power is wasted.

By having more gears, the engine can be kept at it peak of both power, and efficiency for more time. Even better if the on-board computer is selecting the shifts, exactly where they need to be.

Also, there should be no reason that this 10-speed requires a special lubricant.

My wife's German road missile can easily cruise at 120, and get and honest 50mpg at 65mph, with only 100hp.

My Falcon can do that too, but only gets 35mpg at 65mph.

Both have 6-gears, and fuel injection.

When my Hemi is done, it will have fuel injection, too, and likely 6-gears.

 

Yes, that is correct, and also sulfur, which is part of the ZDDP compound.

I searched through some papers and found this tidbit I thought would be good to post here. It gets a little too techy, but I think that most of it can be understood by all. I underlined some of the best parts that you should read over a couple of times and let them sink in.

 

Note how important the effect of heat and pressure is to the formation of the protective film, particularly heat. This is critical. When you install a brand new camshaft there is zero zddp film on it, nothing to protect it against the loads when you fire the engine up the first time. Think about it. This is why break in of the cam is so important, and why you need to get the oil up to operating temp as quick as possible. But there will be some contact made to begin with, there is no way around it. The idea is to minimize wear until the film builds. Viscosity is going to be critical here, too low and the hydrodynamic wedge won't form to keep the parts separated. Too high and it takes too long to pump it up to the cam. Assembly lube is the only thing that is going to save that cam during that initial run in.

Also, note what it says about the effect of nasty by-products in the oil that form as a result of the combustion process, how there is a direct correlation between these by-products and cam lobe wear. And how ZDDP is instrumental in preventing this kind of wear, as it works to neutralize those by-products. Another reason why the level of ZDDP in the oil is so important. Tell that to the guy that says it isn't.

 

Dude, the oil company's spend >$1M per product for API licensing. If you think they spend as little as possible, you couldn't be more wrong. It's not that they don't care about protecting old motors and cams, it's that they are being forced to build oils that the Auto industry demands, and the Auto Co's in turn are being forced by federal regulations. The lubes industry does the best it can to meet the needs everyone places on them, it's complicated. Face it, the gov't would just prefer that all our old cars would just go away, they don't like them.

 

You guys haven't lost me, I have read every word. I have a question if I may. I have 2 older vehicles and neither is really HAMB friendly. I have a 59 Edsel with the original 361 that I have been running Rotella in and a 85 Chevy with a 305 with only 20000 miles I just bought. The old guy I bought the Chevy from told me he ran nothing but Castrol 30w in it. I added STP with ZDDP to the Chevy to get to next oil change then plan to switch to Rotella in it. Is this the best I can do?
Should I bite the bullet and drain the 30w out of the Chevy since its winter or will it make much difference. Talking Alabama weather but it does get in the 20s here.

bewards

 

I had always used Rotella in the 351 in my sunliner but I got cheap and used a stores house brand oil and that motor made some strange noises on the trip to Daytona so it went back to Rotella,it always had one or two lifters that would make noise after the start up after a long trip but this year I used Chevron Delo and only a slight tick the morning after I got down to Daytona so I think the motor likes that oil better..

 

Don't use STP!!! That is crap! They say "with ZDDP" but they don't say how much. Oil analysis shows it less than 600 ppm, that is less than SN spec motor oil, if anything it will dilute the level of zinc in your oil. Stay away from that crap!

 

Good stuff there, I saved that in my documents. STP made a ok assembly lube(not on the cam lobes) back in the day, but there are much better ones nowadays. I would NEVER dump it in the oil...

 

So... I need to drain the Chevy tomorrow? =[
Guess I should have known better. Good news is its only been a couple days ago.

 

Threads like this are the reason I am on the H.A.M.B.!

 

If you did not put too much just drive it until the oil needs changed again,I put some in one of my cars after reading the label that it had the ZDDP and its been fine. When I change the oil in the spring it will get Delo since I read it has more then Rotella.