I’ve used Walmart oil in flat tappet stuff There was a tread here a while back with testing results. It had enough of the crap you need ive put a zillion miles on WM oil in flat tappet engines
This what my machine shop recommends. I used the 15w50 break in oil and will run 20w50 on my OT sports car. For my Dirt Cheap Dart project with a LA flat tappet engine I will run 10w30. https://www.drivenracingoil.com/ I would suggest following the machine shop, and cam grinders recommendations. Personally I feel an oil with 1200 ppm ZDDP should be used in a flat tappet engine. People have run all sorts of oil with good results but I feel a few extra $s spent on oil to meet specific needs is money well spent, that coming from cheap ass me. Dan
https://pqia.org/2021/04/15/motor-oils-for-classic-and-vintage-cars/ according to this, current zddp levels are equal to or greater than oils from mid 60s and older.
I did some quick digging on the credentials of Lake Speed, who issued many of the videos on Tribology and oils being discussed. First off, his comments pretty much reflect those of the trained tribologists and fuels and lubes engineers and scientists I have interacted with over the years. These are professionals with career job experience formulating oil additives for companies like Chevron, Shell, BP, and even at our own National labs and within the product development departments of our own company. Having said that, I was somewhat disappointed to see that Speed’s undergraduate degree is in Communications, not in a STEM based curriculum like engineering. To his credit he is a member of SAE and sits on panels or boards within that organization, which is a far more strenuous involvement than your engine builder down the street. Fundamentally, though, he’s a salesman, and his PowerPoint slides are excerpts from simplistic sales slide shows, and not of engineering grade. Bottom line, though is that oil formulation is a science, not a trial and error crap shoot. Diesel oil is different for a reason. Actually a couple of reasons, mostly based on the propensity of the diesel combustion process to generate soot, which is why dispersency is so important. The additives used to meet dispersency requirements generate other problems, as Speed attests, so you can’t just look at one ingredient, ie ZDDP, and make a judgement. And you can’t just dump in a dose of off the shelf high ZDDP additive into your pan without potentially upsetting an engineered oil and causing damage. The additive package may or may not react badly with added mouse milk. Kudos to Speed for trying to dispel some of the myths that have been circulating on the internet re oils.
Phosphorus levels increased around 1970 and stayed high until 1993 ish why did they increase phosphorus from the 50s and 60s ? By 1993 many engines were running roller cams I believe. I don’t believe modern oils are going to wipe out cams in short order but depending on the valve spring rates a higher ZDDP may increase longevity. Dan
Probably because of the cam issues with the Ford 2.3, aka the Pinto engine. The oil qualification tests all required a wear validation test using that particular engine. Phosphorus is the main ingredient in ZDDP. Eventually Ford introduced roller followers in that engine, so I suspect, but don’t actually have information to confirm that the procedure was possibly eliminated or modified shortly after that change. That, and phosphorus was one of the oil additives identified as being not very compatible with catalytic converters, ie, it poisons them.
Anything with a "50" in the viscosity index. I have a case of Mobil-1 15-50 left over from my racing days. It has 1300 ppm zinc.
Still had a few flat tappers made then plus what was on the road. I put most of the cam issues with material issues SBC are traditional cam eaters aren’t they .
I knew that phosphorus was bad news for catalytic converters and I thought that was the main reason the levels were reduced. I don’t think using an oil with 1200 ppm or so ZDDP will hurt anything other than the cats. I do know that straying very far from the OEM viscosity isn’t good. Again on a race or even a high performance engine I would go with the machine shop, builder and or cam grinder’s recommendations. They have real world experiences and if they are worth their salt know what they are doing. The big oil manufacturers also know what they are doing, however they produce for the big market. Like George used to say “It’s a big club and we ain’t in it!” Dan
Oh and while I’m having diarrhea of the keyboard I don’t think the 15w40 diesel oil did the damage unless there was an enormous amount of crud in the engine. Dan
I’m running this in my 1998 OT air cooled 1100cc motorcycle. seems to be doing OK. I haven’t tried it yet in my 41 Cadillac...
Don’t know what that is. He did say he wrapped a rod journal with shoe leather in a 216 Chevy once to get it home
Guess the diesel oil will blow my pistons right out the bores into low earth orbit. I'll just call Elon to bring them back down for me when that happens. I'm in the whatever is cheap and frequent drain intervals. Found Rotella T4 15w40 for 13 bucks a gallon on the rainforest website the other day. Bought a few.
In my non-professional opinion. That's not an oil issue, but rather a fitting issue. One rod not fitted correct. Also looks like there is a lot of junk embedded in the bearing material surface. Not embedded carbon but junk. I've seen rods that will seize and stick or cause bearing material to pound out. Cold start on an engine running 50wt is slow. Dad's Maserati ran straight 50wt with a water heather/cooler exchange unit. Took for ever to get up to temperature to drive because of the oil viscosity. Pushing it while cool would knock out the bearings. Same on a XK140 Jaguar he had. All flatheads here including tractors were run on straight 30wt. Now with the additives added because of no zinc. 1940's oils are a lot different than 2,000's oils.
55 years ago we used to purchase "re-refined" oil because it was cheap and our equipment ate it like candy. Was consumed so fast we never really needed an oil change ? ? Currently I drain the Mobile 1 High Mileage oil every 3,000 miles, looks clear yellow, and run that in all the small engines around here. Plus my Brothers oil eating 74 Chevy PU. No one has lost bearings here yet. Why do you have a hubcap on your head ? Just asking.
28 Chevrolet coup 4 cyl, he used a bacon rind to shim the bearing cap. Got home. Couldn't afford to cut up a good shoe. Once in the Philippines we shimmed a rod cap with a cut up aluminum pie pan. Ate the pie first.
Summit Racing has all the oil you need for vintage classics. Catalog is free, shipping is free, in store shopping is friendly. Reno, Atlanta, Akron, Dallas, order online....
You answered your own question, and I just meant to say that you may get a lot of comments that aren't appreciated . Been there/Done that....... Not sure if you interpreted my post correctly, but I'm on the same side of this question that you are, and the examples were just explaining that people need to realize that ZDDP is not a "one size fits all" solution per the words of the oil manufacturers. More ZDDP is not necessarily better and the additives are also something that is varied by the manufacturer to suit the different needs and applications.
Here's what I know about Frantz Filters. They were more than "Snake oil", because they essentially add an aftermarket bypass filter to a full-flow system, which is common in heavy equipment. My dad, who had been a traveling salesman all of his life selling fuel and supplies for Municipal Generating plants (anyone remember them?) repped for Frantz after he retired. The thing I remember about them is that they came with a sticker, about the size of the old oil change stickers that they used to put on the door jambs, except it was made of blotter paper. You were supposed to take out your dipstick every 100 miles after you installed the filter and touch it to the blotter sticker. After you had done this (I think 5 times), and the oil "dried", you could actually see it get cleaner and cleaner, so that part of it actually worked. We had them on all of our cars, my dad's '58 Olds Super 88, my mother's '58 Nomad, and my 1951 Ford. We considered this a "belt and suspenders" approach, and still followed the recommended oil and filter change intervals. They really did clean up the oil. Frantz sold their own special toilet paper that worked better in their filters as regular off the shelf stuff tended to disintegrate, which made filter changes kinda messy. (I think the stuff used in public toilets these days would probably work fine.) By the way, I seem to remember that back in those days, the regular procedure was to change the filter only every fourth or fifth oil change. Anyone else remember it this way?
When I was a kid one of my scout leaders had a Chevy with a 307 that had 350,000km and had never had a full oil change. He would change the filter and top it up. Body mounts rusted away long before it stopped running. It also never had matching tires after the first set.
The Jalopy Journal
