what is the best oil for flat tappt engine?????
 

hey guys i am chasing some advice on what the best synthetic race oil to put in my 460 bb ford with flat a\tappet camshaft. i have been told that i may see a 5 to 8% gain in going from the 50 weight mineral based penzoil to say a 30w synthetic redline or such. thanks Jai Schluter :D

Put the Rotella 15-40 to it and never look back
Made by Shell Corp.

You want to use a good mineral oil with a high count of zinc in it for a flat tappet cam

i agree with top about the zinc

The oil manufactures are taking the ZDDP (zinc dialkyl dithiophosphate, basically meaning sulphur) anti wear additive levels way down because the sulphur degrades catalytic converter performance. The only way to ensure your flat tappet cam DOES NOT flatten lobes is to add ZDDP back into the oil. If your not running cats, add a full bottle of STP oil treatment, which is loaded with ZDDP, with your normal oil. Don't overfill it though! If you are running cats, just add like 1/4 of the bottle to the oil change. I have a 1981 Chevy C20 with a 350, flat tappet cam. I add just a quarter STP treatment every oil change and I still pass the emissions check. If you have any questions , let me know. Just using off the shelf motor oil your asking for it! Rock on! :D

The GM EOS assembly lube has alot of zinc in it also,you could also use this as an oil additive enhancer

Like Tom says, EOS is one of if not the best sources of zinc on the market today. Problem is it can only be bought from a GM dealer at a cost of $7 a pint afer a resellers discount.

As far as synthetic oils go, one of the best is the Mobile 1 V twin oil, which is loaded with zinc. Most all the other oils, except for racing oil and just a few others are LOW in zinc content. There was a post on another board that has a link to a site that gives the chemical breakdown on most of the major oil brands, both syn and dino and Rotilla is also a good choice.

Local guy builds Hooters Pro Cup engines and swears by EOS for break in on those engines. I also just started running that in my Cummins with Mobile1 syn.

Bob the oil guy

think its http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/ great site for choosing oils,any thing you ever wanted to know about any thing oil related

rotella
 

Hey Tom. one of my sons friends is building a mild steel headed 468bbc with a hydraulic flat tappet cam on alcohol. Will the rotella still be a good choice? Thanks.Don

Oh I believe it will be fine to run with alky,buy it buy the 5 gal pail would be the best way to get it,if you plan on changing the oil frequent.

I have a customer that uses it in an alcohol injected engine,he swears by it
So far we have had "0" problems

oil
 

Thanks Tom. My engine builder keeps trying yo hook me up on Brad Penn Racing oil For my 565 on alchohol but i just havent heard enough about it. At the moment i keep going back to Valvoline.

Re: oil
 

Brad Penn stuff is good,also the Valvoline is good to I used valvoline for years,but I changed over to Mobil-1 10 years ago

Never had any problems with any of the oils,
If Mobil-1 wasn't sponsored I'd still be using valvoline

Now watch ole heck break loose now that I said that :P :P :P

oils
 

One of the best cam grinders around, Jerry Cantrell at Schneider Racing Cams, highly recommends Brad Penn. This is the same formula that was Kendall years ago (the green oil).

Valvoline racing formula still has a good amount of ZDDP. They do make 10w30 racing oil in that formulation that protects flat tappets just fine. In a roller engine though, you don't need such a high concentration of ZDDP(zinc dialkyl dithiophosphate) because of the large reduction in friction that is afforded by a full roller valvetrain. :D

Quaker state Q racing oil, and Joe Gibbs racing oil, has the most zink, compared to any of the others. Rotella, when it had more zink than it does now, they revised the formula for epa b*llsh*t, had about 1450PPM, (parts per million), of the good stuff. Quaker state Q, has about 1950. Joe Gibs, has almost 3000!! Thats why all the nascar teams are using it these days. One other thing, my sources say, that GM took most, if not all the zink out of EOS, as the epa said to.

Frank
Advanced Performance
www.get-ap.com

Just a quick FYI. Comp Cams cam break in supplement, is the ticket now. It has the good stuff in it. Use a bottle of that, add it to your oil, and your good to go. You could also add half a bottle to your oil at every oil change.

Frank

We use the Joe Gibbs XP3 oil with great results, Royal purple max 41 is also very good.the Mobil One was a good deal until they changed the additive package last year and we started seeing a lot of roller lifter failures.Bill

i agree with bill the mobil1 is crap now and i have seen the same thing. i went to redline or purple for roller cam engines. the rotella did the same thing with the add package this yr so now i would stay away from them to. this oil changing all the time is pissing me off. i have my oil analized to find the best oil so far the purple is the best i have run in roller cam engine but i have never ran the stuff bill is talking about from joe gibbs racing. i will be trying it thou just to see how it holds up in testing.

The old Kendall Oil (the green oil) is now Brad Penn. It is highly recommended by several major cam companies.

I am just like most people that builds and fires engines on dynos. We are always searching for that magic potent that prevents loosing lobes on flat tappet and hydraulic camshafts. As we build several NHRA stock eliminator cars, we have several flat tappet combinations that have over 500 lbs over the nose. So camshaft life becomes a huge issue. As most of us now know, any oil that has a API certification no longer has certain additives (ZDDP for one) as they say it is detrimental to many measurable problems(they claim). In the past year, we like most people have been using Rotella diesel oil. But as of this year it goes under new API certification (removes ZDDP) and many additives will be removed. Since I have been a engineer for more than 37 years and building engines since I was 14, I decided to scientifically look at it. At the present time I am working with Lake Speed Jr from Joe Gibbs oil. We have just tried their break in oil on a Stock eliminator car. I have my pc set up with a 28 channel data acquisition card so I can monitor anything that I dream up. My thoughts are, if you can't measure it, how do you know that you improved it. I have samples from Amsoil, Schaeffer, Lucas, Valvoline, Royal Purple, just name a few. We will try anything if they will send us a sample. We even send the oil out for analyze after firing and running. We start all our engines on a mineral base and then go to synthetic. I have not found any mineral base oil that stand the abuse of synthetic (my opinion and mine alone). I know that people like Bill and Perfconn do more than I can ever dream of doing. But I am willing to search for that magic potent. I ask if there is anyone that can share data with me, please contact me. Lets find what is best. Please do not misinterpret what I have said above. I am only trying to find a better solution and do not want to step on any toes.
thanks
racear

very good post racear2865 i will try and find the data i have for all of us on the forum. i have had many brands analized but the oil changes as fast as i can get it tested. the best oil so far for me after testing has been purple and redline. thanks for coming and joining the forum.

I too do the same as you racear2865
break and engine in on mineral base oil and switch to synthetic.

Here is another forum,that has alot of info on oils and tests

Look around on this site,some pretty good reads on any thing to do with oils,grease and filters.

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/