zinc in oil

Junky attached a good thread for you to check out. www.bobistheoilguy.com has a lot of good info on oils & their properties, etc. I recently went thru the headache & expense of a flattened cam, due to poor oil lubricity & highly recommend you do some oil research if you have a solid flat tappet cam. I had a hi volume Carter pump on my hemi & repop pushrod. After hard starting problems & vapor lock issues, I installed a new Eddy mech pump & hemi return line w/ vapor separator, thinking I had a bad pump. I was using Valvoline VR1, which supposedly has hi zinc & phosphorous content but discovered the pushrod end was chewed up pretty bad & sent lot of metal thru the motor. I've been told the repop pushrods are junk & only the real Mopar pushrods have hardened tips. I haven't checked out the other lobes on the Bullet cam yet, but the hemi's down on power, but that could be due to a hairline crack in he #5 spark plug hole. But the fact that the pushrod was eaten up tells me the VR1 couldn't handle hi pump spring pressures. I switched to Joe Gibbs Hot Rod oil & like it. Due to EPA restrictions, even the best oils now have reduced zinc & phosphorous levels, so a zinc additive may be a good thing for you to add, but some oil gurus say additives compromise the orig formula of the oil, which hurts its lubricity & longevity, etc. I've talked to Brad Penn reps(formerly Kendall GT 1) & liked their oils, but its hard to get. Recently, Joe Gibbs Hot Rod oil was highly recommended, so I'm using it, but at $8 a qt, oil changes are expensive. If you have a flat tappet solid cam, research that website & it should help you make a good choice.

I heard an engineer once say that you should toss in a small bottle of Head & Shoulders and it will outperform any additive being pimped out there, (something about the anti-dandruff secret ingredient is some metal).
He goes to trade shows to their demo booths and tries to bust their myth.

Gotta love the guy for doing something he believes in.

FWIW, you can add too much zinc.

The guy that owns the local speed shop in my area said that 15-40 Delo plus a bottle of Redline zinc additive would be plenty good for breaking in my cam. Just telling ya what he said.

People over think this "zinc" stuff. If the valve springs are stock or the mild ones such as the Comp Cam springs for say the XE272H cam, 15-40 Delo or Shell Rotella T will work just fine. But add the additive for the break in. Just saying.

Now, if you're running a big honkin' cam and some big gun valve springs, like dual springs or beefy bee hive springs, then run an oil with more zinc such as racing oil, or something similar and maybe an additive. But remember, you can over do the zinc thing.

I had read somewhere that Shell Rotella T is backing the zinc down as well. ANy truth to this? For what a bottle of additive costs compared to a rebuild, I'll keep my peace of mind until I hear otherwise.

From mosts with tests, Rotella T and all the latest spec diesel oils have less Zinc than before... but still a lot more than car oil and enough for a moderate flat tappet cam.

I use the Mobil 1 "High Mileage" 10W-40 in all of my engines. Their high mileage oils are API SL (not the low zinc SM), and I've never had a cam issue. My 440 has over 10K miles on it since I put it together. It has the Mopar .484 hyd cam and the 933 springs (320 lbs open pressure), aftermarket 3/8" pushrods, and the old factory adjustable iron rockers. I recently replaced the intake gasket, so I took a look at the cam and lifters. They were perfect. I used the moly paste on the cam to break it in and have used nothing but high mileage 10W-40 Mobil 1. Seems to be fine to me, and you can get it anywhere.

If my memory serves me right the High Mileage oils have about 900 ppm zinc. These current oil blends have other lubricating ingredients that work well with the flat tappet cam.

I researched the hell outta this for an article in a recent issue of MA.

The ONLY readily available oil I found with 1200 PPM of zinc (agreed, generally, to be the ideal percentage for flat-tappet engines) is Mobil 1 full syth 15W50.

Rick

Wow this has been going on for long time. Watch at 5:37 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j22apcmtWKs