AMSOIL SLUDGE IN PAN

Just pulling apart 408 bracket motor. 12-1 Ft cam ported Eddie heads. Broke motor in with Amsoil 30wt breakin oil. He ran the 20-50 zrod oil. The bottom of the oil pan had a blob of sludge in it jelly like. It was about 1/4 quart of oil. Should have taken pics but didnt. Is it from avgas and running to much jet in carb rich? I am a Amsoil fan just a little shocked

send in an oil sample, that will tell you everything.

Avgas has some pretty unique stuff in it including some type of anti-freeze additive I believe.

Did you use assembly and cam lube?
If so maybe that is what your seeing, I see ARP rod bolt lube in the bottom of the oil pan of every motor I've assembled and look in the oil pan later
Probably takes 5 or 6 oil changes to get it out of there if you don't remove it your self after breaking in the motor
I have heard of some synthetic oils doing weird things., especially in race motors
I owned and flew a air cool airplane for over 700 hours, I switch the oil from regular to Mobil AV1 synthetic aircraft oil, it ended up slugging that motor up in less than 300 hours, we where required to change the oil and filter every 50 hours and the complete airplane had to have a mandatory inspection once a year if you flew it less hours per year than the manufacturer mandated for component inspections. The motor was slug free on the first inspection as it had sat for several years before me buying it so I had it inspected and remove a rocker arm cover from both sides of the motor to look inside for corrosion from it sitting that long, it was hangered at the north end of the San Franscico bay. No corrosion or slug
Most of the trips we flew in that airplane where over 1 hour, usually 2 Hrs.+ per leg, my wife kidney where usually the limiting factor on how long in the air before landing

Did it look like this?

YES

I was told that it is the additives from the oil and not to worry about it. The crud in the photos above came from Brad Penn oil and was not soluble with mineral spirits. The mineral spirits just moved it around but the pan cleaned easily.

The only thing in my engine that is black is the spacers between the T&D rockers and they looked perfect when inspected. Also the engine was clean and everything looked great. It's ran great all summer, I did change to Driven oil.

If this is true, that's bad. If the additive package is falling out of the base stock it's useless.

I've seen things like this before. Using a real synthetic with alcohol will do the same thing. When you drain the oil the alcohol has separated out part of the VI improvers. The oil pressure is no longer stable, and you start getting blued adjusters and other things.

I'm not sure what part of the additive package that black residue is, but that would be very disconcerting to me.

Not necessarily. There is a point where oil manufacturers follow"more is better". Never found out why, even when speaking to formulators. X amount of ZDDP is needed in motor oil. Some blends put in too much and eventually separates outs and becomes an ingredient of sludge. ZDDP is that wonder drug that is very important in motor oil. Brad Penn or Penn 1 hangs around on every moving part of an engine. Your car gets started in maybe 2,3,4 weeks.That,call it sticky or gooey, keeps all the internal parts from being worn on the start up. Seen that that at salvage yards when pulling parts. Modern cars, with low levels of ZDDP, maybe sitting a year or 2 or 3 have the faintest of lubrication on the internal parts. Are the motors clean? YES. They have more dry start wear. When you find a sludge bucket, they are a greasy mess and the parts are all coated( accounting for good service). Good maintenance programs are a definite plus and so is ZDDP fortified oil

After breaking in my 451 with Brad Penn, I put in "regular" motor oil with a bottle of ZDDP. So basically there's no hours on it - well, maybe 10-20 mins. of run time. Then it sat in the garage for six months.
But when I pulled the pan to fix the leaks recently, I was surprised at how black the oil was (and I had to wipe a thin layer of black stuff like that to clean the pan out, too). Figured it was the additive. Also I saw a few greenish drops hanging from rod bolt heads My heart stopped for a moment - then I tasted it and it's just oily, definitely not antifreeze!

No "blob" like OP's though.

This is true.
Almost every engine builder has stopped using Brad Penn oul.

I've been to motor oil processing facilities(high end motor oil) and the manufacturers blend many ingredients into motor oil. They don't blend it for 20 minutes. Several hours. Addition of ZDDP to an oil change does not make it a component of the oil. Its just ZDDP flowing around with the oil, NOT PART OF THE OIL OR ITS LUBRICATING SYSTEM. As such, it does its own thing and will probably combine with anything at the bottom of the pan or be the first to be at the bottom of the pan.

Interesting... there does seem to be quite a bit of discussion on the subject of additives!
I found this brief article: https://www.onallcylinders.com/2018...h-off-the-shelf-motor-oil-to-save-money/
So what's YOUR favorite flat-tappet-safe oil?

Rotella or Delvac 15w40. My engine guy runs Valvoline 15w40 in his HRL hydroplane engines. 350 SBC and 2.5 liter Fords. No roller cams. 7000+ RPM for 5 laps plus heat races.

Kevin

Not sure where you get our information but you are just wrong on some of this stuff.

ZDDP (I'll try and spell it out...zincdiakyldithiophosphate) is nothing more than phosphated zinc. Its not a wonder anything. It's a power KILLER when you have more than you need. The phosphate is what attracts the zinc to hot parts, and the zinc provides a consumable wear surface on things like cam lobes, valve stems, valve springs and piston rings. That's why any ENGINE oil must have ZDDP to be classified as an engine oil.

That additive, like every other must be part of the oil, or it would settle out while in the can (yes I'm old...oil goes in a can when you're my age) and be worthless.

There should never be any reason for any additive in the base oil that can separate from the base oil no matter how long it sits.

If an oil has to be "gooey" to lubricate on dry starts its a junk oil. Dry starts are lubricated by the additive package like zinc that remains after the engine is shut down. Not unlike how piston rings are lubricated at all times...dry film lubrication...which is zinc and good oils have a few more things.

Junk is junk at any price and a "gooey" oil is junk no matter what name is on the bottle.

How about Mobil 1 15W-50? It has 1200 ppm zinc, 1300 ppm phosphorus, and a 5-quart jug from Walmart is only $25.47.
The Mobil website says it's for racing and flat tappet applications...

Bingo!!! Viscosity is a little heavy tho unless you are running loose clearances.

Check out Mobil1 Delvac or Rotella T6 synthetic diesel oil. I'm pretty sure it's available in 10w30 but the normal one is 5w40. Last I checked I think the phos and zinc was around the 1000 ppm mark, one a little over and the other a little under, zinc vs phos.

Kevin

Way back in the early 80's I had a relatively mild street 383 A-body (.474 cam, stock 906 heads, 4-speed, 3.23 rear). I would get about 13.8 mpg (mixed city/highway) driving with 10W-40 oil, but drop to 13.5 with 20W-50 and no other changes. I was surprised it made that much of a difference (and about 10 psi more oil pressure too).

OP, any more thoughts as to what the Blob was?

I believe cab was right just assembly lube and moly lube from cam.

Probably... not much else it could be. Still, if it's really "1/4 quart" that's 8 ounces, a full cup. You must have used a lot of assembly lube!

Reread my post, carefully. All your answers are there. If you can't find them, that's OK. Oil, politics,religion,any brand of anything, well...who cares. Next.

Probably... not much else it could be. Still, if it's really "1/4 quart" that's 8 ounces, a full cup. You must have used a lot of assembly lube

funny had a 467 SBC with ..oil pressure problems. Pulled pan to check bearings pan and pickup had sludge. Cleaned out replaced pump used AMSOIL problem solved. The motor is 15-1 and the guy uses Q16. i have seen this fuel and alcohol cause engine oil to break down and sludge. Avgas i believe could be a problem also. That motor runs 8.80s in 3200lb nova. Freshened after 150 passes and the motor was clean. Some race oils can be a problem also. The first oil in that motor was Brad Penn

Alcohol can do much the same as you have seen to real synthetic oils. You have to be careful with off the shelf oils because they are blended to keep costs down and fit many as many types of fuel and combinations.

100 percent correct

I have found the same thing , sludge like coating on the bottom of the pan. It surprised me at first then thought about it. I figured it was the assembly lube settled out. Cleaned out the pan and bolted it back on. I have also noticed with the intake off a certain RED cam / lifter assembly lube just wash right of as the engine was being primed and turned over..

I have used both Amsoil and Brad Penn oils and have never had sludge in my pan. I have also used several different assembly lubes and no issues there either. I really like the Royal Purple assembly lube. I didn't like the Red Line paste. Too hard to apply.

I had that in the pan before and it was metal wear from rocker shafts one time, and the pins in the roller lifters the other time....

Fixed the issues and the black sludge went away. I was and still am using Brad Penn oil.

Also left a nice black ball on the magnetic drain plug when I pulled it out.

Ive juse got my lil tidbit of experience here.

Brad Penn, forever, and always, Break ins with Gibbs, and assembled with Gibbs engine assembly paste. LOVE this paste for cams, and coating friction parts before assembly.

Use to use the ARP assembly lube and the pan looked like a kids diaper after a hard night of pork and beans...


Never a fan of AMsOIL as i hate their sales pitches, and telling me to run oils to 20000 miles and change filter to 10K

THOSE WORDS SHOULD NEVER COME OUT OF A SALESMANS MOUTH!

But I have never seen any kind of dirty sludge in the pans of any engine Ive built after I stopped using the Moley paste...

None of the black stuff in my pan was magnetic, that's why I thought it was off the spacers on the T&D rockers.