Flat Tappet Engines

pintoplumber wrote: ↑

Wed. Feb. 12, 2020 6:51 pm

I use Valvoline 10W40 in my 239 Y block. It has enough zinc for my flat tappet camshaft. Engine was built in 2002. I do race the truck and pull a trailer.A395983F-073C-49A6-8BCE-C8B71BCC8A50.jpeg275F1FD5-7785-4565-BE2E-62A1AEEF0764.jpeg

Do you add anything to it because there is little to no zinc in that oil. Anything API SN is going to be zinc limited.

I have a bottle of the zinc additive, sometimes I’ll put some in. Ted Eaton, the engine builder in Texas says the Valvoline 10w40 has enough zinc in it. He builds a lot of Y block engines, so I trust him. A couple years ago he won the vintage engine class at Engine Masters competition with a Y block. Dennis

Rob R. wrote: ↑

Thu. Dec. 03, 2020 8:59 am

Yes, and they have started using other anti-wear additives. There are tons of flat tappet engines out there running just fine on modern oil. Sure there are some that turn the cam into a broomstick, but that was not unheard of even when off the shelf oil had lots of zinc.

What Rob said.

And that was one of the reasons for roller rockers in the days of higher zinc oils. Longevity by reducing/eliminating cam/tappet wiping type wear.

And since zinc was reduced in modern oils (I believe it was reduced, not completely eliminated), the valve spring tensions have not been reduced to compensate. The oil companies just switched to a different additive to take the place of zinc. And engines are not eating cam lobes and tappets as a result.

Paul

I don't worry about this kind of stuff much anymore. I buy rotella by the drum and use it in everything I own. Probably just because it's there. I think I only have three flat tappet engines, a Mack e n d t 676, a 350 Chevy small block, and a flathead Continental on my welder. Unless you count some small engines that's the only three. It's been quite a few years of using the rotella and no problems.

It seems to work in my Cummins, Detroit, Deutsch, Perkins, and my later model roller cam gasoline engines also.

I see lots of people get all wrapped up in oil specifications, but fail to take care of real problems like leaky air cleaner ductwork, and greasing the chassis and drivetrain.

Really I find that just using any oil that meets the manufacturer's specification is best, even though for my own stuff I just get lazy and use my drum of rotella.

pintoplumber wrote: ↑

Thu. Dec. 03, 2020 11:53 am

I have a bottle of the zinc additive, sometimes I’ll put some in. Ted Eaton, the engine builder in Texas says the Valvoline 10w40 has enough zinc in it. He builds a lot of Y block engines, so I trust him. A couple years ago he won the vintage engine class at Engine Masters competition with a Y block. Dennis

I believe Valvoline still has their VR1 ? racing oil in 10W40 with higher ZDDP levels, that many use. All the x W 40 oils had higher zinc levels until the SN rating came along. Now the SP stuff for the cylinder wash down DI engines. They dropped to levels found in lighter weights. Maybe 800-850 ppm. Many say that's good enough for stock configuration flat tappet engines except for break ins. I used to add some ZDDP additive on a change in my '82 slant 6 but stopped. I've seen some tests where it actually reduced load ratings in oil, maybe due to the other anti wear additives used today. Bike oils are still chock full of ZDDP for shared sumps or not and diesel oils also that were mentioned.

Honda recommends a 10-30 in the Goldwing and from the extensive arguments on the forums it can be any old 10-30. Most, even the most ardent Mother Honda fans agree. But don't try to convince them to use a 10-40 or a 5-30 or 40.......I mention that because it is a shared sump engine....and I don't conform to the norm. 5-40 Shell Rotella T-6 in everything I own.

Kevin

I get a kick out of how a lot of these quick lube places buy line wash and pass it off as more or less any kind of oil the customer says they want.

Line wash is all motor oil, but it is what comes out when the blenders and packages of oil flush their lines when they change product. It's kind of like if you walked down the aisle in the auto section of Walmart with a 5 gallon pail and filled it by just dumping random quarts of motor oil in the pail.

Not that it's contaminated, or unclean or anything, but the viscosity and the additives could be anything, or any mix of additives.

The only engine I had fail that could be called oil related was a 4.7 mini Hemi that I let the dealership change the oil for the first 4 changes. That one failed just before the warranty ran out, I have no idea what they put in it even tho I paid extra for the Synthetic which from them was supposed to be Castrol. I do my own like I did before that engine.

Kevin

KLook wrote: ↑

Tue. Dec. 08, 2020 9:06 pm

The only engine I had fail that could be called oil related was a 4.7 mini Hemi that I let the dealership change the oil for the first 4 changes. That one failed just before the warranty ran out, I have no idea what they put in it even tho I paid extra for the Synthetic which from them was supposed to be Castrol. I do my own like I did before that engine.

Kevin

I grew up in a garage/machine shop and I've been involved in some kind of truck, heavy equipment, industrial equipment repair for probably 50 years, I think 43 years full time.

Hiring mechanics now is really hard, there's just not a lot of good candidates out there. It's not like it used to be back in the day when kids worked on mini bikes, go karts, dirt bikes and stuff since the time they were kids.

Dealerships used to get pretty good guys and train them decent and they paid pretty good so the guys would stick around for years and really get to know their stuff about that manufacturer's equipment. Now they're just like everybody else, it's a revolving door

You used to meet guys at the dealership that have been there 20 or 30 years, now it's more like two or three years and then they're gone

Just like the kids we hired to do labor and learn how to build a house......1 or 2 years and they were experts and working for whatever poor sap hired them.

Kevin

Yeah that's the one that gets me with all this green New deal stuff. We're going to have all this green infrastructure all kinds of super high-speed mass transit systems, tear down every building and replace it with a new energy efficient structure etc etc etc.

Who is it they think is going to do all this work,? They call someone with a light burns out. If you try to walk them through shutting off a valve or resetting a circuit breaker over the phone the entire time you feel like you're beating your head against the wall.

they can't even begin to maintain what we have in infrastructure, and they're going to build new better stuff. I ain't holding my breath