I may set down and try to do a more extensive write up on this
oil deal. It is way more important than most people understand. I see people put all of this money into an engine than just use what ever their buddys says will work.
This has changed so much just in the last 10 years that it is unreal. The Mobile 15W50
synthetic that you ran in your engine in 1998 is nothing like what they have today and you can thank the EPA and having to make the converter last 120,000 miles under warranty. Every two years the
oil companies have had to take the
Zinc, it is a little more complicated than that out of the
oil and then add more detergent. These two work against each other in a battle for the base metal of your engine parts. The EPA has set even newer standards for these oils including the diesel oils. The deisel oils now have even more detergent than the cars oils and not much
zinc either. This all because of the new emmision laws that were put on diesels in the last 3 years.
There are no good oils that have the little circle stamp which I believe reads NPI approval or something like that. This is most every oil on the shelf and they are made for 2010 cars and not your high perforamnce pushrod engine. They test these oils for wear and durabiltiy on three test engine, two have over head camshaft with no pushrods and very little spring pressure and the other test engine being a GM V6 that has .330 max lift and 212 open spring pressure. So you see they are tested on engines that have spring pressure that are a joke.
What all this means is that all of these oils are junk for most of our engines. I am to the point that if my customers do not use one of the Jo Gibbs special blend of oils I will not warranty them. Everyone complains about the price of this oil and it is about 8.00 to 15.00 a quart. I think about how many times most people will change the oil on their toy. If they did it every 3000 miles or once a year they would be lucky to do 20 oil changes in most cases with any of these cars. Lets say 9 quarts of the ****ty stuff at 7.00 quart so that is 63.00 and at 14.00 for the best
Synthetic like we run in our race car you have 126.000. So I spend 63.00 more a change but I feel that it will work much longer than the 3000 miles that I would be scarded to run the other stuff so 20 times 63 is what 1260.00 and that is over a 60,000 miles or 20 years but really it will be about 5 years or 10 changes at the most so now you are at about 600.00 difference on the oil.
I look at the bearings, rings, lifters, cam lobes, spring life, cylinder wear and nothing else compares to the Jo Gibbs oil. I get tired of telling people what I know about this stuff and they look at you like you are crazy.
You put a good quality right
zinc in your oil and very little detergent and you build a smooth coating on all of the metal parts that let them slide and move across each other with out galding or scuffing. As the zinc is heated is attracted to the metal like an magnet. The cup guys heat there oil up to about 250 degrees on a new engine before they start it so the zinc will go to work right away.
We are no working on heating the oil up in each engine that we dyno and break in before we start them. This will give the best break in and this is the biggest point of the engines life. It does not matter if is a flat tappet, hydraulic or sollid roller they all need the zinc and less detergent. Your new lifters wear on the rollers that are in them, your rocker arm roller tip wears on the valve, your oil pump that has gears that wear, timing set, bearings, rings and the list goes on.
Know you tell me why having the right oil matters. You better know the vecosity that you need for your engine bearings clearances as well. I have only touch on the tip of the iceburg here. The politicians do not give a **** what works in your older car or Hot Rod, matter of fact they probably like the fact that your older engines does not like this new **** oil. It is fine for your 2009 truck or the wifes Suburban or what ever but they do not have the spring presssure or run at the rpms that we do with most of these engines. Cheapest insurance that you can get. Just took a customer's dirt Modified engine apart that keeps very good records on. It is a Chevy engine that is 417C.I. 18 degree head roller engine with 14 to one compression that makes 720HP. He turns this engine about 8000 to 8500 rpms depending on the track. He used the Jo Gibbs oil the complete time in this engine and we normally take them down at about 1500 laps. He said Keith it is running to well, springs check great, the oberge filter is always clean. I said do not be mad at me if this things grenades. 2000 laps later he found a small piece of broken valve spring in the oberge filter. Out is came and we could not believe the condition that it was in. You could have ran the bearings again. The cylinders cleaned up on .001 hone, never seen that before. The oil did its job. The Jo Gibbs oil is what the cups guys were getting about 9 years ago but it was not available to us. They had it special formulated for them and they had such good luck with it and won three champion ships with it when other teams were losing engines and lifters. Most all of the teams now run this oil. They even have guys that pore the oil out of the cans from their sponsors and pore this in.
They came to market with it about 5 years ago and I have been using in my personal race engines and in my Cobra as well. But 99 percent of the time a tell a customer about it he has his own special oil that he has used for 30 years. these oils were good about 14 years ago but they have gone to crap since then. I run these engines on the dyno every day and have for about 25 years and have sen the results of this standard oil. We have lost zero flat tappet lobes since we started using the Jo Gibbs break in oil and then going to one of their other oils for your application. Have flat tappet cams that we now run over 200lbs on the seat and 500lbs open and they live.
You do what you want it is your engine but in the future my customers will be using the Jo Gibbs or they will not get any help from me when they mess up ther engine. this may be only way I know to make them understand how bad the current oils have gotten. Most other Race oils are not much better. Your Vavoline and others still have only about half the zinc and twice the detergents as the Jo Gibb oil. They also have some great trans and rear end greases.
I will see if I can get more detailed information that what I covered here. Just google Jo Gibbs racing oil and you will probably find some good reading. We keep it in stock and use it in both
synthetic and a non synthetic version for a lot of the older cars. This Hot rod oil is neat in that it is intended for cars that do not get driven a lot. The oil has additive that help it cling or hold to the metal so that your parts are not dry on start up when most wear happen. If you would be interested in more information on this stuff feel free to call me at 870-246-7460. I just know what I know about this oil stuff right now. I can not say what Red Line, Royal Purple and some of these others have but give me an example and I can find out. May be able to make a call and find out. You paid a lot for your special engine so treat it that way.
Thanks, Keith Craft