Flat tappet cam life

[CSX 4027]

Originally Posted by Excaliber

Racing oils arent detergent and will lead to some nasty buildup of 'crud' in your engine unless you change it really often. We change it every race in the Formula Ford cars.

One guy ran the racing oil in his tow truck. Whew, what a mess it made of his engine!

The tech dept at Brad Penn will clear up the build up issues. They don't have them with their racing oils. But, they will save your flat tappet motor.

[Wayne Maybury]

According to the links above, GTX has .12% of zinc. Just about right!

Actually you have identified the exact problem. If you look at that site, it states something like "based on current SH specs". Since then the spec has been changed to SJ, then SL and now to SM. It is the SM spec oil that has the reduced amount of ZDDP in it. Look at the label on the back side of an oil container and if it meets the API SM spec, you will also see a "sunburst" icon which I believe indicates that it is environmentally friendly, or whatever.

It is this SM spec oil that we have to worry about.

Wayne

[427 S/O]

I've been using rotella for a number of years, remember reading it had far more cleaning and lubricating agents than the other brands. I also add a 1/2 cup of MoS2 or, molybdenum every second oil change. a chemist with Dow corning explained the benefits, short of typing my ass off, look it up.

[Ron61]

Not to start an argument, but I will just stick with the STP. After using it for 20+ years with no problems I am to old to start trying everything that is recommended, and any company I call their's is the only one that will work according to them. I have used it in every engine from 4 cylindes to all out racing 427 tunnel ports and have never had a problem or found any deposits or problems when an engine had to be torn down. In fact a couple of the engine builders commented on how clean the regular driver engines were inside after all those miles.

Ron