Which motor oil are you using?

[acmjg]

VR-1 20/50 for me too.

[trularin]

Mobil 1, 15w - 50

[Keithc8]

Hate to tell you but the Mobile is not near what it used to be. It has had to change to meet the requirements of the new cars as well. The heavier weight oils are a little better. You better not break in a flat tappet camshaft that has any spring pressure at all on this other stuff.
I am just telling people that there is a difference in the oil now and they have all changed in the last 10 years. All of the cup teams us to run the Mobile but when they changed it to meet the new requirements starting in about 2000 they all had to change due to new wear problems.
I am just telling you the best oil that you can run in your engine. It is the same old story, I have used such and such for 25 years and it is the best there is. Well these are different times and most all of the oils of the shelf are junk for your high end engine. These are just facts that I am passing along.

Good luck, Keith

[zrayr]

Originally Posted by Keithc8

".......... These are just facts that I am passing along.

Good luck, Keith

with all due respect Keith, they are not facts, just merely your subjective opinion based on your experiences.

My subjective opinion, based on my experiences, is different than yours. I've not had wear issues with Mobil 1 15-50. Thousands of miles trouble free, most of it since 2005 with the "new" formulation of Mobil 1.

would be a boring world if we agreed on everything...

Z.

[CobraEd]

Originally Posted by zrayr

with all due respect Keith, they are not facts, just merely your subjective opinion based on your experiences.

My subjective opinion, based on my experiences, is different than yours. I've not had wear issues with Mobil 1 15-50. Thousands of miles trouble free, most of it since 2005 with the "new" formulation of Mobil 1.

would be a boring world if we agreed on everything...

Z.

Just because an engine has not worn out does not mean that the Mobil 1 in question had the same amount of ZDDP as it did earlier. Keith is correct, Mobil 1 15 - 50 DOES NOT have as much ZDDP as it once did. That is not anyones opinion, that is a fact that Mobil 1 has stated many times.

Most engines can still run fine with it though for hundreds of thousands of miles. That point does not speak to the levels of ZDDP for the average engine.


.

[Ant]

Originally Posted by zrayr

with all due respect Keith, they are not facts, just merely your subjective opinion based on your experiences.

My subjective opinion, based on my experiences, is different than yours. I've not had wear issues with Mobil 1 15-50. Thousands of miles trouble free, most of it since 2005 with the "new" formulation of Mobil 1.

would be a boring world if we agreed on everything...

Z.

Experience counts but it all depends on your application road engine or road race engine, I think most of us realise that modern motor oils are lower on Zinc, and oil companies have listened to the performance car sector and the camshaft break in and wear problems and have designed oils to suit.

There seems to be a great emphasis on lighter weight oils rather than what the oil package is, why would you use a modern catalytic compliant oil, which is lower in zinc when you can buy a number of oils recommended for flat tappet old style performance engines from oil companies.

Just for interest I read through the GM LS7 Crate engine start up instructions on the net, and they dont recommend synthetic oils like Mobil 1 until you have done some break in work and after one preferrably two oil changes on mineral oil.

[Quik289]

Originally Posted by Keithc8

Hate to tell you but the Mobile is not near what it used to be. It has had to change to meet the requirements of the new cars as well. The heavier weight oils are a little better. You better not break in a flat tappet camshaft that has any spring pressure at all on this other stuff.
I am just telling people that there is a difference in the oil now and they have all changed in the last 10 years. All of the cup teams us to run the Mobile but when they changed it to meet the new requirements starting in about 2000 they all had to change due to new wear problems.
I am just telling you the best oil that you can run in your engine. It is the same old story, I have used such and such for 25 years and it is the best there is. Well these are different times and most all of the oils of the shelf are junk for your high end engine. These are just facts that I am passing along.

Good luck, Keith

Keith, Thanks for taking the time to tell us about real world experience and results with the new oil formulations which are light on ZDDP. Your advice is well taken (and wear observations interesting). Please don't forget to update the information in the excellent "Pedigree Packet" that comes with each of your engines. I recently took delivery of a SBF from you for my Cobra, and I believe the information you provided basically says to break it in on 10W-30 or 10W-40 mineral before considering a switch to synthetic, and nothing more. It makes me a little nervous to think that following that advice might not cover me as the oil I used was not Joe Gibbs (I used Rotella mineral spec'd for diesels to have enough break in additives). Admittedly the engine I bought will not see much, if any, track time, but I'm looking forward to checking those HP and torque curves that you provided with some real world driving once the weather clears.

Enjoyed the tour of your facility. Lots of interesting work going on there.

[Sal Gerace]

Valvoline RACING 20-50w along with ZDDP additive. Engine builder recomendation

[Slither]

I would rather have zinc in my oil than not. But yes, I am running a flat-tappet cam!

[Rick Parker]

I have in the past use Kendall GT1, originally 15-40, most lately 10-40. However most recently due to the reformulating and reduction of the Zinc and Phosphorus I have added some EOS from GM. Next time I'll be using Brad Penn or Joe Gibbs oil. I began using Kendall while racing high winding 4cylinder engines years ago. It was chosen becazuse they had an excellent anti foaming package. That may have changed.

[CobraEd]

They say it can minimize piston skirt scuffing too.


.

[ZOERA-SC7XX]

As long as you aren't racing, any quality oil will be fine (in my opinion).

[Keithc8]

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

[RodKnock]

Originally Posted by Keithc8

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

Cool! I use Joe Gibbs Conventional 15W-50 Hot Rod oil.

[undy]

Originally Posted by RodKnock

Cool! I use Joe Gibbs Conventional 15W-50 Hot Rod oil.

Rod- Which one do you run, XP1??

Oops.. found the answer after reading a bit more.

I guess it's time for a paradigm shift... Looks like I'll be ordering some Jo Gibbs oil in the near future.

[madmaxx]

The difference in viscosity between 50wt, 40wt and 30wt is neglible at 212F. For example 50wt is 23cst, 40wt 16 cst and 30wt 11 cst. On the cold side however there is huge difference, 600 cst, 400 cst, 300 cst at 32F. Use any and it will work. Advantage of the 15w50 is it has high zinc and phosphorous, but you can get the redline break in additive and get what every you want. If I was going to have hard track days the 15w50 would be the choice, anything else 30 or 40 with the additive.

[RodKnock]

The Joe Gibbs Conventional Hot Rod Oil only comes in 10W-30 or 15W-50. I chose 15W-50, since I live in CA and rarely drive, er, I mean, drive in cold weather.

[madmaxx]

Mobil 1 15w 50 does not meet the SJ rating and therefore has the added zinc and phosphorous. Zinc and Phosphorous kill emission components, cat converters etc. You will also notice Royal Purple does not meet them either.

[CobraEd]

Originally Posted by madmaxx

Mobil 1 15w 50 does not meet the SJ rating and therefore has the added zinc and phosphorous. Zinc and Phosphorous kill emission components, cat converters etc. You will also notice Royal Purple does not meet them either.

Royal Purple states that if you want the added ZDDP, use their "racing" oil which is the same but with added ZDDP. I use their regular street oil and add my own ZDDP.


.

[fordracing65]

Like my grandpa said. "If we all liked the same thing , we would all want to sleep with grandma."