Brad Penn oil, Anyone useing it

Mr.FT said
After reading on this thread, that there was a chance that Valvoline lowered their ppm of zinc and phosphorus in their VR 1 racing oil, I was a little concerned since I run this oil All might flat tappet engines. So today I called Valvoline customer support and spoke with the" technician", who informed me that the ppm in the VR 1 racing oil has not been changed in the past at least 15 years. It still contains 1400 ppm Zink and 1300 ppm phosphorus. They also sent me this spec sheet on the oil which I have included in my post. I'm not trying to start any arguments or hijack any threads, that's a last thing I would want to do. Brad Penn and Valvoline are both IMO fine oils.

Interesting. I wonder why it has an API rating of SM then, because that would usually indicate a lower zinc level than that. I haven't talked to Valvoline or anything, but an SM rated oil typically has half that amount of zinc. Usually you want something that's at least SL or SJ rated, and the 10-40 VR1 oil isn't. At least not the stuff I can get at the local auto store. Maybe the API just changed the way they rated it a few years back. The info that I had was simply based on the rating, but I've seen it brought up more than a few times in regard to VR1's zinc level. The spec sheet obviously shows that it has plenty of zinc for flat tappet engines.

Guide to API rating info...

[ame="http://www.api.org/certifications/engineoil/categories/upload/motor_oil_guide_2010_120210.pdf"]http://www.api.org/certifications/engineoil/categories/upload/motor_oil_guide_2010_120210.pdf[/ame]