What's the best oils for tappet cam engines?
Break in oil for break in, and a ZDDP flat tappet type oil for after break in. I've seen this scenario a number of times. Customer breaks in motor with break in oil. Then switches to ZDDP flat tappet oil. Then cheaps out and changes to what ever Wally Marts got on the shelf, and then the cam loses some lobes. Dozen + times over the years.
Not all synthetic oils are good for flat tappet motors either. Just like their conventional counter parts, some have a good ZDDP additive pkg some don't.
The diesel oils still have a fare ZDDP content, but they have a high detergent level which counteracts the ZDDP benefit to some extent.
I don't get why people still cheap out on something like an oil change. The extra $2 a qrt for a good ZDDP type oil like Valvoline VR1 is going to add a whopping 10 bucks to an average oil change. In the grand scheme of things car related its a drop in the bucket.
This ^^^
I don't like additives, because new oils have an insane percentage of detergent in the additive packs.
Detergents clean oil of carbon and other deposits to be left in the filter element.
This sounds fantastic, until you realize that the detergent doesn't discriminate against removing everything it can, including Zinc, Phosphorus, Copper, and the other metals used as anti-shearing and pressure protecting agents from the lobes of your cam, faces of your lifters, skirts of your pistons, crank journals and their bearings!
Didn't think it would suck to use ZDDP additive in a conventional oil off the shelf, with a good filter (I use Wix).
The stock, low lift, low spring pressure cam missing 3 of it's lobes that I found when I went to do a carb swap earlier this year thought otherwise.
NEVER AGAIN.
This engine was driven on the street and never raced. It was a higher milage engine, but it was in good tune. I'm convinced that the 70%+ detergent that is in additive packs today, murdered the cam. I couldn't imagine running multiple springs, high tension or high ramp/ high lift.
By the way, the laws were changed some time ago, regarding what is classified as a synthetic oil. If any oil is treated using the same refining process and certain additives, including ester as a minimal additive, it can be sold in the US, labeled as a synthetic oil.
I found this out a while ago, when I stopped using Mobil 1. Mobil 1 is NOT a true synthetic oil, delivered in the United States. It is in other countries, because the laws in other countries require a true synthetic base stock, rather than crude base stock to refine and blend.
If anyone here wants to know what's going on with the oil they prefer, I would urge you to visit
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/ and do some homework.
This is the oil I run, now. It's about $90 a case, which gets you 12qts.
http://www.penngrade1.com/Zinc.aspx
By the way, Kenall was bought out by Conoco a while ago. They kept the GT-One name, but Brad Penn's Penn-Grade 1 is the exact same oil as the original Kendall GT-One. It's made in the same refinery, even by the same people. I know this, because I spent about fifteen minutes at Hill Petroleum last month, talking to the Brad Penn divisional sales manager. They use about 25% detergent, which is exactly where you want to be with the additive pack for a street engine, running ANY kind of flat tappet cam, high performance or not.
The way I look at cost of operation is that it's cheaper for me to buy good quality oil, use a good quality filter that doesn't have insane amount of bypass, like Wix (Napa Gold is made by Wix as well) and keep from buying camshafts and keep my crank bearings from wearing camshaft on them. :)
If you are worried about running low on oil in the middle of nowhere, check into what's causing oil consumption, check your oil before you leave and keep a quart in the trunk of your car.