Rhoads Lifters On Solid Lifter Cam - Setting Valve Lash
Thanks, yellow rose. Appreciate your opinion on this. Dino oil versus synthetic or synthetic blend is kinda like do you part your hair on the left side or the right side? Or do you just comb it straight back as I do?
My take on it from personal experience over a great many years is this......
As with anything else...... Just give your engine what it needs.
My wife has a 2013 model car that was designed for thinner weight full synthetic oil (internal clearances and seals). It was broken in on that and has always been run on it. Does fine.
However, we have had other cars (a 2003 model in particular) that were broken in on dino oils and after quite a few miles were put on the 2003, my old knees got to where I could no longer get up and down to do my own oil changes out in the driveway. So I reluctantly took the car to a shop we have used many years for mechanical repairs I was not set up to do here at home. Not one of the el cheapo oil change places where you never know if its done right nor if they stripped the drain plug, etc.
With good intentions, they put a semi-synthetic oil of same weight and brand (marketed as being formulated for 'high mileage' engines) in our 2003 car...... Which had always been run on dino oil. Within only a couple days, the engine in that car was smoking, burning oil and the seals were leaking oil on our driveway, as well.
So I took the car back to the shop and discovered what they had done. Seems their supplier at the time was pushing synthetics and semi-synthetics and they did not carry straight dino oil at all. So I worked out an arrangement with the owner of the shop...... I would bring my own oil and he would provide the filter and only charge me for filter and labour each time I brought him the car for an oil change. On that car, I always changed oil at 3,000 to 4,000 mile intervals. So on the 3rd day the semi-synthetic was in that car, I had him change oil again using dino oil I provided. The smoking, the increased oil consumption and the leaking engine seals improved and by the next oil change, the car was fine again. FWIW...... Our car was not the only one which this shop ran into problems with when changing over to a synthetic or semi-synthetic oil. So he now carries straight dino oil for those engines.
My point being...... If an engine is designed for synthetic and run on it from the get go...... Then it should do well on synthetic.
But if the car was not designed for synthetic and / or was run a great number of miles on dino oil...... You are rolling the dice if you take such a car and run synthetic in it even if you stay with the same weight oil it has always run. It might be fine...... Or it might react badly as our 2003 car did. You never know unless you try it.
The other thing is...... I want to drain the dirt and acids and other contaminants out of my crankcase at 3,000 - 4,000 mile intervals. Higher priced synthetic oil is only cost effective if you run it longer between oil changes. And I would never do that with an engine I cared anything about. There is a lot more going on inside an engine when it comes to oil than just lubricity. Even our 2013 car which runs full synthetic gets the oil changed at 5,000 mile intervals (dealer recommends 10,000 miles). Very important on direct injection engines as it helps avoid sludging up the crankcase and having to pull the head and clean hard, baked on carbon deposits off heads and valves and reassemble every 100,000 miles or so.
Bottom line...... The 3 engines my youngest son and I are putting together for my '62 Lancer and '57 Chevy and his '92 Camaro...... Will be run on dino oil. And nothing thinner than 10W40. As for my 360 MOPAR and 292 Chevy engines (these will have the Rhoads lifters)...... I will experiment with both valve lash and oil weight to see what they like best. Will begin with 10W40. But if it turns out that 20W50 works best with the Rhoads lifters, that is what they will get. I ran 20W50 summers and 10W40 winters in several of our cars over the years. No problems. Heck, in the hot Texas summers I have been known to mix straight 30 weight and 40 weight to make a 35 weight oil for our older and / or high mileage engines. Just depends on what they do best on. :)
Best regards,
Harry
I read through this, and since you were kind enough to post up a thoughful response, I wanted to do you the same turn. A response like yours DESERVES a thoughtful response. Pretty rare when you can articulate what you did so clearly in a few words. I wish I had the gift of brevity!! So here it goes.
There is no such thing as an engine that is designed for a synthetic or mineral oil. The bores are essentially all the same materiel. That's cast iron. I can suppose that some manufacturers may have gone to some form of nickel based coating on the bores, but even then, that shouldn't matter.
Piston rings are also in the same boat. There are relatively few ring materials in use today, and most engines come with a pretty dang nice ring package. Modern rings will pretty much seal under almost any conditions.
Oil, regardless of where it comes from MUST have additives to make it useful in a crankcase. SAE/API and whatever the euro and jap equivalents are set the minimum for what goes into an oil to make it an engine oil.
There are 5 groups of oils that make up base stocks. In the entire world except for this country (thanks to a bought and paid for Supreme Court that should be wiped out and reformed...but that is a different topic) only TWO of those base stock groups is synthetic. In this country, for the above mentioned illogical ignorance or negligence of SCOTUS, the US recognizes THREE base oils as synthetics.
While this doesn't seem to be a big deal, the reality is that is a HUGE deal. A HUGE deal because now, a company can sell a group III base oil as a synthetic, but it doesn't behave exactly as a synthetic.
Group III base oils are nothing but a highly re-refined mineral oil. That means you can use a Group III base oil on alcohol based fuels and not have an issue, whereas if you use Group IV or V base oils with alcohol base fuels you'll never get ring seal. This is just one of the confusing nightmares this crap has caused.
Ok, so why does this even matter? Because the base stock, how it's refined and how it may be mixed with other base oils will for a great part, determine what the additive package is and how that additive package is put together.
There is no such thing as an engine oil that doesn't have an additive package.
That includes (going off memory here, as I don't feel like dragging out my books to nail it all, but this should give an idea of what's in there) Viscosity Index Improvers (these are, as a general rule, long chain polymers that can take a 5 grade base oil and make it behave and flow like a 50 grade oil at 212 degrees), anti foam, anti corrosion agents, detergents, dispersants, dry film lubrication additives (this would be a full load or more of zinc as one example) and...dang I'm missing stuff, but you get the picture.
So...the base oil(s) and how they are refined and blended with other base oils (IMHO, the very BEST 100% synthetic oils out there are a blend of Group IV and V base oils, and the how tribologist blends the two groups and in what percentages will change what additives you use and at what percentages) will determine what additives are used beyond the set minimums of SAE/API. That's why you can have mineral oils at 4 bucks a quart up to 12 bucks a quart. And synthetics that start at about 7 bucks and go way over 20 bucks a quart (think I'm paying 22 a quart for that I use).
I typed all that to say this: you should be able to use any oil from any manufacturer and not have an issue. Synthetic or not. I can't say what happened to you, but any engine should be able to use any oil and not have a crisis.
When honing a cylinder, I never (and I don't know anyone else who does this either) based how I honed a cylinder based on what oil was going to be used. I was more concerned with what fuel was going to be used. Ring material establishes 95% percent of what the surface geometry should be, and fuel the rest.
Again, it doesn't really matter what name is on the valve cover, it won't know what oil you are using, as far as GRADE you are using. IOW's, you need to chose the GRADE of oil you want use, and THEN set your clearances accordingly. If you want to use a 20w50 (again, I'll never know why anyone at this time would chose that oil, but that's on the end user) then when setting your clearances, you had better be on the big side or over the .001 clearance per inch of diameter of shaft so you have some oil flow at a reasonable pressure. If you chose to use say, a 5w30 oil, then you can close up the clearances, have less oil slinging all over the place and reduce the oil consumption of the engine (meaning how many gallons/hour an engine needs) which are good things.
There is no such world where any engine, regardless of what era we consider (when I do a flat head Ford it gets set up for a 5w30 unless the customer just can get it) that can't benefit from a lower grade oil (grade meaning viscosity...there is no such thing as an oils "weight" even though it is said so much today as being de facto a correct statement) and the same engine can't benefit from a QUALITY 100% synthetic.
Drain intervals are abased upon the additive package, and not the base oil. A QUALITY synthetic base oil doesn't actually wear out. What happens is the additive package gets used up, or wears out and you need to change the oil.
That's another thing that separates cheap oil from QUALITY oils. The additive package and how much they use.
40k drain intervals is nothing for some oils and some oils are crap at 5k.
The point is, before you get married to a specific grade and/or formulation of oil, do a bit more research.
A QUALITY synthetic oil blended for a performance application in a what is considered a lesser grade is a much better investment than 1950's thinking.
Just my .02 on lubrication.
