DaveBonds
Garage Trash
After discovering that my daily driver, '92 Cherokee ran the AMC flat tappet hydraulic cam/ lifter arrangement, the first thing that I did was search for a roller set, because I am not thrilled with the price and availability of oils containing the correct amount of zinc, phosphorus, other metals and detergents. I have yet to find a roller cam, and I'm beginning to wonder if these engines simply don't have the room for a link. At any rate, I'm stuck with zinc and phosphorus fortified oil.
If you run a racing oil off the shelf, like VR1 by Valvoline, specifically that is sold at auto parts suppliers, instead of Wal-Mart, they are void of detergents, but have the right amount of other additives for flat tappet sets. You need some detergents, but even Rotella T and other diesel graded oils are now running lower than 1000ppm of Zinc and Phosphorus, which is not really adequate. I'm also not thrilled with 15w40 in an engine that calls for 10w30, especially in the winter.
So I started looking for a cheaper alternative than running the synthetic blend Penn Grade 1, at $98 for a 12qt box, which will get me a little over 2 changes and puts me over $50 for an oil change on my daily driver.
I stumbled upon some data, from Southwest Research labs, regarding Lucas Oil's break in oil and found some interesting numbers.
Lucas Break In Oil SAE30w has around 5500ppm of Zinc and around 6000ppm of Phosphorus. that is roughly 5x the amount, adequate to run on a regular basis, in a flat tappet system, even under high spring pressures.
The sufficient amount of zinc that you want to shoot for is right in the range of 1100-1400ppm and more importantly, Phosphorus at around 1000-1300ppm. If you climb any higher, the galvanic properties of the metals, especially the zinc, will actually rust the block and can corrode bronze and brass parts, like your distributor shaft bushing, etc.
Summit Racing carries this stuff at right around $20 per 5qt container, which means that if you cut a 5qt container of your choice of crude, synthetic or blended oil with 1qt replaced with this stuff, it bumps the price of your oil change about $2-3 ($4 per change x5 minus the cost of one of the quarts in the 5qt container you save for the next change, or top off), which is about half the cost of most oils that have sufficient detergents and metals, to run on the street.
The Lucas break-in oil has no detergents, so it also inherently lowers the level of detergent in the conventional oil, down to a reasonable level.
One of the 5qt containers sold by summit and used as a replacement quart/ additive in conventional oil will last 5 changes, which on average, will go longer than an entire year's worth of changes, if you change your oil every 3000mi or 3months, which should be done on oils that have heavy metals in the additive packs, because they use them up. New oils can go longer, because they don't have these, because the engines don't need them.
Anyway, I thought I'd pass this bit of knowledge on to everyone here, seeing as how running modern oil for our flat tappet engines has become a damaging and costly concern, these days.
If you read up on Lucas' website, it says that the oil can be used as a suppliment to prevent premature engine wear, but what sold me was the extremely elevated levels of metals in the oil that allows it to be used at a sufficient additive/ single quart replacement.
If you run a racing oil off the shelf, like VR1 by Valvoline, specifically that is sold at auto parts suppliers, instead of Wal-Mart, they are void of detergents, but have the right amount of other additives for flat tappet sets. You need some detergents, but even Rotella T and other diesel graded oils are now running lower than 1000ppm of Zinc and Phosphorus, which is not really adequate. I'm also not thrilled with 15w40 in an engine that calls for 10w30, especially in the winter.
So I started looking for a cheaper alternative than running the synthetic blend Penn Grade 1, at $98 for a 12qt box, which will get me a little over 2 changes and puts me over $50 for an oil change on my daily driver.
I stumbled upon some data, from Southwest Research labs, regarding Lucas Oil's break in oil and found some interesting numbers.
Lucas Break In Oil SAE30w has around 5500ppm of Zinc and around 6000ppm of Phosphorus. that is roughly 5x the amount, adequate to run on a regular basis, in a flat tappet system, even under high spring pressures.
The sufficient amount of zinc that you want to shoot for is right in the range of 1100-1400ppm and more importantly, Phosphorus at around 1000-1300ppm. If you climb any higher, the galvanic properties of the metals, especially the zinc, will actually rust the block and can corrode bronze and brass parts, like your distributor shaft bushing, etc.
Summit Racing carries this stuff at right around $20 per 5qt container, which means that if you cut a 5qt container of your choice of crude, synthetic or blended oil with 1qt replaced with this stuff, it bumps the price of your oil change about $2-3 ($4 per change x5 minus the cost of one of the quarts in the 5qt container you save for the next change, or top off), which is about half the cost of most oils that have sufficient detergents and metals, to run on the street.
The Lucas break-in oil has no detergents, so it also inherently lowers the level of detergent in the conventional oil, down to a reasonable level.
One of the 5qt containers sold by summit and used as a replacement quart/ additive in conventional oil will last 5 changes, which on average, will go longer than an entire year's worth of changes, if you change your oil every 3000mi or 3months, which should be done on oils that have heavy metals in the additive packs, because they use them up. New oils can go longer, because they don't have these, because the engines don't need them.
Anyway, I thought I'd pass this bit of knowledge on to everyone here, seeing as how running modern oil for our flat tappet engines has become a damaging and costly concern, these days.
If you read up on Lucas' website, it says that the oil can be used as a suppliment to prevent premature engine wear, but what sold me was the extremely elevated levels of metals in the oil that allows it to be used at a sufficient additive/ single quart replacement.
