Let’s not reinvent the wheel here. This is all you need
Recommended by both John Cope and Rick from A&A
Recommended by both John Cope and Rick from A&A
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SB 727 fluid question
- Thread starter mad dog
- Start date
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With your intended use, emphasis on protecting your investment, and cost no object, I would use a fluid that meets Allison TES-688. It's a super heat stable, ester synthetic Dexron III. You'll probably have to contact a Shell distributor, or find an online vendor who'll ship it to you. It will be expensive. It's available from other manufacturers. The TES-688 spec is the important thing.
This is a screenshot of a PDF I downloaded. I'm not sure how well it will post. If you can't read it, I can send it to you via PM.
as we all did and do.
I've been known to use tractor fluid and add a Qt of 10w30 to whatever fluid I'm using
if that's the case, then why wouldn't you put in it what the guy who did the work recommended?
you trusted him enough to do the trans and drop $2500 why not trust his expertise on what fluid to run?
as an aside, i'll tell you this: if i did that work, and i said run [name brand, type, specific] fluid and you came back with a failure or unhappy in any way the first thing i'd ask is what fluid did you run? and if your answer was anything except what i recommended? or you said: well, i asked on an internet forum... and they said to run [blank]...
my response would be: well, ask your internet forum to help you fix it then if they know so much.
If a product far superior to Maxlife was used, that sure would give the guy a convenient way to weasel out of the responsibility of building junk.
i see your point, however my question still remains: if i entrust somebody to do work for me, why wouldn't i take their advice on the care and feeding?
like if i built something for you, told you what fluid to put in and you ran something else and you rolled it back all blowed up... i'm going to assume that you didn't heed the rest of my advice like how to properly install the torque converter, how to fill it or set up and adjust the kickdown, etc.
i understand and appreciate that there are more and better products out there, but why go against the advice of the person who you trusted to do the high dollar work in the first place?
That assumes the guy building whatever it is has done testing on all the oils out there.
I can tell you very few people test oil. Any oil because it costs like a **** to do it correctly.
I can’t tell you how many guys I’ve seen test engine oil without using a flush oil.
I was taught it takes 9 pulls on the A and B oil to make sure (even with a flush oil) that any residual oil (and it’s additive package that remains is used up) you have enough pulls to throw out the high and low pulls and do an accurate average.
And you need at least 3 pulls on the flush oil.
Which means if you are testing one oil (a A-B -A test protocol) you need 18 pulls on the A oil and 9 pulls on the B oil and you’ll need at least 5 filters plus the flushing oil.
And that’s if you are testing just one oil against your base oil.
You can burn through a TON of oil, filters and dyno time sorting it all out. And if the numbers don’t make sense you either say piss on it and give up or you start over and do it over again.
CHA-CHING. It adds up quick and you end up with a bunch of used oil when you get done that is useless.
A big testing failure is using an oil that should be a better oil as the A oil and not using a flush oil and then only making 3 pulls on the B oil.
A quality oil will eat up
5-6 pulls before you use up the residual A oil left in the engine.
I got paid to watch some Comp Eliminator oil testing and they did everything wrong. So the oils being tested both looked the same and the cheaper oil was proclaimed as good as the expensive oil.
I will tell you the B oil was an oil that was loaded with chlorine, which is nasty crap. The interesting thing about chlorine is it looks damn good for the first 3 pulls. By the fifth pull the power started falling. By the ninth pull it was down something like 30 hp at 8800 rpm.
And it would etch the needle bearings in the rockers and lifters. Shortly after that, you start shitting lifters and rockers faster than you can replace them.
That’s why I got paid by the engine builder to go look at what they were doing because his engines were failing on his dyno and on third party dyno’s. He did his testing wrong too.
At any rate, the cheaper oil looked as good as the expensive oil at first blush, but had they had the correct protocol they would have figured out right quick they had bad data.
So no, I don’t give a crap what a builder says most of the time. Especially when the say the cheaper oil is as good as a real, Group IV/V oil with a modern additive package then I know if they claimed they did the testing that they did it wrong.
so you built a motor for somebody, recommended a specific oil and they ran it and blew it up. they show back up at your shop and you ask what oil they ran and they say xyz, and not what you recommended what's your reply?
I think it's a good idea to use the fluid the builder suggests.
He put his name on the build.
He put his name on the build.
I'll stick with VR1, not the Torco you recommend. I won't chance it.
You need to clarify your question.
You say they ran the oil I said and it blew up.
Then you said they used xyz oil and not the oil I recommended.
I’ll say this. It’s rare to see a catastrophic engine failure due to oil. It’s rare, but it happens.
One big mistake is using a true synthetic oil with alcohol. That’s usually a bad combination.
What you do see is power loss, less ring seal so less blow by, less time on valve springs (that’s a HUGE one) and generally a shorter TBO or time between overhaul.
And the false notion that cheaper oil is better because it’s changed more often.
All engines and by that I mean ALL ENGINES run on used oil. All of them.
Let’s just say that we ignore the output of the pump because it’s rpm and clearance related. But let’s use a wild number. Let’s say that the oil is in a “used” condition after 100 miles.
That is clearly longer than it takes to make 5 quarts of oil get through the system more than 50 times.
Being generous, we can say that after 100 miles both oils are now considered used. If you change your oil every 3k miles you’ve just run 2,900 miles on used oil.
A quality synthetic will be the better oil out of the bottle, after 100 miles and certainly after 8,000 miles.
So oil change regimes are a silly way of fooling yourself into thinking a cheap assed, outdated oil is good because it’s changed more often.
The lies we tell ourselves are far more ridiculous than the lies other people tell us.
In other words, a cheap oil is a cheap oil no matter how often you change it.
Probably a smart thing to do.
this whole rambling mess reads like a post on a website where they modified a recipe: i didn't have top round so i substituted ground turkey and even though the recipe didn't call for yogurt i put in some to make it creamy along with extra chile flakes and now it's totally inedible and my husband won't eat my cooking anymore and i had to buy door dash to feed the family
the question wasn't even about oil, but way to see the forest and pick out an ax handle
Then buy the cheapest axe handle you can. I don’t care.
You will never be convinced that there is better oil out there than what some transmission builder says because he likely never tested it.
Do you know how many engine builders actually test oil?
The answer is not many. Probably less than 5%. But they all have their pet oil they use because it’s never “failed” them.
Anecdotal nonsense has replaced testing because it’s cheaper.
It’s no different than engine builders who don’t test their engines bug make great claims to power output.
Advertising beats testing any day.
When I need an axe handle I’ll ask you which one is best.
thank you for obliging.
You guys couldn't agree on a shared pizza order.. 
Johnny Dart
Well-Known Member
Not sure how many times someone can tell you ATF+4.
But that is what Chrysler recommends for their transmission's, new and old. So I will say it again ATF+4. As far as manufacturer ? Well that has been answered already as well.
Are you waiting for someone to get blue in the face ? ATF+4.
Yup. Any time. You still don’t know jack **** about oil but you think you do.
Carry on.
annddddd that's what you take away from the exchange?
i never said i knew jack **** about oil.
but keep on living in your little fiefdom there, king.
Are you jealous? It would seem so.
i was desperately trying to hide that fact, but alas, you've exposed me!
Dang, you guys out west was partyin' last night!
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