Too much ZDDP eats the bearing surfaces and makes them brittle.
Summit Racing oil
- Thread starter 70Duster340
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it will also eat your teeth and turn them yellow. lol
Bakerlite
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We had this old clunker at Hotrod Drag Week for years and years, hardly laid a spanner on it. It liked to use a little oil and to be honest we just put in it whatever was cheap at the Gas station. That car did a lot of 11.5 passes and lots of Miles.
When it finally got shipped back here, I freshened up the engine and I was surprised how good the engine was on tear down.
When it finally got shipped back here, I freshened up the engine and I was surprised how good the engine was on tear down.
Scody21
Just send it
Penn Grade or Gibbs.
can get Penn grade from Oregon Cam for about 100 bucks for 12 quarts.
Penn is all my brother uses now in the vintage Ford Cosworth Formula 1 and F2 motors he builds which are all OHC flat tappet motors with a red line of a 10,000 RPM’s. I won’t say what a rebuild cost is for one of these but it is more than the value of most of our A-bodies…
can get Penn grade from Oregon Cam for about 100 bucks for 12 quarts.
Penn is all my brother uses now in the vintage Ford Cosworth Formula 1 and F2 motors he builds which are all OHC flat tappet motors with a red line of a 10,000 RPM’s. I won’t say what a rebuild cost is for one of these but it is more than the value of most of our A-bodies…
But still, until I see it with my own EYE, LOL and experience it, it's simply someone's opinion. That's what they call those type papers. Opinion.
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
Zddp is a high pressure lubricant. Stiff valve springs and super/turbocharging are where a lack of it will cause issues.
After a modest engine is broken in, it probably would live a plenty long life at the standard 800ppm most modern oils have. A super high lift solid cam engine would probably need more. A circle track engine could probably use more just due to the longer times spent higher in the rev range. Necessary? Maybe not..
The thing is, if you change the oil often enough, even pretty radical engines would probably live with low zinc. It gets "used up" during the high pressure cycles, and is slowly depleting. If you change oil each weekend, you're unlikely to run out.
But put in too much zddp, run it with a shitty hydraulic cam with puny springs, rev the engine in your driveway twice a year and put it away at 95F coolant temps, you're likely to have more issues than the guy running whatever was on sale at Walmart. Then again, if changed super frequently, one probably wouldn't have many issues other than smooth bores and higher oil consumption.
Everything is relative and application dependant.
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
Read the link I posted. A notable oil expert explains a situation with a race crew who had an actual issue that was notable enough they wanted it fixed. Oil consumption went up, which always reduces power, when they upped the zddp too far. They brought it down, ran some high detergent oil for a while and the problem reversed course before permanent damage was done.
It's credible enough for me, Ymmv ;)
Bakerlite
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Yep.
You probably have seen it in old dirty oil engines, you just didn't know what caused the premature wear. I know I didn't until it was pointed out to me when reading main and rod bearing wear.
My dad and uncle read every part of an engine after teardown, engines ran in every condition one could think of.
Muchas grassy ***. I will read it when I'm not surfin and doin other stuff.
It's entirely possible.
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
I hear that. I'm sitting in a bar at the *** end of nowhere and my connection dies whenever the server goes past.. Lol.
As long as she's hot, that's totally acceptable.
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
I wouldn't use that descriptor, but she keeps bringing beer so it's all good ;)
Well you know what they say. The more you drink, the better lookin they get.
33IMP
Well-Known Member
Do you mean the Pennzoil 50 wt? It is AT LEAST 20 years old, fresh as the day it was made, and both cases were a gift from a friend, who retired his twin 454 powered 100mph ski boat. (He won ski races from Catalina to Long Beach, but got old, and had too many broken bones to continue....)
I know what you're saying.
Rat Bastid
Dunamis Metron
Did that article say how much zinc was in that oil? I’ve seen pretty big losses of power with too much ZDDP but I’ve never seen any real damage from it. It had to be well over 2000 PPM I would guess. Of course, who knows how many PPM you end up with if you just dump an additive to the oil.
Rat Bastid
Dunamis Metron
Lol...then you have to go and test it. It’s not cheap to do it correctly.
You need the base oil (A oil) you are testing. Then before you run the B oil for testing you have to run a cleaning oil. There is an expensive oil some people use but there is other options. I’ll see if I can find in my notes the name of the clean oil and what else they use. Once you do all that, you can test the B oil. Then, so you aren’t guessing you have to run the cleaner oil again and then you can go back and test your A oil again.
And then, THEN if your numbers don’t make sense you have to run the test again!!! BTDT. You can easily spend 2 full days on the dyno just testing one oil.
On top of that, you have to have a dyno operator who has a clue. Coolant and oil temps have to been controlled very close or the numbers will be off.
It’s a royal PITA to test oils. And very expensive. It can be worth it if you are careful and don’t let the data feed confirmation biases and such.
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately not. Just that too much causes excessive consumption. I assume because they were using an additive rather than a proper oil ready to go.
How much is "too much" seems to depend on the oil. More detergent, and the oil can deal with more zddp since the detergent helps strip the excess. But the tipping point between good and excess does seem to be in that 2000ppm range. Actual damage seems like it would take time to occur. The zddp clogging up the hone finish in the bore leading to skirt and ring wear - but it's still a dry lube, so it's not like taking oil away.
Seems like it could lead to increased cylinder wall temps and loss of effective ring sealing could probably eventually cause problems from combustion gasses creeping by, but that's just a guess.
Yes, that is the oil about which I first learned about the corrosive properties of excessive ZDDP.
In the late '80s, when the current API spec was SG, the GT 50 was labeled SD, an obsolete spec. I asked our tech rep, a chemical engineer, did it not meet current specs? He said it did, but it wasn't intended or desirable to be used in passenger cars because the high level of ZDDP was known to be corrosive in some situations. So, by labeling it racing only, not for passenger car use, and using an obsolete spec, it protected the company in the event of damage due to a misapplication.
Several years later, the racing oils were updated with the then current spec, reversing the policy. I think they were still labeled racing only. I didn't keep any of the documentation I had that would nail down the timeline because it was just old news. This was all before the ZDDP reductions started. Having the labeling and a date code would give me a reference point of a before or after date and help satisfy my curiosity. Sometimes the date code was on the box. OC23D translates to Oil City, March 23 1994 package date. Later codes were longer. Thanks.
Moparpuller
Well-Known Member
We ran joe Gibbs on an engine on the dyno then switched to cenpeco which is what we normally run and picked up 10hp with no other changes. Engine always looks great when it gets torn down
Rat Bastid
Dunamis Metron
Which Gibbs and which Cenpeco? Never heard of the second one.
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