Quote:
Originally Posted by Formulajones
Wouldn't you like to know how the engine is doing with a particular oil though? Not curious at all??
Is 1200 ppm enough? Does it need that much? How do things look with 800 or 900 ppm?
I think very few people have actually went through the trouble and just use what they feel works. That's fine too.
I wonder how many people that claim their engines have been fine for 20 years actually drive their cars 10,000+ miles a year. I'm going to guess most here are lucky to put 2,000 miles a year on their classics. In which case I don't think it matters what oil they use, the engine will probably go 20 years without complaint. If I drove them that little I probably wouldn't much care either. At that rate and my age, I likely wouldn't need another rebuild anyway, lol.
We daily drive ours. I'm willing to bet I could count on one hand (maybe 2) the amount of people here that actually use a classic for daily transportation. We've put over 30k miles on our 69Z in the last 3 years alone since I put it back on the road, not including the others we use.
I'm not being argumentative, just curious and putting things in perspective. I'd really like to see an oil sample. I'd like to see more classics on the road more often too but that's just the old school in me.
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i agree sending in samples is a great way to know the health of the engine, but oil samples wont really tell you if 1200 zddp is enough or too much etc, it just shows the additive levels or if there is coolant in the oil or excessive fuel due to blow by etc. they cant tell you if your cam needs this much or that much zddp. oil samples have their purpose & was mainly for high mileage OTR trucks or fleet vehicles to see how their engines are doing for needing maintenance or for the few passenger car guys that want to know the things sample testing will show.
i also agree not many use their classics for daily driving, & for those that own more than one classic its hard to put that many miles on multiple cars, i have a hard time getting more than 2000 mmiles/year on 3 cars i own, just not practical to daily drive them to the grocery store or to get home & yard supplies etc, plus i dont know about you but i will NOT leave my classic car in a walmart parking lot or at a movie for a couple hours unattended! but even with ~2000 miles/year after a few years that mileage adds up quick, add in drag strip time & being driven hard on the street etc, if a cam were to fail due to oil, it would happen much sooner than later. & ive owned most my cars for 15-20 years, one is still original engine 301T, after 40 years the cam/lifter is running great with common oils. also you can drive year round in arizona & other warm climates... us midwestern, eastern & northern guys are lucky to get 6 months of driving & car show weather.
another point i mention a lot that gets avoided as far as mileage is the millions of stock daily driver cars that are or were recently on the roads with FT cams... using whatever oil was on sale or no concern for zddp levels... i just sold a jeep cherokee 4.0 that was my daily, i put 100k+ miles on that over the 10+ years i owned it & used whatever oil was cheapest within reason, meaning walmart supertech or a on sale havoline or valvoline etc... the cam/lifters were perfectly fine for the entire time & its still running around today. so the amount of miles isnt really the factor in how well a common modern oil can support a stock to mild FT cam. oils today are backwards compatible & even the current SN rated oils state they are compatible for SL & SM rated oils. personally i have no doubt that major oil companies know what they are making & would not makes statements like that if current oils were causing catastrophic failures in FT cams. im not aware of any cam/lifter failures that can be proven it was the oils fault, just too many variables to make that claim.
not trying to be argumentative either, these oil threads can go way off topic sometimes, i just wanted to reply to the cold pour & zddp levels thing & the advertising jargon that some oil companies are latching onto lately.