sjsingle1

iTrader: (1)

https://540ratblog.wordpress.com/

found this over on a vette site...more interesting than bobistheoilguy...an engineer who talks about oil and a bunch of other things...but mostly oil.....very lengthy with no pics or other graphics ....just lots of words

interesting results from his testing
1 oil made for diesels is about the worst thing you can put in a gas engine ( sorry all you rotella lovers )
2 high levels of zinc in oil is NOT the best for your engine and zinc oil additives makes any oil you add it to worse
3 remember that oil additive prolong ? it really improves engine wear ....but he does not recommend it
4 break in oils ....you can do better for a new engine than by using these oils

lots of other opinions on engine related stuff....go read !

98CayenneT/A

Keeps freezing my phone.
What do they say about Rotella?

sjsingle1

iTrader: (1)

not rotella in general....but the requirement for diesel engines is far different from gas engines....so oil for diesels does not meet the needs of a gas engine

i know lots of rotella users out there......

in the top 5 of oils he tested....2 are amsoil....( go figure ) and num 5 is what i have been using since day 1 in all my cars .....mobil 1 0-40 euro formula

i would switch to amsoil if it were not so dammm $$$$

99 Black Bird T/A

iTrader: (4)

I'm sold on Mobile 1. I know there are some other excellent oils like Amsoil and Penzoil Ultra Platinum that's made from unicorn horns etc.

I've seen Mobile 1 do some amazing things like cut the sludge build up out of a grimy engine after 165,000 miles of cheap fast oil change/lube shop oil.

When my original engine 366,000 mile RS had to have valve cover gaskets the mechanic said clearly the engine had been replaced in the last 40,000 miles or so. He argued for five minutes that the car had a new replacement engine and if I didn't replace it the prior owner did. I told him I bought the car new with 9 miles on the odometer in May of 1990. Other than the valve cover gaskets the old 305 never leaked. The Mobile 1 seems to condition the gaskets better than most other oils. The 305 is sitting on an engine stand now with almost 400,000 miles and still doesn't leak and ran fine up to the LS swap.

LS6427

iTrader: (2)

Oil.....LOL

All these experts know nothing. Its just personal opinions they offer.

Off the shelf, $2.50/qrt Castrol GTX 20w50 oil and cheap *** Purolator filters got my 427ci stroker to 173,000 miles. Its just as good as any synthetic or other regular oil in the world.
All the while 100+ people over the years that I know personally used expensive synthetics and super-duper oil filters......nobody I know reached 60,000 miles with a similar BIG *** stroker engine......not a one.

Keep it clean....and they are all equal.

This is for any normal every day V8 engine.....like our LSx engines are. They are nothing special, they are normal engines that go into sports cars, vans, trucks and luxury cars.

((and this doesn't mean purpose built or extreme race engines that require something specific))

.

sjsingle1

iTrader: (1)

my fav is reading flame wars on bobistheoilguy....good for a chuckle.....yes a million opinions on oil.....but we as average joes cant afford to test oil manufactures claims....but the sites author is ( claims to be...i have no way to verify that ) an engineer who wants to be unbiased in his testing and just report the facts ...which i like

oil is the life blood of any engine and choosing the wrong oil can be detrimental to the life of an engine....the most expensive oil he tested was NOT the best oil......go figger

interesting he does say that even synthetic oil does not last as long as some manufacturers claim and 10,000 mile oil changes is not recommended

99 Black Bird T/A

iTrader: (4)

427 LS6 tell us more about the big stroker engine. What finally got at 173,000 miles? Was than an ARE engine that SledZ28 built?

MY_2K_Z

iTrader: (1)

I run rotella in all my vehicles, I see zero difference at my oil changes and my work truck has 290,000 miles now and hasn't missed a beat.

RockinWs6

I wouldn't put too much stock in anything on BOB IS THE OIL GUY web site. Millions of truckers using Lucas can't all be wrong. I use it in all my engines. Diesel oil is no good for gas engines? Better tell the oil companies because its rated for gas engine service. I've been using Diesel HD oils for a very long time, keeps the engine very clean.

I wonder why if someone puts something out there in type people take it as the truth. Truth is when it comes to engine oil as long as you buy a good brand name you can't lose.

pdxmotorhead

I used to take care of a bunch of small production road race cars,, mostly 90's sentra class cars..

I can tell you that I saw 4 of them dump coolant get hot enough to ruin the head, on two of them the bottom end was fine, 2 it wasnt,
The 2 that just needed heads were running redline racing 20w50.. The other two Mobil 1 10w40 oil. Even just working on the engines the
redline motors the parts were always slicker to hold on to. NOT dissing the mobile 1 ,, I use it in one of my street cars.. I think mobile 1 is
quite decent oil, doesnt mean that Redline or Amsoil arn't better at the more extreme end of abuse..

Rotella T6 gets along very nicely with the 4 cylinder motor in my jeep, it just likes it better than the mobile 1, partially I think its the
clearances the motor was built to, but the lifters get noisy as hell on mobil and are dead quiet on Rotella,

As far as zinc oil/additives... IN my experience,, If you run sprint cars, and don't use a zinc booster to break the motor in,,,
you will destroy the cam.. The cam needs to surface harden without galling and that's what the zinc helps with..
Solid lifters, no rollers, double springs, HEAVY spring pressure. (Comp cams has a long thorough article on their web page or did about this topic. )
and their sample is statistically significant when it comes to cam performance..

LS6427

iTrader: (2)

Yup....Dave DiLuca. That man was perhaps the best engine builder out there....

It was actually a 436ci stroker (4.125" x 4.1") but I started my screen name thinking I was gonna get a 427ci...then months later I chose one of their first batch of 436ci stroker engines....they built like 11 of them at the time I bought mine. I'm so used to typing 427 though that I can't ever remember to write 436. But then I should change my screen name......LOL.

Anyway....it was the same exact motor running 8 second 1/4 miles in ARE's 436ci nitrous engine with a 400 shot. It put down 500 RWHP and 500 RWTQ with the same exact heads, intake and TB I still have today on my new 390ci. Think if I had todays better heads/intakes/TB's on that 436ci.....it would be a 600+ RWHP N/A beast.

There's a hell of a story behind me and ARE from back then, with Nick Agostino.

But yea.....all that engine ever got was off the shelf cheap *** Castrol GTX 20w50. Friggin thing died finally after 173,000 miles during a 150mph race on I-95 with a motorcycle. Piston got cocked in the cylinder on its way back up and snapped the rod.....then of course grenaded everything else. My Cola crank actually wasn't too messed up, totally repairable and sold it for $1,000. The rest was destroyed. It had the short original Darton sleeves, unlike the little longer ones they have now, so the piston came really far down......so it finally got cocked in there from piston rock ( I guess is what they call it) and it got stuck. The piston looks all distorted, weird looking.

That engine saw top speed runs 2-3 times a week for 12 years....lol....abused like you wouldn't believe. On the street only, but I ran that thing hard as hell every time I drove it. Can't believe it lasted that long. Dave said if I take care of it I'll need a rebuild at about 40,000........lasted to 173,000 and ran strong as hell till then.

But yea, SledZ28.........did you know him?

.

ss55539

previous owner ran mob 1 in my ta since it was new, i switched to val syn and was noticeably quieter right away.

Firebrian

Every month or two the Rat540 thread pops to the surface like a floating corpse. It does have some value...specifically for circle track engines run at high rpm in a racing environment. If that's your daily driver...then there's some application to your flat tappet cams under high loading. Otherwise the comparisons are very limited.

Lots of myths and hype in the Rat540 oil rankings. Until you read the Bitog threads on it, you won't believe all the issues with this. For starters, those 1-4 items you listed could be mostly wrong. It's just not that simple and broad statements with respect to oil selections are often wrong. For starters, some diesel oil choices are just fine for gasoline engines....some might actually be a wise choice depending on your vehicle and usage. There is some value to the Rat540 rankings, but it will take you about 50-100 hrs of reading to figure most of it out....been there, done that.

As far as the Bitog blogs being bogus....that is wrong. The correct answers are there....ALL of them. You just need to know who knows their stuff and who doesn't. The evidence is laid out perfectly over there....you just have to dig it out and keep confirming the findings. Best practices in oils and filters does keep changing...and that's one benefit of the Bitog site. LS6427 is generally correct in that a decent specced oil, changed within periodicity will ensure your car doesn't end life early due to poor oil choices or infrequent maintenance. But if you can buy the best quality oils (synthetics too) for $0-$2/qt (as shown on Bitog) then why not? My last batch of 53 quarts of QS synblends and QSUD oils during the AAP fall 2017 clearances cost me less than $0 after rebates.

FCar2000TA

iTrader: (7)

German Castrol Edge 0W40. $40 for 6 quarts on Amazon.

Firebrian

I bought several jugs of Edge 0w-40 2 yrs ago for $10 each on clearance . Had so much oil at the time that I sold them to a Bitog guy for my cost of $2/qt. You can buy most any quality synthetic oil out there (expect boutique brands) sometime during the year for $2 to $2.75 per quart after rebate/clearance. No reason to spend $6.50/qt for any of them. Mobil 1 and Pennz Plat 0w-40 Euros are essentially the equal of the Castrol Edge...yet you can buy them for $2.70/qt during the year. Even the Edge is often price at $22-$27 per jug at Walmart. Why spend $40??? Yeah, the Castrol 0w-40 Edge kept the BMW LL-01 cert while Mobil 1 0w-40 "lost it" over a year ago. They are still both 2 of the finest oils (at reasonable prices) in the world.

If you're spending over $3/qt for any Mobil 1, Quaker State Ult. Durability, Pennzoil Plat, Castrol Edge motor oils....you're spending too much.

sjsingle1

iTrader: (1)

i love a good flame war......BITOG critics trashing on the rat man and his oil tests is some really fun reading

i take everything with a grain of salt and make no claims as to his results of oil testing....just pointing out an alternative opinion from a ( supposed ) expert

as far as i know he is the only person doing personal oil testing and funding such tests ( hats off for that alone )

go read his blog.....agree...disagree....or anything else ....carry on

8.Lug

Fuhnortoner

^^^ I want to trust this guy but not only is he the Punctuation Police, he contradicts himself by thinking parenthesis are quotation marks. That's always a sign of an idiot.

cam

iTrader: (9)

It doesnt really matter what oil you run in a STOCK LS it will likely be fine. What your paying for with good oil is detergents and anti wear additives, thats it. If you run an aggressive cam and dont add a little ZDDP you will pit the valve caps with stock rocker arms. Stock this isnt an issue this is only a concern with aftermarket cams. I really like the detergent qualities of Castrol 0W30/40 because I dont like changing oil often so I dont. I change it once per year ( spring/summer/fall pleasure use car only ) and it turns black as deep space but the engine is spotless internally. If you run cheap oil the varnish builds up and cooks to everything. I have opened up a LOT of different LS engines over the years and none have ever come close to being as clean as with the Castrol, not even the Mobil 1 engines althoguh they too are typically very clean.

Moral of the story? Its your engine and your money use whatever oil helps you sleep at night. Engines that fail are almost never due to poor quality oil choices

99 Black Bird T/A

iTrader: (4)

Dave Diluca definitely was a fantastic engine builder.

The engine Dave built for you would easily have broke 600+ whp with today's intake manifolds, tuning software and better cylinder heads. It's my understanding that good quality build 4 inch stroker crank motor often need attention by 50,000-60,000 miles. Dave must have dialed everything in perfect with that 4.1 crank and the those early Dayton sleeves.

Thank you for sharing the details. I only knew Dave from what I read here on LS1TECH. There was never any doubt in my mind that he was an outstanding engine builder. I remember back in the day , when ARE's website list the LS1 360's with offset ground cranks & of course the cutting edge displacement LS1 436 engines. I definitely am a Dave DilLuca fan. IIRC the ARE shop car was the first LS1 in the 9's back in the day with an engine Dave built.

​​​​​​Shoot me a PM if you'd like to share the Nick & ARE story. A friend in the local fbody club had quite the
​​​​​​...let's just say "experience" with Nick back in the day.
​​​​