Joe Gibb's Break in Oil
 

Just wondering if Joe Gibb's break in motor oil was bad for the cats. I didn't think you were supposed to put zinc and whatever else they added to the oil that was good for an engine, but bad for cats.

I have metal matrix cats so they should be able to take more than the ceramic, but I just wondered if it caused problems.

I ran it for about 350 miles in my car no probs......

Big spender! I ran regular old Rotella for about 20-50 miles and then changed the oil/filter and ran it for 150-200 miles and changed it again. Then put another 500 miles on it and switched over to VR1 20w-50 and ran that for around 6-8K (with changes in between). I now run Redline 10w-60 but I don't have catalytic converters either.

I am not suggesting you utilize those intervals or what brand/type of oil to use, that's what I did, but what do you really care more about? Your fresh engine or catalytic converters? The high zincs will wreak a little havoc on your catalytic converters but you wouldn't be able to tell, only over thousands of miles. After those thousands of miles their efficiency would be reduced, but I couldn't guess that it would be noticeable?

I have always used it to break in engines. The short amount of time you are going to be using it will not hurt your cats, id be more worried about the mixture being off then the additives in the oil. Heat cycles are more important on a fresh motor then miles.

I was only a little concerned. If I was that bothered I would have pulled out the cats and put in a staight pipe for breaking in the engine. It came with the short block I bought from TSP so used it. The engine just got fired up...time for a tune now.

came with mine too no complaints here.

For break in on the motor, it won't hurt anything. IMO, I'd rather have the rings seat correctly and risk the cats anyway. That being said, we have been using that oil for a couple years and haven't heard of a single issue.

Jon

I would think unless you are burning a lot of oil, it wouldn't be a big deal.