Engine oil recommendation

Waterdog wrote: Graeme, Dude - that tower is up there! Did you fabricate it yourself? 3 meters off the water? More?

The tower was on the boat when I bought it, I didn't realise just how high it was until you mentioned it !
I've not towed anybody yet from it tho.

Graeme, boat looks awesome! I really need to get out on the water soon, but where I am the river is too high and the lakes still too low. Not to mention COLD!

From Valvolines website:



What solutions does Valvoline offer to the zinc issue?

Valvoline offers two solutions to the zinc issue:

    Valvoline VR1 Racing Oil: Contains 75% higher zinc than SM motor oil with a balanced additive package designed to work in both racing and street-legal applications. This product will protect older style push-rod and flat tappet engines. Valvoline provides this product in both multi and mono viscosity grades: 20w50, straight 50, 10w30, straight 30, straight 40, and straight 60.
    Longer-Lasting Zinc/Phosphorus: Valvoline uses an advanced zinc/phosphorus additive that keeps higher levels of phosphorus in the motor oil where it protects the engine instead of poisoning the catalytic converter. Valvoline is the only brand offering this unique additive across its entire line of passenger car motor oils including SynPower -- the only synthetic oil that offers this additive.

Which oil has more zinc/ZDDP: VR1 or "Not Street Legal" racing oil?

Valvoline VR1 Racing Oil contains .13 percent of zinc and .12 percent of phosphorus compared to the Valvoline "Not Street Legal" Racing Oil which contains .14 percent of zinc and .13 percent of phosphorus.

Another vote for 20w50 Valvoline VR1. Running it in a '63 Atom Skier with a the Ford Interceptor 256 V8, again for reasons of the flat tappets. I did a lot of oil research about a year ago and found the 20w50 Valvoline VR1 to be the oil of choice for older push rod engines with flat tappets. I'm glad to be reading that that is the general consensus here as well!

The general opinion seems to be 20w50 Valvoline VR1
That'll do for me.
As I said I changed the oil & filter on Sunday & tested the boat for an hour on Monday.
No idea what the previous owners service schedule was like so I plan on changing the oil & filter again before using the boat over the summer (if we get one)

Thanks for all the advice
Graeme

JPASS wrote: It was all I could find as far as Zinc and Phosphorus values. Mobil's site at least broke it down in PPM. Valvoline broke it down in percentages only.

PPM = parts per million, it's equivalent to a percentage. Just divide by 1,000,000 and then move the decimal 2 places. Same thing.

1200 ppm is the minimum number I've heard speculated as being the minimum recommended for a flat tappet cam. I'm sure you have to be a little more careful about engines with more aggressive cams and valve train. But, I'll gladly spend the extra $5-8 per oil change to err on the safe side with vr1 or equivalent. It just seems silly not to with what's at stake. Getting all of the debris out of the engine after you wipe a cam lobe is no picnic. If I never have to do that again, it will be too soon.

Andy, could you work in an analysis on my truck? The damn thing always tells me I need to change my oil at 2500 miles when the specified service interval is 6000. Full synthetic in the truck. I got a kit from another company but I would rather talk directly to someone I know vs someone who just sends me a report sheet.

My Tahoe is the opposite, I'm changing oil long before the oil life indicator says to. I read that it does some calculations based on miles, hours, speed, etc. to come up with the interval. Oil changes are one of those things I don't really need/want an indicator to "help" me with.

Andy, I've really enjoyed doing oil analysis on my diesels, fun to monitor and I learned a lot in the process. To your point, someone like me really needs a guy like you on the other end to translate the results into "what it really means" rather than just a sheet of numbers. I had an Amsoil dealer that was very helpful with this.

On my boats, I change the oil so long before it's useful life is up, and I have a lot of confidence in Valvoline VR1 at this point, so haven't bothered with UOA.

63 Skier wrote: Cory, agreed on some of your comments, but turns out its a SBF, and there's a lot of experience on this site that says you need a good zinc content for the flat tappet SBF. By the way, if a guy asks what kind of oil to use, and a few people answer that he should use high zinc content oil, I wouldn't call that fear mongering. It's just giving the opinion that was asked for.

SBF, SBC... makes no difference so far as the cam is concerned, so long as we're talking non-roller on each. 900+ ppm is a "good zinc content" in that it's adequate for nearly all modern stock or mild cam engines, especially when they have 30 year old valve springs that weren't particularly stiff to begin with. These boat engines are about as mild as it gets, there is nothing special about a mass produced low output SBF.

If there is in fact a lot of experience here that says you need a "good zinc oil", defined as 1200+ ppm for the sake of argument, then there should be a lot of wiped cams here. Since this is an oil thread let's get a roll call of everyone who has wiped a stock, well used and long ago broken in cam, in a CC, any boat, any car, anything with a modern V8 engine using a flat tappet hydraulic lifter cam. Please give details surrounding the cam failure, oil pressure, engine age and condition, what was found upon disassembly and why you believe it was (or was not) caused by the type of oil.

Personally I recall two cam failures. One was a fairly aggressive cam that failed during breakin on a 302. This was right about the time Rotella switched to a new formula with less zinc, I remember when I bought the oil I double checked to be sure it was the right oil because the bottle was different. A few lobes failed, I want to say 3... Not catastrophic but they took a bit of adjustment after breakin and loosened up quickly thereafter confirming my suspicion of a wiped cam.

The other was part of a catastrophic failure of an aggressive cam in a 460. Cam failure was result of loss of oil pressure and there was plenty of other damage as well. This failure had nothing to do with the type of oil used.

Sure, run VR1 or whatever high zinc oil in your low output stock cam engine with 30 year old valve springs if you want. VR1 is a fine oil, I use it for cam breakin and anything with aggressive ramps or high lift. Another option is toss a bottle of cam breakin additive in whatever other oil you want to boost zinc and phosphorus numbers. Whatever helps you sleep at night, but personally I don't like it when misinformation is spread. If I'm wrong I should have had a lot of cam failures by now, but maybe I have just been lucky and all that experience here will chime in with abundant failures of stock cams since most oils reduced zinc and phosphorus content.

cadunkle wrote: These boat engines are about as mild as it gets, there is nothing special about a mass produced low output SBF.

I agree the setup of these engines is mild, but the use is not. How many SBF's or SBC's in light trucks get floored from idle over and over again, and then run at 4,000 rpm steady for periods of time. You can't compare the stress of ski boat use with that of a car in my opinion.

My '63 has a little 198 cu in. V-6 in it. I've run that engine at 3,600-4,000 rpm's a ton, and floored it to get skiers up thousands of times. Think it got that kind of use in an early '60's Skylark?

So, you could say that because my V-6 hasn't failed, I should just run whatever oil is cheapest on the shelf. I prefer to spend an extra 15 or 20 bucks a year to run oil that is higher in spec and not wonder if it's good enough.

And no, I don't have any personal cam wipe experience to describe to you in detail! And I'm hoping to keep it that way!

63 Skier wrote: cadunkle wrote: These boat engines are about as mild as it gets, there is nothing special about a mass produced low output SBF. I agree the setup of these engines is mild, but the use is not. How many SBF's or SBC's in light trucks get floored from idle over and over again, and then run at 4,000 rpm steady for periods of time. You can't compare the stress of ski boat use with that of a car in my opinion.

Exactly. The stresses in a marine engine are much larger than probably 90% of truck engines.

HW, the LT is a well oiled machine that takes her easy ;).

Hussler wrote: All of our K blocks, chryslers, grays, y blocks, small blocks/big blocks get OMC cobra 10w 30, and from what I've read it doesn't have a special amount of zddp.

Jim,
I have seen Hercules (Chris) cams (the count is now at 4) wiped out due to owners not knowing traditional oils had the ZDDP removed due to EPA regs and the catalytic issues. How about some good facts about the OMC 10-30 and not just "I've read about it"? Who's oil is it since OMC doesn't produce it!!

I find 10w 30 Quaker State to be quality oil along with a Fram filter.

Yeah fram was fine on mine also but i switched and went with the motorcraft just because its what ford calls for. I bet theres about 2 companys making engine oil with different packaging! Probably all the same stuff..