Muscle Car Oil

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ant

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Nov 18, 2003
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What is a good brand of dino oil for a Doge hemi engine? These engines are very hard on the valve train, so I'm thinking an oil high in phosphorus, zinc and perhaps boron would be beneficial. I use a 10w-30 to 15W-40, depending on temperatures. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
For petroleum based oil I recommend the Pennzoil LongLife (LL) series 15W-40.

I soon will be trying a 50/50 mixture of this LL and the Amsoil fully synthetic 15W-40.
 
Hey....that thing got a Hemi??
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Pablo,
What are you trying to achieve? Cut down on cost or just being silly?
How did your fuel additive/brew work out?
 
Last Z- not being silly. Cutting down on cost is important, but my price for the 15W-40 isn't so bad. It's really an experiement. Mix a good syn HDEO without moly , with a good dino HDEO with moly - Wonder oil for $2.XX quart???

Jelly - good analysis reports and I like the moly percent. Not killer high, but there...
 
I was thinking HDEO for my friends '70 cuda Grand Coupe. He rarely drives it though.
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The other thing I like about the Pennz 15W-40 LL - the base oil seems pretty darn good for a dino oil. Just a well designed oil. My favorite dino 15W-40 used to be Delo 400. Still a great oil and a great base, so I think that says something for my favs Amsoil and Pennzoil 15W-40's.
 
As is most always the case with a gasoline burner, a synthetic would work well for you. And while not the optimum choice for most street cars, a "racing" dino oil might also work well since a hallmark of such oils is high zinc content. The "diesel" oils also pack a bit more zinc, but not as much as "racing." A 1973 general repair guide I have (from your car's era) lists 10w-40 as the appropriate weight for all temperatures above 0F, so something close to that would be appropriate. Interestingly, no "50W" option is even mentioned -- perhaps 20w-50 came about later..? Several comparative examples between 10w-30 oils, zinc content:

-Kendall GT-1: 0.10%
-Valvoline All-Climate: 0.105%
-Chevron Delo 400: 0.140%
-Valvoline Race (20w-50, ~5 yrs ago): 0.20%
-Kendall GT-1 Nitro 70wt: 0.26%

[ November 22, 2003, 09:26 PM: Message edited by: TC ]
 
Ant: Out of curiosity, I looked into the racing oils a bit further. It looks like, just over the last couple years about when SL oil was introduced, the racing blends kicked down their zinc content due to the potential for deposits and long-term cat converter damage. Valvoline's site was down when I sent my earlier message, so I couldn't verify the info I had. It's now back up, and it turns out their VR1 Racing multiweights have 0.137% zinc, close to Delo's concentration, and also similar to Kendall Super D3 (diesel) multiweight at 0.13%. So just a couple years ago the racing blends had an edge, but now the "diesel" oils mentioned above are comparable in regards to zinc. I wouldn't worry about phosphorus since for SL oils it's limited to 0.1% or 0.08%, something like that -- no SL oils will have an edge in terms of phos.

[ November 22, 2003, 11:08 PM: Message edited by: TC ]
 
Thanks for the replies and recommendations. I would consider a synthetic, but my oil changes will be driven by time and not mileage. In addition, the cam manufacturer does not recommend synthetics and dino must be used for the warranty.
 
The cam manufacturer says a synthetic oil will cause cam failure with a flat tappet cam. They claim a much lower rate of failure with dino oil on flat tappet applications. They will not back the warranty if synthetic oil (any brand or viscosity)is used. This includes during and after break-in.
 
ant - Who's the cam manufacturer anyway? Did they provide you with special lube to apply to the cam and lifters during assembly?

So far I'm with Pablo on this...
 
Competition Cams. The catalog states dino oil during break-in, but does not specify dino or synthetic after break-in. However, a technician on the Comp Cams tech line told me no synthetics at all if warranty was important.
 
Comp replaced a cam I had that flatted 1 lobe on break-in, no questions asked and no questions about the oil type I was using, for what its worth. I would also choose one of the 15w40 HDEO's in your choice of dino(Chevron, Pennz LL), blend(Schaeffer, Shell) or synth(Mobil, Amsoil).
 
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