CJ-4 oil for older flat tappet engines..

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Certainly. The E sequences are based upon the API specifications, which certainly isn't the case with the A and B sequences, and no, I'm not aware of any pure "A" or pure "B" oils, either. But, if an oil is likely to be used in a European diesel of some sort, and, specifically, meets the minimum specifications, there are obviously standards to be met that other, non-ACEA oils may or may not meet - we just don't know.

I think we in North America focus way too much on the differences between HDEOs and ILSAC stuff, rather than the similarities. CAFE's legacy isn't so much thinner oils or reduced phosphorous content, but a lot of alarmism about the differences between a "gasoline" oil, an HDEO, and a "motorcycle" type oil.

It's great that we can use a thinner oil in a gasoline engine without adverse consequences. It's also important that such oils are marketed appropriately to ensure someone doesn't toss them into his new Cummins. On the other hand, just because it says "Rotella" doesn't mean it's relegated to the big rigs.

You want a real kick in the head with respect to pricing? Our wonderful Walmarts charge about twice as much for M1 TDT as the distributor charges for Delvac 1. Go figure.
 
Originally Posted By: Gokhan
I wouldn't be that picky about viscosity and if the manufacturer recommended such an oil ("xW-35" so to speak), I would pick xW-40 in the case of a diesel engine or flat-tappet engine (because of wear concerns) and either the xW-30 or xW-40 for a modern gasoline engine depending on driving style and particular engine.

I wouldn't be, either, necessarily, but I could see why others would. Some would be deathly afraid of a 15w-40 as too thick. They would prefer to use a 10w-30 HDEO as still within grade for their vehicle that originally called for 10w-30.

On that vein, my dad was into thin before it was in. I was considering running a 5w-30 HDEO in my LTD at the time (it was consuming 5w-30 PCMO heavily, and with our weather, just jumping up grades isn't necessarily wise). He made it very clear of what he thought about using that "thick stuff" in there.
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I spent some time this morning rereading the relevant parts of both the referenced texts above, the SAE and the Dutch book referenced later in the the thread, and I'm beginning to think I didn't give the ZDDP differences between an HDEO and a PCMO enough weight in the context of a flat tappet engine.
Further reading in Noria texts and others (I have an "HDEOs in gassers" file) tends to reinforce this, though when dual rated HDEOs are compared to PCMOs, the cautions are much less strident vs a diesel-only rated HDEO vis-a-vis detergency. The detergency seems to be the most significant issue.

HDEOs seem to be a better choice in really old engines (flat tappet or otherwise) that lack filtration, or at least full flow filtration, because the detergency and dispersancy qualities of an HDEO are much more useful in that type of crankcase environment.

At the end of the day, while I think an HDEO has "enough" anti wear protection for most flat tappet engines, it may be less near optimal than I originally thought. We have no real way of knowing one way or the other until someone does some wear tests or we get inside info from an oil manufacturer. Prudence would then dictate going with the more suitable oil, especially in a muscle car engine. So I think I'm going to say, "I stand corrected" here.

As to the question originally asked ( see the red highlighted part below), at the risk of continuing to be argumentative, I still think the general answer to that is "yes." HDEO's have "enough" wear protection generally speaking. We know that to meet SM specs, an HDEO has to have the wear protection to go with it. For the most part, the lube mfrs think SM and SN is backwards compatible into the flat tappet era, so an HDEO is AT LEAST at that level. Without knowing the exact ratio of primary to secondary ZDDP, etc. or actual wear tests, I can't say definitively what the end results might be but I suspect the HDEO would show less wear than the average SM or SN PCMO in a standard performance flat tappet engine.

"Hey all... I was wondering if today's CJ-4 HDEO lubes have enough anti-wear additives to protect older engines with flat tappet cams? I know that the CJ-4 HDEO's have reduced amounts of certain additives compared to older CI-4 version. I got asked this question today by a friend who has an older muscle car with a flat tappet motor. He was told that he should still run a ZDDP additive with a current CJ-4 lube if he chooses to run a diesel motor oil. Are CI-4 oils even available anymore besides from Amsoil?
 
Originally Posted By: Jim Allen
I got asked this question today by a friend who has an older muscle car with a flat tappet motor. He was told that he should still run a ZDDP additive with a current CJ-4 lube if he chooses to run a diesel motor oil. Are CI-4 oils even available anymore besides from Amsoil?


he's probably better served with an oil like M1 0w-40 which is setup with a higher level of AW additives and is also a PCMO IMHO.
 
Originally Posted By: Jim Allen
I got asked this question today by a friend who has an older muscle car with a flat tappet motor. He was told that he should still run a ZDDP additive with a current CJ-4 lube if he chooses to run a diesel motor oil. Are CI-4 oils even available anymore besides from Amsoil?

I think the concern over something with flat tappets and very high spring pressures might be warranted. For something of a more modest output, I wouldn't worry. I do recommend VR1 fairly often and for good reason. Beyond that, with the really high performance stuff, there are boutiques and dedicated race oils, of course. And none of us here, to my knowledge, claimed that HDEO was interchangeable with a race oil or ideal for flat tappets with very high pressures.

And you know my stance on additives. They're a last resort. I did use a ZDDP additive for break in of the F-150 after rebuild, but that's simply because I had no desire to use 20w-50 VR1 for a winter rebuild (the 10w-30 is rare here) and there simply weren't a lot of other options at the time; even Defy was just ink on a press release.

I still contend that the detergency issue with HDEOs is overblown. Soot carrying capability did go up with CJ-4, but TBN and SA have trended down, generally speaking. Take a look at the elemental VOA numbers and TBN of M1 0w-40, Mobil Delvac 1 5w-40 (CI-4), and Mobil Delvac 1 ESP 5w-40 (CJ-4). Detergency (from the elemental perspective, which is all we can see in a cheap VOA, of course), SA, and TBN all go down as me move from M1 0w-40 to the CJ-4 Delvac 1. The TBN drops further if you go to something like Delvac 1 ESP 0w-40, which lacks the higher minimum TBN ACEA standard of the 5w-40.

And we shouldn't allow ourselves to fall into the trap of ignoring what we can't see, either. Delvac 1 LE 5w-30 is CJ-4 with what are roughly GF-5 levels of phosphorous. Obviously, something else is fulfilling the ZDDP's role there. And, soot holding has improved while elemental detergents and TBN have dropped.

Oils are compromises, and detergency versus anti-wear is not a new issue. Should we go one step further and return to ND oils? Is Pennzoil's clean engine campaign going to leave a bunch of premature engine failures in its wake? I'm not concerned. As I already mentioned, the Delvac 1 ESP 5w-40 sheet endorses its use in high performance gasoline applications, specifically. In my use, I'm not concerned about ZDDP in any event.

Doug has gone through this Delvac 1 in a gasser argument before, and I wouldn't be surprised in the least that he doesn't wish to go through it again. There are too many deaf ears out there. I, however, am glad to be able to learn from his decades of experience at the pinnacle of the industry and put some of that knowledge into practice in my own way.
 
I think we all agree that a CJ-4/SM oil is usually OK to use in a gasoline engine, assuming the recommended viscosity is available. As I said earlier, I used Mobil Delvac 1300 Super 15W-40 CJ-4/SM for many years in my small gasoline engine. The main drawback was excess drag on the engine, making idles, especially cold idles, rougher and the fuel economy a little less and light-throttle power a little less. The excess drag is caused by the high viscosity (internal friction of the oil) and higher surface friction of the oil in comparison to an ILSAC GF-x (Energy/Resource Conserving) oil.

My main point in this thread is that, after educating myself reading the SAE Lubricant Reference and a couple of other references, higher ZDDP limit in CJ-4 oil (1200 ppm P vs. 800 ppm P in ILSAC GF-x oil), is not to make a CJ-4 oil more wear-protecting than a GF-x oil. It's only to make up for the detergents and dispersants in the CJ-4 oil. If you have 1200 ppm P, it's effectively much less because of the detergents/dispersants in Cx-4 oils. There is a lot of buzz on the Internet for using Cx-4 for flat tappets because of high ZDDP, but they are ignorant of this very important technical reason why the ZDDP is higher in diesel oil. That's my main point and I didn't realize this myself until I read the references.

I do agree that CJ-4/SM oils pass the gasoline-engine wear tests Sequence IIIG and Sequence IVA and they should usually be OK in a gasoline engine.

Also, the issue regarding primary vs. secondary ZDDP, the latter of which is far more potent as an antiwear additive, may be somewhat less of a concern, as nowadays they seem to mostly use a mix of the two and the mix seems to have similar potency of secondary ZDDP alone. (In the past diesel engines used only primary ZDDP because of better thermal stability of it.) So, perhaps, this is not too big of an issue but then it may also be. Some gasoline-engine oils may take more advantage of higher secondary-ZDDP ratios in the ZDDP mix than diesel-engine oils can accept.

Garak, you pointed out that the detergent levels have been decreasing in Cx-4 oils. However, notice that ZDDP levels have also been decreasing. The reason why they used more ZDDP in CI-4 was to make up for the rather high concentration of detergents in CI-4. The reason why some of the CJ-4 formulations use even less ZDDP is because they use even less detergents. So, someone shouldn't get sucked into a CI-4 oil for flat tappets because it has more ZDDP, as it's only to make up for high detergent content. In fact, the wear-protection requirements in CJ-4 or stricter than in CI-4.

What's also very important is the dispersants in diesel oil. CJ-4 in particular has a very high concentration of dispersants as CJ-4 has unprecedented soot control. These dispersants are ashless (metalfree) and they don't show in specs or VOAs. They are called succinimides. They also fight against the ZDDP films. See this very recent (September 2013) scholarly article (full text not available for free):

Abstract: Recent years have seen an increase in the concentration of dispersant present in formulated engine oils, while the concentration of antiwear additives has been progressively reduced. However, it is known that the presence of dispersant can, in some cases, detract from the performance of antiwear additives in lubricant blends. In this article, the influence of three succinimide dispersants on the film formation and wear-reducing properties of a secondary zinc dialkyldithiophosphate (ZDDP) has been studied. Both posttreated and non-post-treated dispersants reduce steady-state ZDDP tribofilm formation to a certain extent depending on the dispersant concentration. At very high dispersant concentrations, ZDDP film formation is suppressed almost entirely. This can be restored only marginally by increasing ZDDP concentration, which implies that the absolute dispersant concentration rather than the dispersant : ZDDP ratio controls the impact of the dispersant on ZDDP film formation.

Addition of dispersant to ZDDP also caused an increase in wear rate for all three dispersants tested. For one succinimide reported in detail in this article, it is has been shown that the wear rate increases approximately linearly with dispersant concentration and is largely independent of ZDDP concentration over the P weight percentage range studied.


So, moral of the story is that don't get sucked into heavy-duty (CJ-4, CI-4, etc.) oils just because of their high ZDDP content. Their high ZDDP content is only to make up for high concentrations or dispersants and detergents found in diesel oils. You won't get the same potency of a given amount of ZDDP in a diesel oil as you would get from the same amount in a gasoline oil with less dispersants and detergents. Effectiveness of ZDDP is greatly and inversely affected by the amount of dispersants and detergents in oil, and diesel oils have a lot of dispersants to control harmful soot.
 
Originally Posted By: Gokhan
So, moral of the story is that don't get sucked into heavy-duty (CJ-4, CI-4, etc.) oils just because of their high ZDDP content. Their high ZDDP content is only to make up for high concentrations or dispersants and detergents found in diesel oils. You won't get the same potency of a given amount of ZDDP in a diesel oil as you would get from the same amount in a gasoline oil with less dispersants and detergents. Effectiveness of ZDDP is greatly and inversely affected by the amount of dispersants and detergents in oil, and diesel oils have a lot of dispersants to control harmful soot.

In addition, more generally than for flat-tappet engines, I also don't see much of an advantage of using a CJ-4 oil (heavy-duty engine oil) in a gasoline engine in general, as there are a vast variety and number of gasoline-engine oils, more tailored and better tested toward gasoline engines, using gasoline-engine specific additive packages. A CJ-4/SM oil will probably work OK in most gasoline engines given the availability of viscosity, but then why use it just because it's OK to use, as it's not optimized for gasoline engines but for diesel engines?
 
Originally Posted By: Garak
With respect to my Infiniti, "luxury car" or not, its oil specifications are very modest. It calls for SM/GF-4 in North America, with a bit wider range elsewhere. Generally speaking, the engine isn't calling for anything too terribly specific, like a certain phosphorous or SAPS content.

In that case, why not use a cheap conventional 5W-30 GF-5 or perhaps a cheap fully synthetic 5W-30 GF-5 in your Infiniti? Your car (smoother idles) and your wallet (less money spent on fuel) will both thank you. Do you really need to run xW-40 in it (racing it etc.)? I can understand that you can get the Delvac 5W-40 cheaper than the Mobil 1 0W-40 or similar if that's the case.
 
As mentioned already, I wouldn't call an HDEO interchangeable with a break in lube, a pure racing oil, or VR1. It is, however, another very good option for various circumstances. I wouldn't recommend that someone building a performance engine go and grab it and use it for break in. On the other hand, I'd have absolutely no hesitation about using it in my F-150. Additionally, 15w-40 got a lot of use in the old Audi, as it was the widest recommended viscosity. People who do have flat tappet high performance engines should be cautious, particularly at break in. But, the guy driving an old slant six or a Ford 300 doesn't need to go and buy a racing oil or VR1 20w-50.

In older engines, too, there are other things we have to consider. An older engine can benefit from detergency, either from an HDEO or a modern GF-5 oil. In carbed applications, fuel dilution is certainly a possibility. In my F-150, it was terrible before the rebuild and carb replacement. To maintain operational viscosity, I had to use 15w-40 (for the summer) or a non-ILSAC PCMO (MaxLife 5w-30, non-ILSAC at the time). Otherwise, the oil light would come on.

While not all carbed engines were as terrible, we have to be cautious when comparing a carbed example versus a modern fuel injected system. The introduction of fuel injection probably did more to extend OCIs than most other advancements. We shouldn't underestimate the issue of fuel dilution; look at some of the DI examples we see today.

When it comes to detergency competing with anti-wear, we see oil companies trying to strike a balance. This is nothing new. After all, break in lubes and racing oils have little to no detergency for a reason.

Note the GF-5 oils aren't exactly light on the detergency. I would say that few of us here are equipped to determine whether a GF-5 or an HDEO or a racing oil has the best anti-wear properties for a given situation, unless that situation is really obvious (i.e. GF-5 in a new flat tappet race engine is silly, and race oil in a taxi is pretty foolish). Generally speaking, though, to determine which (between a 5w-30 SN/GF-5 and a 10w-30 HDEO) would provide the best anti-wear in my F-150 or (between a 5w-30 SN/GF-5 and M1 0w-40 and Delvac 1 5w-40) my G37 would require a serious undertaking.

I'm aware of the fuel economy issues when comparing a GF-5 rated lube (such as a 5w-30) versus something like a 10w-30 HDEO, 5w-40 or 15w-40 HDEO in something like my G. And yes, it's false economy to choose a thicker, yet cheaper grade. But, that's not exactly what it's all about. Walmart Canada is nuts, and I mean certifiably insane, and sometimes it's necessary to vote with one's wallet. Imperial Oil seems to reward HDEO purchasers, and again, it's necessary to vote with one's wallet.

For idle and performance, I don't notice a difference between the HDEO and the PCMO. I've already gone through the fuel economy in another thread here, not to show that there's no difference, but to show that it's unnoticeable. Yes, it's there. Yes, I would agree that it costs me more gas. But, from an operational perspective, I wouldn't notice an oil switch unless it were 20w-50 in our -40 or something similarly odd.

With respect to ILSAC type lubes, I have nothing against them. I used about 500 bottles of QS conventional in a 1981 Impala over the years alone. That's one taxi out of many. My LTD went half a million kilometers and only saw QS and GTX. My Town Car was similarly treated. I simply had some Delvac 1 ESP in stock, and tried it. I may want to run some UOAs for the heck of it. I may want to stick with it, given the pricing. Of course, my mixing phobia is well known here. If I have Delvac 1 in there, I have to stick with it until I'm sick of it.
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But, I hold no illusions. I would have an exceedingly difficult time proving that this choice is "better" than Formula Shell, PYB, QS, M1, Mobil Super, Valvoline, GTX, or whatever alternative we wish to pick.
 
Originally Posted By: Gokhan
Originally Posted By: Gokhan
Originally Posted By: widman
DO not add ZDDP. You have no idea how badly you are screwing up particular formulations, upsetting their additive balance and adding deposits to the engine. And if you go too high, you will have cam galling and other problems.

I agree on this.

Flat tappets require extreme-pressure (= antiscore) additives such as moly more than ZDDP, which is not an antiscore but an antiwear additive. So, what you really need is an oil with a good balance of ZDDP and moly. I don't think too much moly makes too much of an harm other than more engine deposits but too much ZDDP will certainly result in less protection against wear after a certain optimum value of ZDDP. This could be as high as 2500 ppm P but don't take chances with aftermarket additives. There are also different types of ZDDP and the one used in your oil is optimized against other additives.

Once again, my recommendation for temperatures above 20 F is Mobil Delvac 1300 Super 15W-40, which has about 1000 ppm P and also has the extremely potent trinuclear moly. For lower cold-start temperatures, use Mobil 1 Turbo-Diesel Truck 5W-40 if you want premium protection. A cheaper alternative would be Rotella 5W-40, and an even cheaper alternative would be Delo 5W-40.

Also note that Non-ILSAC (non-GF-5) SN oils are exempt from the 800 ppm P ZDDP maximum limit. This means xW-40 and xW-50 SN oils have no ZDDP maximum limit. Also, high-mileage SN oils of any viscosity have no ZDDP maximum limit, as they are not GF-5. ZDDP maximum limit is imposed by the "Resource Conserving" (of the GF-5) designation, not the SN designation by itself.

This said, Mobil 1 0W-40 SN is a great alternative for flat-tappet engines. It has about 1000 ppm P (of ZDDP), which is similar to CJ-4 oils, and (probably) has trinuclear moly, the most potent kind of moly. It also has another advantage against CJ-4 oils: It's tailored more toward gasoline engines. This is unlike CJ-4 oils, which are tailored more toward diesel engines.


I don't know if I recommend the SN Mobil 1 0w40 in a flat tappet anymore. My last oil in my boat was an older batch of SL Mobil 1 0w40, and the oil pressure held phenomenally above the magic 100 degree C mark (after a long pull the oil gets up to about 220 F and sits there), but the newer SN held pressure so poorly above that limit that I immediately drained it out and wasted $25 of oil...replaced it with Delo 15w40 and the pressure holds fine...ymmv of course, and this is in a PCM Windsor 351 GT40 engine.
 
Hi Garak, I've been reading a few old threads, saw RW's name a few times, but wasn't sure how often he visits here. Still finding my feet.

Those old threads have a few familiar names, but mostly a whole new group to me.

So just finishing up work for the day (night) are you?

Have a good one, weekend is just starting for me (Friday night).

Cheers,
SR5
 
Long day ahead for me, day and night paperwork. You really need to check Richard's restoration projects. He's got pics on the site here and on his own site, which you obviously found. It's some amazing stuff!
 
Haven't been here much lately, as I attacked the Mini again with some transmission parts. A few 11 hour days in the garage, where my iPhone said I walked 2.66 miles without leaving the garage more than for lunch).

Nothing new to add to the current version of the engine oil paper. The CJ-4's have grown up from the starting days, and I would not hesitate to use them today, although I still use CI-4, since that is what I have in a 10W-30.
 
Interesting and informative deliberations from Garak, Jim Allen, Gokhan and others.

Keep up the good job , mates .
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Reading back, I realized that between this thread being current and today, I found out something that I hadn't known before. PCMO 15w-40s are common in other countries, contrary to my perception. I was just surprised they weren't CJ-4/SM, E7, E9 like they tend to be here. Heck, we didn't even have 15w-40 PCMOs back in the day before resource conserving oils became the norm.

As an aside, I wonder how many PCMO 15w-40 oils are identical to our CJ-4/SM 15w-40s. I know Wakefield Canada up here offers enough Castrol 15w-40 HDEOs that there's a good chance something matches something else somewhere else.
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Over here in Malaysia , we do have dual rated conventional mineral oils grade 15W-40 :

a)API CJ-4/CI-4/CH-4/CG-4/SM
ACEA E9/E7
MB 228.31
Volvo VDS-4/VDS-3/VDS-2
Cummins CES 20081
MAN 3275
MTU Type 2.1
MACK EO-O Premium Plus
Renault RLD-3
CAT ECF-3/ECF-2/ECF-1a
DDC 93K218 , and

b)API CI-4/CH-4/CG-4/SL
ACEA E7/E5/E3/A3/B3/B4
Global DHD-1
MB 228.3
Volvo VDS-3/VDS-2
Cummins CES 20077/20078
MAN 3275
MTU Type 2
Mack EO-M Plus
Renault RLD-2/RLD
Cat ECF-2/ECF-1a
ZF TE-ML 07C

http://www.mymesra.com.my/[email protected]

Shell PCMO's : http://www.shell.com.my/products-service...ix-mineral.html
 
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