http://www.drivenracingoil.com/news/...for-the-myths/

I just got off the phone with Scott Diehl at DRIVEN RACING OIL

We spent some time the phone about his break in oil.. he gave me the number to total seal rings, and this ring company also recommends this oil...

I told him what was going on... gave him my symptoms and ask his opinion. I stated to him I believe it to be a bad valve guide seal... but after listening to me, he believes in fact, that it is the rings....

Now, listen to this... he is so confident in his product that for this test, he is sending me a full case for free,,, yea... you read right... free... Now... I did agree to do a before and after compression check, and to run it for not less than 100 but not more than 500 miles.. then post the results...

I am OPTOMISTICLY hopeful... My sons and I have had several sponsorships like KC highlighters and some racing suspension manufactures for our Baja racers... but no one has ever put forth such an offer like this...


here is an copy and past from there web site...

it is a good read, and I hope there engineer may pop in here and explain more on the process of there break in oil... I am excited.

The “Break-In” Myth

One of the most critical times in any engine’s life is when it is first cranked after assembly. This is the break-in period when all those new parts need to mate together. The common myth of breaking in a new engine is that new parts need to “wear” in.

“The problem with this myth is that people often don’t realize that there is a very real difference between reducing friction and reducing wear,” Speed explains. “While it sounds like the same thing, it’s not. ZDDP is a great example. It is very important for the break in process, especially if you are using a flat tappet camshaft, to use the right type and amount of ZDDP because it reduces wear. But ZDDP doesn’t reduce friction.”

Many people have been told not to break in on synthetic oil because it is too “slippery”. This is because oils are designed to reduce friction, and your engine needs friction to get the ZDDP to activate and help “chemically” mate the parts without wearing the parts out during the break-in period. Low friction motor oils, especially synthetics, are designed to reduce friction which will substantially lengthen the amount of time required to break in an engine.

00106When an engine is fired for the first and all those parts begin moving together, the engine is essentially finishing up the honing process begun by your engine machinist. As the parts are moving together for the first time, especially the piston rings moving against the cylinder bore, they scrub off tiny pieces of metal that are carried away by the oil. All the things created by your engine during break-in are bad for your engine. This is why you want to complete the break-in process as quickly as possible so that you can change the oil as well as the filter and flush out all the contaminants as soon as you can. Too much friction reduction means it takes longer for the rings to seat and that’s more time the engine is putting contaminants into the oil. A well-designed break-in oil prevents excessive wear while quickly mating the parts. This approach reduces wear and completes the break-in process faster – something a race team can appreciate.

But there’s also a second break-in myth worth covering here. Zinc’s main purpose is to protect and reduce wear. A roller lifter doesn’t experience sliding friction like a flat tappet so it doesn’t need nearly as much Zinc. And because of that there’s a common myth that a good way to break in a new engine with roller lifters is to use the absolute cheapest oil you can find.

While it is true that a cheap motor oil doesn’t provide the same lubricity (or “slickness”) that a higher performance oil will, it also doesn’t have the right chemistry to provide proper protection, either. Believe it or not, there is a difference between lubrication and protection. A good break-in oil is designed to provide just the right amount of lubrication so that the rings will seat quickly while protecting the components from any more wear than necessary.

” We’ve worked really hard to formulate our break in oil so that it provides protection to the engine but also allows it to break in quickly and properly,” Speed says. “It is definitely not the same as our motor oils because it has a very specific purpose. Chemically, it is very different than our other stuff out there.”

The “Racing is Always Better” Myth

It is true that auto racing is a great testing ground for new technologies and components. But that doesn’t mean something created to meet the needs of racers is also the best thing to meet the requirements of a street machine. This definitely includes your motor oil. Even if you have a high-horsepower engine built using a lot of racing components, that doesn’t mean an oil formulated for racing will be the best choice. Keith Jones of Total Seal Piston Rings has a great story concerning this very scenario. He says, “Whenever we are talking to a customer or a potential customer, the first question we always ask is ‘What’s your application?’

“The perfect example of that is the guy that’s building a 632-inch big block that makes 1,200 horsepower running on pump gas,” Jones explains. “And he figures, ‘Hey, it makes 1,200 horsepower, it must be a race engine,’ but he’s driving it around town, it hardly ever gets above part throttle and the oil temp never gets hot enough to boil off any contaminants in the oil. But since he’s making all that power he figures he’s got to run a full race oil, which usually contains very little detergent.

“So with those conditions he will wind up with a lot of contaminants in his oil. A race oil is designed to be changed after every few races, but since he’s driving on the street he’s going thousands of miles between oil changes and that contamination eventually builds up in the crosshatch in the cylinder bores. Next thing you know he’s got an engine that has a lot of cylinder blow-by, it’s got oil control problems and it’s just generally running like a dog.

02906“So quite often we’ll get a call from that guy complaining because he thinks he got a bad set of rings and now he’s got to tear down his expensive engine and re-hone the cylinders. He’s mad, and you couldn’t really blame him if the rings really were the problem–but there’s really nothing wrong with his motor. I’ll tell that person to go out and get some high-detergent oil, like a diesel oil, run it for a couple weeks and see if his performance improves. And almost every time they will call me back within a couple of days saying, ‘Hey, the engine is perfect again.’

“There was nothing wrong with the engine all along,” Jones says. “The problem was he had the wrong motor oil for the application and it affected cylinder sealing. What he needed was a high-quality street oil like Driven sells that has the proper amount of detergent to keep the contaminants under control while also having the capability to provide proper lubrication for a high-horsepower engine.”

So there you have it. We certainly haven’t hit every lubrication myth out there, but these four hopefully will give you a great start on finding the right oil that is a perfect match for your engine’s needs and will do a great job of helping you maximize both performance and longevity.

http://www.drivenracingoil.com/news/...for-the-myths/

 

corvettes come from the factory with Mobil 1 and the reason the rings seat is because the rings used are lapped in in a cylinder at the ring factory before they are installed on the piston assy to be shipped to the engine plant

 

Than you for clearing up what I thought. Sure your new Vette comes with synthetic oil and sure it says to use it in the manual but like I said who knows what they did at the factory before filling it with the oil you get when you buy it.

Know we know

 

the early ZO-6 and early 2002 std corvettes which use the ZO-6 short block had a oil burning problem but that was caused by GM switching to low tension oil rings to get more HP. that was cured by installing a rapier second ring to scrape excess oil from the cylinder walls. when GM fixed them under warranty they never changed the top ring.

 

These "highly abrasive cylinder walls" are made of cast iron. All the rings I run are plasma moly faced. Cast iron rings are nodular. Reckon which one is harder?

The rings wear the tiny high points of the cylinder wall crosshatch pattern down, not the other way around. There is actually very little wear that ever occurs on the face of a ring.

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstr...38/0000180.pdf

Otherwise, you'd replace rings on a tear-down rather than overboring the engine. After all, the rings spin constantly, they'd continuously be exposed to that abrasive you're talking about and would be worn out in no time. The gaps would get larger over time and you'd have blowby from wide ring gaps, not worn cyilnder walls which is actually the case.

From Post 86 above:
"00106When an engine is fired for the first and all those parts begin moving together, the engine is essentially finishing up the honing process begun by your engine machinist. As the parts are moving together for the first time, especially the piston rings moving against the cylinder bore, they scrub off tiny pieces of metal that are carried away by the oil."

 

Maybe you didn't know all you think you forgot.

You still don't know squat about the ring:cylinder seating process. Call any ring manufacturer - I have - and they'll tell you the same thing I did.

 

Ahem....yes he does, or did you miss the post on the use of Ajax?

 

New piston rings may appear very smooth but under a microscope they resemble fine sandpaper. And the surface of a cylinder wall may appear a bit rougher but under a microscope it resembles coarse sandpaper. During the break in period the two rough surfaces grind against each other which produces a LOT of heat and friction until the surfaces have been smoothed. Compression rings may seal within an hour or two but they aren't completely broken in until around 50,000 miles when their leading and trailing edges finally become sharp. Its the oil rings that need to be the sharpest as its that sharp edge that wipes the most oil off the cylinder walls.

To limit the amount of wear after the initial break in its imperative only pleated paper air filters are used to limit the amount of airborne dirt that enters the cylinders because its the super-fine dirt combined with the oil film on the cylinder walls that acts as a "lapping" compound that continually wears the two surfaces.

The cylinder wall finish is very important to breaking in piston rings and when they fail to break in fully a 50/50 mixture of AJAX cleanser and ATF will do the job of lapping the two surfaces together. The slurry can be fed down the intake manifold runners (with the spark plugs removed) and then the engine spun over 1000+ times. So any time you end up with a high oil consumption problem after a ring job its a good trick to know.

 

Close, very close now !!

 

I've stopped making public suggestions besides reminding people to ignore stuff, because people will just engage in conflicts anyway and get vacations, as seen again here.

But I'd use this thread as an example... Rather than reporting random posts that have no negative impact, just because you don't like someone, instead of reporting posts that contain actual personal attacks that were seen early in this thread, many people miss actually accomplishing what they seek, as well as save threads like this that had some good info. Instead, all sorts of post deletions and sanctions, and of course it's closed.