Manufacturer will tell you that you need more. Much like diesel additives. If a need isn't present, create one. How much will the product save me? Sure, it makes the engine last longer. By how much? Given that I have to replace the engine sooner or later, how much is the extra mileage costing?

If it lasts 10% longer and the rebuild costs $1000, it saves me $100. If products costs $250, net loss is $150.

 

Are you talking about the manufacturer of STP specifically or zddp in general? If the latter, are you saying that you believe that high zddp isn't needed in flat tappet engines?

I was not aware that there was any dispute on that. Baesed on solid chemical and mechanical engineering principles, it appears quite established that zddp is an important lubricant component for sliding parts, and when it was lowered to accomodate longer cat life, older engines with flat tappets began to show considerable wear. We're not talking 10%, it's more on the order of cutting tappet life by half or more. My understanding is that running sliding metal parts under high pressure (i.e., cam lobe/tappet) without zinc is almost like not using lubricant at all.

Is that in dispute? Fine with me if it is-- I'd love nothing more to hear that the whole zddp issue is overblown and not have to worry about it.

 

I was looking into this for my '85 a while back.

I was using the Quaker State Defy oil for that reason.

However, I found some testing was done. It was basically pressing a lifter substitute onto a rotating shaft and measuring the pressure while monitoring for failure and the failure scarring. It was tested to failure. This testing was specifically done to measure the high load properties of metal sliding on metal (flat lifter to shaft).

The results surprised me. The failure of the oils were not tied to the amount of ZDDP alone. In fact they did take some ZDDP additives and added them to a previously tested oil. The additives had mixed results. Some actually got lower performance results .

They tested quite a few oils and many of the better name brands like Mobil, Pennzoil, Castol, etc. (They tested a number of oils, but not all the ones I would like to have seen.) had had a higher pressure failure point than some of the lesser name brands.

In short, the ZDDP discussion is more confusing to me than ever. I suspect that the formulations when our early cars were made were different than now and needed the ZDDP to perform acceptably, while the better oils now can perform as well without the ZDDP.

The testing was the first that I saw that was actual testing with the method and results shown with numerical values. If I can find a link to that again, I will post it.

Update. I found the link. It was an interesting read.
http://540ratblog.wordpress.com/2013...-test-ranking/

 

Intersting... would love to see that.

Yeah, here's a link where a GM engineer is making a similar argument.

But note that other engineers respond saying that they can't find the tests that are mentioned and that they have plenty of empirical and theoretical evidence that zddp is needed and that the general improvements in new oils does not make up for the lack of zddp in older/high performance engines.

But there's also a lot of talk that it's difficult to know for sure because GM cams had a reputation for having "soft" metal and bad wear characteristics. That would be a confounding issue...

So I agree with you-- it's all a bit confusing. But I'm worried about the potential problems if there's anything to it, so I want to err on the side of caution.

As I said, I have no expertise and am just reading stuff on the internet like anyone else. Would love to see a definitive study that proves this is not an issue for my beloved l98 valve train!

Oh-- you updated with this as I was responding. It's long! I'll look at it carefully this afternoon.

Thanks much for finding this link!

Update: I'm back from my meeting and was going to look at your link. However, it's so long I thought I might first see if I could find any reviews of it online. I did-- and the c3 guys were not impressed. They go as far as to say he hasn't done appropriate testing and is a liar.

So not sure I want to even look at it now...

 

This is a lot of "worrying" about something that is not a epidemic problem, IMO.

How many flat tappet cams are failing, running on today's oils? Not many.
Do people realize that there are still new vehicles produced today, with "flat tappet" cams? More accurately, OHC engines with non roller cam followers or "bucket" lifters. They don't fail, do they?

All oils today are better than oils of yesterday. I have run an early '80's SBC w/a flat tappet cam to 245,000 miles then sold it. My oil of choice at that time was "Cumberland Farms XP Lube". $0.89/quart at the time. How much better than 245,000 miles, does an oil need to be?? Oil has only gotten better since then (late '80's - early '90s).


I have also read articles/test results that have shown ZDP's effectiveness to be inconclusive...probably the same articles/tests that QCVette read. I too have worried about what is "'best for my babies" and ultimately I concluded that I am not smart enough, educated enough nor do I have enough free time to find...."the answer" -if there is such a thing. I get far more miles out of my vehicles than I need to, so the oils available me/us are better than I need them to be. Competition and technology assure us fantastic quality oils today, that are way better than good enough.

And so what if a flat tappet cam did last only 100k -as an example? What's a flat tappet cam/lifter kit cost? $120 bux? I can tell you this: I will not pour any elixir into my motor b/c of unsubstantiated "lore". I get fantastic results using plain pump gasoline, off-the-shelf, brand name oils, and good quality EL Coolant. No magic potions necessary.

I don't mean to put anyone down for asking the question and scrutinizing the issue...as I have said above, I've have been concerned about it in the past too. What is irritating is when someone does use a product, arbitrarily, the says
...that is a bull ****, meaningless, worthless endorsement! That it has caused "no problems" is in no way, proof of it's effectiveness, necessity, or value. To recommend the use of a product on the basis that it hasn't hurt your own engine yet, is ridiculous.

 

Not sure it's a matter of opinion-- many respected sources are talking about "unprecedented" levels of failure: "At AMI our automotive group has 60 years of experience collectively with GM flat tappet engines. In all of this experience, the recent failures of stock cams and lifters due to severe wear is unprecedented. It is this experience as well as supporting reports from others we spoke to that made us try to find out the nature of the problem first hand. After preliminarily concluding that the low ZDDP levels in SL oils were the culprit for the wear we were seeing..."

Many, many examples like that online-- very few claiming otherwise, and those that do are usually suspected (or confirmed) trolls like 540Rat, or people saying "I've never had a problem" with neither theory nor data to back them up.


Did not know that-- I thought all cars had rollers now. If nothing else because of mileage standards. Which cars sold today don't have rollers?

What was the zddp level in the Cumberland Farms oil? Before 2002 all oil had high zddp levels, and some still do today. Do you know how many of those 240,000 miles were put on while using low zddp oil?


Yes there are articles out there, but I can't find any that are credible. See my updated response to QCVette.

But are you getting high miles with low zddp oil in flat tappet engines? I agree that if you have rollers modern oil is just fine. I use low zddp oil in everything else I drive because they all have rollers.

There's a weeee bit more involved in replacing tappets than just their cost. At least most of us don't relish the job that would be involved.

I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure the zddp issue is far more than "lore." STP, on the other hand, is based only on lore as far as I can tell, as are all the other magic additives out there.

So do I! I use generic stuff at nearly every turn and things have been fine (as far as I know!).

Agree, and brought that up in one of my earlier responses. One really has no way of knowing they have a problem-- right up to the point when they have a problem! So someone saying they haven't had a problem is not a strong peice of evidence of anything unless their problem-free period was very long (as yours was at 240,000 miles).

I generally agree with your statements and philosophy, but I (humbly) think you might be wrong about the single issue of low zddp in flat tappet engines.

Even if you're not, at the moment 1100 ppm Mobil 1 is readily available (at a pretty low Walmart price) so I see no reason not to use it-- just in case.

 

Here is my question. How much ZDDP is really required. Does my oil have enough? How much more life will this stuff give me?

 

Both my 91 & 93 have flat tappet motors (LT5) I use M1 High mileage or Amsoil in them no worries.

 

I can understand synthetic oil if you want to have the molecules more consistent for whatever properties you have. Supposedly it saves fuel too, not sure. On the diesel forums, there are all kinds of magic potions, elixirs, goat sacrifices all to gain a little more mileage without regard to the cost of the brew.

 

I have no data either, beyond my own. But where are the failures? We are here on a forum...there are many, many <'87 Corvettes here....Where are the failures? I'm sure there ARE failures of cams....but "unprecedented"? I haven't seen that documented on this forum or any other.

My boat! Another example. 1992 Mastercraft with a Ford 351...flat tappet cam. 900 hours. Where is the wear? Where is the failure? I'm using modern, Mobil 1 oil in it. Engine is flawless...like new still.




IDK/don't have a list, but many if not most SOHC motors use a rocker or finger/follower that doesn't have a roller. I've adjusted valves recently in an Acura MDX that had cast rockers w/o rollers. Almost all high performance bikes use buckets, which is a non roller surface sliding on the cam lobe.



I don't know. I'd guess all of it, based on your claim of the year 2002...but elsewhere there are claims that Zddp hasn't changed (you GM engineer link, for example).



See above about the boat.



It's a few hour project. Every, lets say 100k? Not a terrible thing, but I'm saying, I don't even think 100k is when failure will occur. I was say as an example, if you got 100k out of your car, then had to spend ~$120 on a cam and lifter kit, would that be unacceptable?



I'd agree with you, if I were seeing, hearing and reading about flat tappet cam failures galore. I'm not.




I agree. I use the same stuff, bought from teh same place. I thought that you were concerned that the M1 might not be good enough.

 

FWIW, here are my answers:

As I posted earlier, you need >1000 ppm and <1800ppm. I think 1200-1500ppm is the sweet spot. The 1100ppm of the Mobil 1 is good enough as I'm not hard on the engine (e.g., no racing).

I don't know what oil you use, but most oils today have around 800ppm-- fine for a roller tappet engine but doubtful for flat tappets.

Hard to tell what you should expect for life expectency-- zddp doesn't give any increased life, it just helps avoid premature failure. To what degree an early failure will occurr with low zddp depends on spring rates, severity and softness of the cam, rpms, etc.

 

Kinda puts the crimper on anything more than "I hope it works". How much life you actually save, in real life is up for debate. Here is the argument that I hear on diesel forums. You have a certain amount of lubricity. Add more because it's good. Only to check that going by what the EPA demands as minimum vs going with what the snake oil manufacturers tell you that you should have gives you, as verified by Bosch, about 10% more life. Check the injector rebuild cost for that extra life and you will find that the costs exceed the benefits on a dollar scale. Now if the goal is to have the longest life regardless of cost, fine.

 

Well, there's definitely talk of it on the c3 forum.

I don't know how 900 hours translates into miles. However, as discussed before (and mentioned by you), just not having a problem is not the best evidence of anything-- either from using an additive or not using an additive.

It probably helps that you use synthetic in it, and my guess is that you're responsible about oil change interval, don't have a soft or severe cam, and don't use overly high revs on a regular basis. If so, you are likely to get decent life even without high zddp. As to where is the failure-- I don't know-- you'd have to pull the cam and tappets to check for wear. It might be really bad but not enough to be noticable in your boat's performance.

MDX's had rollers after 2001. If you search Honda tech forums, you'll find plenty of people complaining about premature cam wear and suspecting that zinc levels are too low for earlier engines without rollers.

As expected, the higher the performance of the engine, the worse the problem is. The average person putzing around in an old Civic on modern oil is probably wearing out their cams, but they wouldn't know it for a long time, and OHC engins are much easier to deal with in that regard so it wouldn't be too expensive to change the whole valvetrain out.

And there are lots of people out there complaining about cam wear on those bikes-- and often discussing zinc. One thing about MC's though-- most people put hardly any miles on them-- don't see a lot of bikes with over 100k on them, but those that do usually have plenty of cam wear. I'd definitely put zddp in a MC.

That engineer says that the zddp levels change in the early 2000's, but back to the levels in the 1950's and 60's, which he is agrguing is adequate. The response is vigorous denial by credible sources, and the accusation that the tests he cites are not available for outside analysis.

It's waaaaay more than "a few hours for me to get the cam and tappets out of an OHV V8! And just to avoid adding a little zinc? No thanks...

I don't want to exaggerate-- as I said above, if you're good about changing oil, don't have a weird cam, strong springs, or use high rpms, you can get decent life out of a flat tappet engine on low zddp oil. It's not going to blow up in a year or anything.

And if you're like a lot of Corvette guys and drive about 1000 miles per year, you'll have no problems.

But as always, we're discussing finer points of a high performance engine in a nice classic car. No reason not to analyze this out and use what's best-- even if it's only marginally better.

No, no-- I'm happy with the M1. I just try to keep track of this issue since I'm afraid that product will disappear in it's current high zddp form. Glad to hear you like it-- gives me more confidence in it...

 

I don't see how your first sentece follows from all I've written here, but OK.

I don't know what the diesel guys are saying, but I've never made any arguments to "have the longest life regarless of the cost." I merely chimed in to say that (low cost) Mobil 1 High Mileage is a good oil for flat tappet engines. Discussion ensued, and I more fully explained why I made that statement.

If you're not persuaded, fine with me; use whatever you like.

 

Alright! Its been some time since the last oil thread!

 

*sigh* I see a vendor talking about a problem, but I didn't see a single C3 owner agreeing. In fact, several disagreed and asked for more objective data to back up the original post...data that wasn't provided. Where are the "unprecedented" failures"?



IDK how 900 hours translates either, but two points here. Oil samples are how we know if we are wearing parts or not. We don't have to wait for failure, as you say, to monitor our wear. Second, if "Hard use" caused cam wear then the boat would be more likely to wear out faster; it runs at a higher RPM than a typical street driven car, and it's always going "up hill". On the other hand, I've heard/read that idle is the hardest thing on the cam as it's not getting as much/enough oil thrown from the crank at low speed. IDK which would be harder on the cam, but my point is after 900 hours using a "modern oil", I have no noteworthy wear, on a flat tappet cam. I'll post the sample results in this thread on my next drain, which so far has about 52 hours on it.



You're right about the MDX. Where did I debate that they used roller followers in that particular vehicle after a certain year? I simply cited a "modern car" that that I had recently worked on, that uses "modern oil" and some how, miraculously, survives! It was one example to make a point. There are plenty of other modern cars that don't use roller followers. As for the "honda forums"...I can't say that I frequent them much. Links of all these cam failures?



I'd wager that a valve train swap in a Honda costs as much as one in a SBC with a flat tappet cam. Mitchell has that job in a '12 Civic EX at 6 hours. Cam is $180, rockers are $185 each (assembly of 3 for 1 cylinder), for a parts total of ~$1000....$1600 job. Vette; $1400 in labor + $<200 in parts? Looks pretty close on costs to me.



Links to all these failures? You DO realize that a bike that's gone 100k, the engine revving 5, 6k or higher most of the time...see my point here? I don't know that comparing 100k on a Bike is a fair comparison to 100k in a car.



You're right, Mitchell has it as a 14 hour job. TPI? Last one I did was in a Trans Am and it took me 4 hours, so that is what I based my claim on. You're right, that is a lot of time.



Maybe I'm misunderstanding your perspective here. I hear you saying that M1 is a good product and has "high ZDDP"....but then you're sort of jumping on the "modern oils lack ZDDP, they'll ruin your engine" band wagon (so to speak). You cited a specific PPM content of Zinc as optimal, so I don't know what you're after in your quest? Why not go buy an oil that contains that specific PPM?

My perspective is that yes, like you observed about me and my boat, if you do proper PM's and take reasonable care of your stuff, using ANY modern oil, your cam/engine will provide an acceptable life. To me, "acceptable life" would be 150k in a car and 1000 hours in a boat.

 

Just an F.Y.I....

I put in an order at Summit this spring for stuff needed for a 383 build, and I forgot I had ordered this for the cam break-in. It's a 4oz. bottle of Howard's cam break in additive. States right on the bottle the ppm of the zddp, phosphate, and molybdenum. $8 at Summit.

Was just out at the barn mocking up the exhaust on the test stand. A few more tidbits to take care of and I hope to break in the cam on the 383 this weekend.

 

Has anyone ever asked why a company cannot and/or will not sanction an accredited laboratory with a strong reputation for honesty in reporting to do an analysis? That it costs money should not be an issue since they make enough to afford it and they can make it back with advertising the success for all to see.

That is unless the product won't perform to expectations, in which case, let anecdotes substitute for real testing.

 

You originally asked:

and I produced a link to a vendor that wrote a post titled "Important Read" about all the failures that "Not only we have seen, but those who grind our cams (Comp Cams) have seen many more failures. Combined with what we have seen, what Comp has seen and others in the industry we can now say for sure that the common denominator is the oil and the changes in the new EPA approved oils."

He also provides three links backing up his observations.

I consider that to be at least an example of "documenting it on this forum."

BTW, yes, data was asked for and it was stated that the info was in a Joe Gibbs tech bulletin that was provided. The original requester did not object. And you say "several" people disagreed? On that thread, specifically how many disagreed?


OK. I'm not knowledgable about these tests. How will they determine if the cam/tappet is wearing?

I originally asked "Which cars sold today don't have rollers?" You responded "IDK/don't have a list, but many if not most SOHC motors use a rocker or finger/follower that doesn't have a roller. I've adjusted valves recently in an Acura MDX that had cast rockers w/o rollers." I replied that MDX's have had rollers since 2002, the year the oils changed.

Thus my point was that you did not answer my question. So are there, as you stated, any cars sold today without rollers? I'm pretty sure the actual answer is "no," and one of the main reasons (among some others) is that the oil changed and non-rollers are not reliable enough with the new, low-zddp oils.


I don't follow them much, but a quick Google search will show that it is often discussed. It's also discussed here on CF quite often, but you must not notice them.

These are not all specific links to failures, but how would I compile such a list of links? If I provided one, or three, or 10, would it really prove anything to you? You don't believe a CF cam vendor saying there's a big failure problem-- how can I come up with more examples than him?

That's why I made my point that there is much *discussion* of it and presented a link to a vendor that gave stastics on all the failures he had seen and now links to plenty of other discussions.

Maybe it's not an epidemic, maybe there are no large number of failures, maybe it's all BS. But there is a lot of concern and discussion of this issue-- and that's all I've said from the beginning and have clearly documented it.

You're getting pretty far into the weeds here...

And BTW, I said an "old" (pre-roller) Civic. My bet is the local mechanic can do that fairly cheaply. But I don't really want to argue about that. Don't really know, don't really care...

See above about links. I can do all your Google searches for you, but if you just do a little digging on your own you'll find plenty of material. If you don't believe it's out there as at least a major question, fine with me.

You have any links from credible sources that definitively show low zddp is not an issue? As I said, I *have* looked and didn't find anything that didn't come from trolls.


It would take me longer than 14 hours...

Yes, you are not understanding. The point is that Mobil 1 High mileage is modern and has high zddp-- but it's literally the *only* high zddp, easy to find, low cost. non-racing oil on the market. I fear it will diappear and there will be *no* such product on the market. I honestly don't know how they get away with making it-- it seems to violate federal law.

Thus I inquired as to the effectiveness of additives. I don't want to use any additive right now because I can get the right ppm oil. But what about next year? If, in April, I go to the store and Mobil 1 High Mileage has changed to the modern 800ppmm, what will I do?

It's either spike with a zddp additive (which was my original question), or come to the conclusion that it's not really even an issue (which I'm not comfortable with, for all the reasons I've given in this thread).

You could very well be right that just using 800ppm with good change practice would give me all the engine life I could ever need. And maybe if M1 high zddp disappears that's exactly what I'll do.

What I've been arguing against is all the people who just dismiss it as an issue from the get-go. I'm not at all convinced that this is just a BS issue, so I'm arguing that I'm correct to at least worry about it. It's a separate discussion from whether I like the current Mobil 1 HM.

 

Copy all that. Maybe if M1 changes you could use Shell Rotella. Good luck!

EDIT: Ha ha ha...you should have READ the links your Google searches came up with.
*The Honda ones, were a slew of possible causes...oil was ONE suggestion. Absolutely nothing conclusive at all there.

*The Corvette links, well....HERE IS THAT TEST no one was able to find that shows oils w/low or no ZDDP performing well in cam wear tests. One CF link was for a failed cam/lifter...on a ROLLER CAM!! LOL. You links were garbage and proved nothing -there is no more proof of anything in those threads than there is in this one. Sorry, but that is the truth. Others were just stupid oil/brand arguing threads like this one is.