Oil is Killing our Cars
By
Keith Ansell, President
Foreign Parts Positively, Inc.
www.ForeignPartsPositively.com
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Oil is Killing our cars Part II
Last month’s report on this subject is turning out to be just the tip of the iceberg! Many publications have had this subject of zinc-
I have had the good fortune to have the ear of quite a few leaders in the industry including some wonderful input from Castrol. We have been very reluctant to “dump” Castrol, as it has been such a great supporter of our cars and industry over the years. Castrol hasn’t really abandoned our cars, just shifted to a more mass marketing mode. Many Castrol products are not appropriate for our cars today, some still are.
Now for the latest report:
#1 Castrol GTX 20W-
#2 Castrol HD 30 is a very good oil for break-
#3 Only an unusual Castrol Syntec 20W-
#4 The trend today is to lighter weight oils to decrease drag, which increases mileage. Most of these seem to be the “Energy Conservation” oils that we cannot use.
#5 Redline oil and others are suggesting a 3,000-
#6 The “Energy Conservation“ trend was first lead by automakers to increase mileage numbers and secondly because the ZDDP and other chemicals degrade the catalytic converter after extended miles, increasing pollution. We don’t have catalytic converters and the mileage gains are not that significant for most of us.
For you science buffs: ZDDP is a single polar molecule that is attracted to Iron based metals. The one polar end tends to “Stand” the molecule up on the metal surface that it is bonded to by heat and friction. This forms a sacrificial layer to protect the base metal of the cam and tappet from contacting each other. Only at very high pressures on a flat tappet cam is this necessary because the oil is squeezed/wiped from the surface. This high pressure is also present on the gudgeon pin (wrist pin) in diesel engines, therefore the need for ZDDP in diesel engines.
Second part of the equation is Molybdenum disulfide (Moly). The moly bonds to the zinc adding an additional, very slippery, sacrificial layer to the metal. I found out that too much of the moly will create problems; lack of this material reduces the effectiveness of the ZDDP. The percentage, by weight is from .01 to .02%, not much, but necessary.
Latest conclusions: Running our older, broken in engines on Castrol 20W-
New engines (after break-
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