Is your oil zinc-y enough?

[jpthing]

A good friend of mine who has been an engine builder at D&W performance (one of calgary's premeire speed shops) for several years mentioned the other day that he has started seeing Jeep inline 6 engines fail more often and he says it is due to newer oil formulas. According to him the new oils contain less zinc which causes camshaft failures in older style engines with flat tappet cams. His suggestion was to use a diesel oil or a zinc additive. Considering the abuse and high revs I subject my engines to in my Jeeps I took his advice and started using diesel oil. Diesel oil grades are different, though, which is a little annoying for winter, 15w40 is very common, 10w40 is available, and 10w30 is rare. Ive never seen 5w30 diesel oil. I figured the cold flow properties were most important and statrted using Rotella 5w40 synthetic on the logic that it will flow well at cold temps, and will offer better protection at high revs.

Has anyone else heard about this zinc issue?
If so what oil do you run?
What are people's thoughts on running 5w40 synthetic diesel oil?

[cLAY]

A co-worker at work recently bought a hi performance pimped out engine for his Corvette out of the US. He was told use an oil for break in that had zinc in it. I believe he used Shell Rotella.

[hps4evr]

i believe we use 0W-40 for the 3.0L bluetec diesel grands. its mobil 1 so its a little pricey. but may be another option.

[morerpmfred]

I heard hardly davidson oil has a lot of zinc in it and some of there bikes have flat tappit cams. 505 performance also makes roller cams and lifters for the 4 litre

[esi]

You can get 0-40 in a variety of different brands. I've be using diesel oil in gas engines for alot of years without any issues.

[i_go_commando]

the newest blend of deisel oils do not have as much added zinc for the cleaner burning diesles with particulate filters. the article i read on the amsoil site recommended using a racing blend of oil. Ive also read about pople running breakin compounds with every oil change or in my 58 willies im running a lucas oil additive

[Waytec]

I would not recommend running diesel oil in your gas engine. I have hear about it usually from old farmers.
 
The additives are what make up the differences. At work Cat has different oils for the application of the engine. On highway, off road equipment, Gas compression, marine, same engine but each application the engine is producing different horse powers. So higher horse power = more heat = bigger and better cooling systems.

So by putting diesel oil in you gas engine the engine will not be getting the proper additives it needs, and the cooling from the oil will not be correct. Remember diesel is compression ignition so they run much hotter so the oils absorb heat differently. So my professional opinion is by running diesel oil you will cook your bearings and wash your piston walls. You may see a slit increases on your coolant temp gage but this is reading coolant witch is getting lots of air over the fins. If you are concerned about your oil buy a good quality oil and up the maintains and change it more often. I am not a big fan of snake oils, at stock or with a lumpy cam we are not exceeding the engines threshold buy any means so it is a waste of money. Just change your oil.

The major risen for seeing an increase in 4.0L in machine shops is they are a popular engine and they are getting up there in mileage. Same thing happened 10 to 15 years ago with Ford 5.0Ls

[4PLAYZJ]

I work as a tech for a company with a fleet that is 1200+.  All we run in the entire fleet, gas or diesel, on rotella diesel oil.  We have next to no engine failures.  The company did a bunch of research before coming to this decision and I have been told that the additive package in a high end diesel oil,like Rotella, supercedes the requirements of  normal gas engines.  The one benifit of running a diesel oil in a gas engine is that they are super clean inside.  I have had a few apart for and I have never seen engines with so little sludge/carbon buildup in my life, du to the fact that diesel engine oil has very high levels of detergents compared to normal oils.

[Waytec]

I now a lot of fleets do that but they are buying oil in bulk. For the average Joe what is the cost difference between high end gas oil verses high end diesel oil.

In the end the big thing is change the %^&* oil regularly in a "proactive manner".

[jpthing]

I would not recommend running diesel oil in your gas engine. I have hear about it usually from old farmers.
 
The additives are what make up the differences. At work Cat has different oils for the application of the engine. On highway, off road equipment, Gas compression, marine, same engine but each application the engine is producing different horse powers. So higher horse power = more heat = bigger and better cooling systems.

So by putting diesel oil in you gas engine the engine will not be getting the proper additives it needs, and the cooling from the oil will not be correct. Remember diesel is compression ignition so they run much hotter so the oils absorb heat differently. So my professional opinion is by running diesel oil you will cook your bearings and wash your piston walls. You may see a slit increases on your coolant temp gage but this is reading coolant witch is getting lots of air over the fins. If you are concerned about your oil buy a good quality oil and up the maintains and change it more often. I am not a big fan of snake oils, at stock or with a lumpy cam we are not exceeding the engines threshold buy any means so it is a waste of money. Just change your oil.

The major risen for seeing an increase in 4.0L in machine shops is they are a popular engine and they are getting up there in mileage. Same thing happened 10 to 15 years ago with Ford 5.0Ls

You seem to have a lot of expertise but you have copletely sidestepped the zinc issue.
It's a fact that the I6 Jeep engine was designed for oils with more zinc.
So you don't think the lower zinc levels in newer oils is a big deal?
What do you mean by a good quality oil? shell or penzoil or whatever type brand name stuff or royal purple and lucas type super premium stuff? Or synthetics like mobil one?
What type of snake oils are you referring to?
Let's not confuse things with discussing oil change interval...obviously you should change your oil, and shortening the interval certainly can't hurt...but if each time you are filling the crankcase with an oil which has a formula not quite right for the engine, changing it more often doesn't address the issue. I could flush my cooling system daily with tartar sauce and I'm pretty sure it would not work well, depite the increased maintenance. (i guess you never know, though...perhaps I'll try this...)

The guy who told me about this knows more about engines than everyone else I know put together. Every day he builds engines that cost customers $10k and up (well some are less but most are more) and can literally ramble on forever about the most obsdcure minutia of the performance engine world. If I had heard this from any less reputable source I would have considered it a wive's tail, but considering the source I took it seriously.

[Waytec]

I am thinking if zinc was a major component in the oil and it was removed due to environmental issues or the sheer cost of it then a replacement would have been put in. These companies have rooms of engineers and testing facility to make sure the oil will stand up. I really think for the abuse we are giving our engines on the street and trail a failure will not be the result of the oil its self. maintain your engine and remember they do where out. 300 000 + km on a engine and then having to rebuild it is normal. 

With oil you get what you pay for, and I am not a big fan of synthetic in a engine. one for the cost I can change my oil 2.5 times and have fresh oil in it for the cost of one synthetic change. Go with a blend and then up the changes. I use to run Quakersate and now am running Modal 1, I am liking the results. in how the rig is running and performing. You have to try different things and find what you like. Some can't tell the differences some can. I just don't think running Wal-Mart's no name is a good thing. I don't care if the high school kid with a A in auto shop says it is the same as what ever other brand, if it is half the price there is a resin. and the sticker on the front is not the resin.

The snake oils I am referring to is all the additives. everyone has one nowadays, I like Lukas in my diff's but for the engine just oil. I don't see an advantage in running it in an engine. When I was pitting for a racing team back home we won all kind of different oils but never used them. we just used Quakersate performance blend. after every race we changed the oil and during the week the pan came off the bottom end was inspected. and we never cooked an engine du to lubrication issues. 

I would like to know the mileage on the engines that your buddy is rebuilding and what condition they are in.

By the way you where saying an anther tread that you where in not so common, no schooling trade. What trade would that be?

[jpthing]

I did a little poking around and found this:

http://www.compcams.com/Base/pdf/FlatTappetCamTechBulletin.pdf

what I do is a little tough to describe. Our company provides support to retailers that lack the expertise to deal with the technical aspects of products they sell. These products include fitness equipment, barbeques, bicycles, powersports equipment as well as too many other things to mention. We also provide similar services to the public. The most interesting technical challenges usually come from the treadmills and the electric bicycles.  There are no published specs, computer protocols vary widely from brand to brand and the makers often seem to know less about the machines than my techs do.  Combine that with shaky parts availability and you get some exciting adventures in treadmill repair. It would be so nice if there was something along the lines of OBDII for treadmills!  much of the time we are forced to rely on intuition or trial and error to come to a diagnosis when one is not functioning correctly.

[rocnrol]

barbeque's.................bicycles.................and treadmills...............and you actually get into arguments with people professionally trained in the very things you post about. you are amazing. i must admit, i now come here daily to see what new and wonderfull advice you have bestowed onto us.

[Bnine]

Zinc has been pulled out of rotella every year for the last few years, so the discussion regarding rotella here is irrelevant.

There are two ways to meet the ZDDP lub requirements of the flat tappet 4.0

 You can use hi zinc content oils or zinc additives. there are specific amsoil race oils, also there are a small few generics that have zinc as well. I've been told petro cans brand as it, but I've never used it myself.

The other method is to use an oil that is spec'd for a flat tappet engine. North american standards stopped specing their oils for flat tappet engines several years ago. No matter what an oil bottle says for american standards, you have no way of knowing if it meets flat tappet lubrication properties.

Europeans still test for flat tappet properties. You can tell if an oil is european tested by the letters "ACEA".

Flat tappet specific ACEA standards are A3, and B1. So, if you can find an oil that has ACEA A3 or B1, you have an oil that has been tested and meets flat tappet lub requirements.

A lot of synthetics have the ACEA ratings. Just be carefull which ones you are looking at.


Lastly, be carefull when using zinc additives. Zinc is detrimental to cat converter life. To much can significantly reduce the life of your cats.

The 4 litre was the last flat tappet engine left in production in north america. Most oil makers simply dont test and lable most of their oils for flat tappet testing. Unless they are testing them to euro standards of course.

Dodge has had an influx early cam failures during the last 5 years of the 4.0, and it has been attributed to todays oil properties.

Corey Kruchowski a known 4.0 builder on here had 6 out of 20 cams failure about 2 years ago. He changed oils for his customers and has not had one come back since.

The ZDDP issue has been known, and been around for years with the muscle car crowd.

The issue that is unique to the 4.0 is that we have flat tappets and the catalytic converters. Making the use of large quantities of Zinc somewhat risky.

There is a lot of info on this stuff all over the net. A morning with google will educate anyone interested in this topic.

[jeepjones]

Ok so what oil has enough zinc in it that we can get here in calgary for our 4.0's?