Break in oil recommendations.

Dragonlich1961

Well-known member
Getting ready to preform the first start up and need to get oil.
It's still hydraulic flat tappet, means I need zinc.
Some people say synthetic others conventional, some suggest the use of a diesel oil like rotella.
Looking for expert advice.
What brand, weight, type.
Ford 200 mild street build.

Thanks for the help.
Chris
 
Dragonlich1961":8ta6kah0 said:
Getting ready to preform the first start up and need to get oil.
It's still hydraulic flat tappet, means I need zinc.
Some people say synthetic others conventional, some suggest the use of a diesel oil like rotella.
Looking for expert advice.
What brand, weight, type.
Ford 200 mild street build.

Thanks for the help.
Chris

I used rotella 15/40, and a bottle of break in additive... I plan to keep running the rotella after break in as well (it has plenty of zddp)
 
Hi,X2 on the zinc additives. I know people are loyal to rotella, we used it in my friends Saturday night stock cars (not any more now we run Amsoil in the racecar) but oil is SAE rated on a couple of factors, one of which is ignition. Our engines are spark ignition and diesels are compression ignition. The oils are different. Learn about this before going in. On my old engines I use Castrol GTX 10W 40. I would drive 500 gentle miles and change the oil to break an engine in. There is probably nothing wrong with full synthetic or synthetic blend after a few thousand miles, but that would take me a couple of years, so I just change the oil every spring. Good luck
 
thanks for the help. plans for now are to do a the rpm break in, then unfortanally it will have to sit while i fix the swiss cheese sheet metal. then it will become my good weather driver since it should get better mpg then my currently daily.

still curious what brands everybody else uses.

Thanks chris
 
Brad Penn racing oil 10W-30. On initial start put in Comp cams additive, Lucas additive.
After the rings seat, if the ring combination & cylinder wall plateau honing are done, take it out & drive it like you stole it.
That should take about 30 minutes of camshaft break in & driving.
Put about 100 miles on the initial oil then change it to Brad Penn 10W-30 racing oil. This oil is a synthetic blend & contains all the additives for street driving or racing.
If you have a problem then your machine shop does not know what they are doing.
 
If you mean the oil you're going to run for 30 minutes and then dump for breaking in the cam you may want to reconsider going with an expensive boutique oil.
Save that for the first oil change.
Use cheap ass oil and make the everything is lubed up real good with lots break in lube on the metal parts.
There will enough additive in that to cover the initial start-up period. IMHO. :unsure:
You can even dump some of that into the oil.
 
Interesting question...given that modern oils are light-years better than anything available 40 years ago, and with modern materials and QC on parts like bearings, camshafts, etc, and that moly rings seat themselves pretty much instantly...

Apart from running at high rpm to keep the cam and lifters splash lubed while they work-harden themselves together, is there any reason to do anything more than that?

As far as oils, I'm leaning toward Jackfish...don't think I'd go for the cheapest at breakin, probably use whatever I was going to run long-term, then change it and the filter after the initial cam break in. If I had a roller cam engine, I'd probably leave it in for 2 or 3 heat cycles then change it and be on my way.
 
JackFish said:
If you mean the oil you're going to run for 30 minutes and then dump for breaking in the cam you may want to reconsider going with an expensive boutique oil.
Save that for the first oil change.
Use cheap ass oil and make the everything is lubed up real good with lots break in lube on the metal parts.
There will enough additive in that to cover the initial start-up period. IMHO. :unsure:
You can even dump some of that into the oil.[/quote
On initial startup you want a brew high in ZDDP & phosphorous.
Rotella oil has some of these, but you need Lucas, Comp Cams & other camshaft Mfg. additives to prevent lifter scuffing
NO-NO modern oils do not contain the additives for the old flat tappet engines.
One reason the new oils do not contain the good stuff is because it clogs the catalytic converters.
 
To clarify, I agree that you need a high Zddp or moly oil, especially during cam break in.

I was thinking more about the old break in routines, like 500 miles of varied speeds, etc...
 
All good advice here. Personally, I used a Castrol gtx oil, added 1qt of Joe Gibbs driven BR (break in) oil (which my builder supplied) . After about 600 miles I changed the oil, cut open my oil filter to see what was caught. Refilled with whatever oil and a small bottle of zddp additive and drove for about 1000 miles. I still have a bit more driving to do, but like you have other areas of the car to attend to...

Break in and Oil discussions are like religious ones... this is where the cam manufacturers recommendations and bobistheoilguy.com comes in! :)
 
A local race engine builder here for generations and with a huge name locally uses Driven oil with all their builds. It is high dollar, but with a few thousand and a lot of work into my motor, it seemed to be cheap insurance to me. Driven has a whole line for various applications. Originally I wanted to use the Rotella but let myself be talked out of it due to changes in its formula over recent years. Its true, opinions are like........... But that's mine, Ha!
 
I'm using Castrol GTX 10w-40 with Lucus Zinc additive for the initial break in. Will more than likely continue to run the same Castrol once it's broken unless there's some compelling reason to switch.
 
I'm like 78, what's another $20 when you've put $1000+ into an engine. Cheap insurance. I'm going to use Joe Gibbs BR30
 
I spoke with the Driven Sales Manager, Scott Diehl, several years ago. His background includes Car Chief for Joe Gibbs and was a mechanic for Roush. From what he explained, they only use one Blender for their commercially available engine oil production and their additive packages are all from Lubrizol.

Here's a good article about the development of their oil program. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123932274269507173 .

No, it's not the same thing they run in their nascar engines, but there were a lot of lessons learned that they're passing on.

So, my thought at the time was to set up an ecommerce website and sell the product online with drop shipping from the warehouse and carry some stock locally in the Norfolk, VA Beach, Chesapeake area - Lots of Diesels and Boats here as well as classic cars. At the time able to get it for 25% below retail. They were really cool about it and great to talk to. I think I still have CC Terms and the 25% off.

This was interesting to me, because I was deeply involved with implementing and customizing manufacturing/accounting software for a blender of marine lubricants. They would perform custom additive blending at the port based on analysis of the used engine oil.

I might resurrect getting into the custom lube business at https://tidewaterdistributing.com . I still have 2 cases of oil. I'll see what they are and put them in the forsale section.

Anyway, enough rambling.

- Perry
 
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