What oil do you run in your "Built" motors?

[BrocLuno]

If you are an actual motor person. One who either specs custom built engines, or builds your own for a performance application and then drives and maintains that application; what oil do you run and why?

I build moderately old school American V-8's for fun cars, mostly on the street. I've been doing this on and off for about 5 decades. I break in those engines on Chevron Supreme 10W-40. I change oil & filter at 100 miles and again at 500. Then I run yearly OCI's as most of these cars and trucks do not get 7,500 a year.

I have used Delo400 as my go-to oil for decades for general use and that includes a type of engine I build that I call a drooler. That is it has extra internal oiling points and runs a HV pump with the lowest pressure spring I can install so that it max's at ~50 psi.

When I was young and did not know better, I swore oil pressure was important so I wasted power driving high pressure systems and the associated wear on distributor gears and broken oil pump drives. At some point the light went on and I quit doing that ...

So my oils are Chevron Supreme and Delo400. I am adding Valvoline MaxLife as a third oil...

So how bout you'all ???

 

[DoubleWasp]

Valvoline VR-1, and recently Amsoil Dominator, both synthetic

 

[OVERKILL]

In the SBF's I've done (basically all 302's) M1 0w-40, though I did dabble with Delvac 1 5w-40 for a bit.

I haven't done a ton of them, and only a couple of them have been mine, the others have been builds for friends or with friends but the oil has always performed extremely well on tear-down in terms of lack of wear and internal cleanliness.

These are all roller motors too BTW. I've helped with a few flat tappet SBC's with a buddy of mine, but never owned one. For those we ran Esso XD-3 15w-40.

 

[Shannow]

I haven't built anything since F.I. came on.

All were Holden 6's and an 8. Owned many many of them, some stock, some rebuilt, or modded by others.

They share the same lifters as SBCs, obviously flat tappets.

My go to in the '80s/early '90s was Valvoline XLD, or Gastrol GTX, all 20W50, with a tin of STP (or GM EOS) in it.

Start-up was heaps of moly cam lube, and HD30 engine oil, 2,000RPM for the first half an hour, then drained and refilled with my 20W50/STP/EOS.

Never lost anything running those oils.

Had M1 15W50 in a Holden 6 which I'd stupidly installed an aftermarket oil pump (HV), which started losing pressure one afternoon, and heat had literally burned the engine enamel off the (external) pump...was a machingin issue, I didn't check the end float on the pump gears...new oil pump and 20W50 went back in.

Lost lobes on 2 (stock) holden V-8s, one on M1 15W50, and another on 20W50 - they were early '80s engines, and Holden messed up the lifter bore machining on everything back then (annecdotally, as the decent rebuilders were drilling/bushing them on rebuild)

 

[AKhan87]

I only do stock rebuilds and i run anything with the correct certifications up to xw40, no xw50s...

I used Maxlife NextGen 10w40 with 12,000 miles(wife goes to pharmacy college 900+ miles away in Wyoming) on the break-in oil.

I used Formula Shell dino 10w40 in another engine with ~3000 miles on break in so far, all the engines that I used 10w40 or Rotella T 15w40 in (3 total) they have broken in much more quickly.

where the other (~70+ engines) have been broken in using xw20-xw30 have taken x2-3 times the mileage to be properly broken in, I'm not sure why but this has been my experience.

I define being broken in by the stock power it should be producing, no dynos done just an anecdotal test by driving them around to see is all.

 

[heyu]

Either one of these

http://www.penngrade1.com/Zinc.aspx

http://www.cen-pe-co.com/

 

[OneEyeJack]

In the 60's and 70's I built a lot of motors and always used Delo 15w-40. I purchased it in bulk from guys that serviced off road equipment at night and on weekends.

 

[Srt20]

I've used Brad Penn, Valvoline VR-1 or whatever there racing stuff was, Joe Gibbs oil, and Amsoil. All 20w-50.

All SBC in the 2000s. Oval track race engines. Only oil related issues were some blueing of the rocker arms. Most likely from oil not warmed up enough before some higher rpm was turned.

Never had bearing or cam issues.

 

[punisher]

Back in the late 80s early 90s, when "loose is fast" philosophy ruled, straight 40 VR-1 floated the bearing clearances. That meant idle only till oil temp got up.......unless you felt like changing distributor gears more frequently.

 

[A_Harman]

Red Line 5w30 in my Corvette.
Some kind of high ZDDP oil in my big GMC, if I ever get motivated to finish it. It has sliding cam followers and fairly strong valve springs.

 

[BrocLuno]

All good, keep it coming

 

[userfriendly]

Heavy loaded FT cams get old school CI-4 15w40 high saps or SAE 30 Cat TO-4 with HTHS 3.5-3.7.
People wipe their cams because they can't read instructions, don't know how to set their lash without the engine running, don't prime the oil pump and engine and about a thousand other reasons.
In those cases it would not matter which engine oil they selected. The engine was doomed from the start.

 

[BrocLuno]

One of the better Rocky Mountain engine builders over on Chevelles.com uses LAT Racing Oils in his new builds. Anyone else here run LAT Oils?

http://www.rinehartsperformance.com/LAT_Racing_Oil.html

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp
Valvoline VR-1, and recently Amsoil Dominator, both synthetic


Both excellent oils. I run the Dominator in my boat engine. My street car with a lil ole roller small block also loves that stuff. I just wish they made a 40w!

As an aside, my family's third generation machine shop only recommends Castrol. They are so old school it isn't funny. My BIL just put together an old Hemi from a basketcase with over 10k in machine work and extra charges and it started up on GTX 20w-50...

 

[BrocLuno]

I wouldn't do that anymore... I run 20W-50 GTX in my Harley and it is so foamy after a good hard ride I wonder about lubrication... I'll be switching to Mobil1 15W-50 for a test soon

Fortunately you can easily see into the oil tank, so it's not hard to compare foaming notes from brand to brand.

I can say that the Sporty hated Delo400 and Delvac. Sounded like a corn harvester on full tilt

GTX quieted it right down and that's what a bunch of my buddies run. But there has to be a better solution ...

 

[aquariuscsm]

Anyone ever use synthetic 5W50's?

 

[SteveSRT8]

I agree. GTX is so old school it's not funny. Right now that Pennzoil Yellow is one of the best "regular" oils out there and even it is a bit blurry on whether or not it is a synthetic, as it contains some interesting amounts of good bases.

The funny thing about this Hemi was it had blown apart two previous times when rebuilt by other shops. My BIL has a sterling rep and was contacted for that reason...

 

[billt460]

I stopped using Castrol GTX after I got tired of seeing dark, dirty deposits settling at the bottom of every new quart bottle I poured into my car.

 

[BrocLuno]

Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
Anyone ever use synthetic 5W50's?


I think there are some Porsche applications ...

 

[BrocLuno]

There is an on-going Poll that I posted at Chevelles.com. A large number of these folks build stout Big Block Chevy's to over 800 Hp and get their mostly steel bodied cars down into the 11'2 easily and the 10's quite often. A few are in the 9's (1/4 mile times) with license plates

http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=831521

VR-1 is the leader early in the polls life. I'll be curious to see what comes top after Christmas when more members have weighed in ...

In the Other category, there are some real interesting oils showing up like LAT Synthetic ...