Napa Syn 15w50 to replace BradPenn 20w50 in 454bbc

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Originally Posted By: GGilbert
Nothing wrong with Napa. I would personally stick with BP. I've run 10-30 Valvoline not street legal oil for years in my 540 cubic inch top dragster/ super comp dragster. Never a problem.


What heads intake and rotating goodies are you running in your 540? Seems to be quite a few people on the fence about running the 15w50 in our 468 BBC I have to admit I am too since we haven't had any issues with the Brad Penn, save for the price. The new 540 will have a swap meet Callies Magnum crank, Oliver Max rods, JE pistons, and Dart 345 as cast heads with some bowl work, intake is an Edelbrock 454R topped off with a Pro Systems Dominator, cam is a Comp Nitrous grind spun by a belt. Block is an old GM Bowtie block. I'm surprised to hear that you're running a 30wt in your 540. We run pretty loose piston to wall as well as rod and main clearances so the 50wt keeps the oil pressure up.
 
NAPA syn 15W50 has a little over 1100 PPM of Phosphorus that is plenty for short runs in a dragster. Brad Penn uses about 1000 PPM. You will be fine.
 
Originally Posted By: dave1251
NAPA syn 15W50 has a little over 1100 PPM of Phosphorus that is plenty for short runs in a dragster. Brad Penn uses about 1000 PPM. You will be fine.


I couldn't find the spec for Napa Syn Zinc in ppm. Only in wt./% which is listed as 0.080/0.076 I'm not sure how that relates in ppm.

The Brad Penn is listed as % mass of 0.15 Zinc with a HTHS of 6.2 TBN of 10.2.

I can't find the HTHS of the Napa listed but it would appear that the Napa has just shy of half the Zinc of the Brad Penn.
 
Not all ZDDP is created equal. Racing oils are designed to use/deplete it faster than passenger car oils for increased protection. They also don't have detergents fighting for surface area on metallic partts. I would take the "data" contained within a VOA with a grain of salt.
 
Originally Posted By: GGilbert
Nothing wrong with Napa. I would personally stick with BP. I've run 10-30 Valvoline not street legal oil for years in my 540 cubic inch top dragster/ super comp dragster. Never a problem.


There are illegal oils? It's a serious question, I didn't know such things existed.
 
Originally Posted By: kschachn
Originally Posted By: GGilbert
Nothing wrong with Napa. I would personally stick with BP. I've run 10-30 Valvoline not street legal oil for years in my 540 cubic inch top dragster/ super comp dragster. Never a problem.


There are illegal oils? It's a serious question, I didn't know such things existed.


There are 2 versions of Valvoline VR1, the regular version with detergents, and the NSL Racing only version with barely any detergents which is the "true" race oil which is supposed to be changed before 500 Miles,l it's called Not street legal because it's not supposed to be used in street cars.

Although funnily enough i think all the versions of VR1 have been banned in California, why? because of the new ban on obsolete engine oils in California, and the 10w30 version is rated SH because it has 1300ppm of Zinc, otherwise it's completely up to modern standards.

And yes there are other oils that are banned from being sold because of them being very poor quality, being made from used oil etc...
There's a list here somewhere http://www.pqiamerica.com/
 
Yup, silver bottle VR-1 (the street legal kind) is illegal in Calif
frown.gif


So is anything that is not current standards (SN ?).

I dunno what Redline is doing about that? They are Headquartered here ...

It's a mess as usual. We are all searching for alternatives. Maybe race-only oils will be available from the tracks, like race gas ...

I'm looking to run Chevron Delo 15W-30 SD (severe duty) for one of my alternative. And SAE-30HD where that's appropriate for break-in ...
 
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Originally Posted By: BrocLuno
Yup, silver bottle VR-1 (the street legal kind) is illegal in Calif
frown.gif


So is anything that is not current standards (SN ?).

I dunno what Redline is doing about that? They are Headquartered here ...

It's a mess as usual. We are all searching for alternatives. Maybe race-only oils will be available from the tracks, like race gas ...

I'm looking to run Chevron Delo 15W-30 SD (severe duty) for one of my alternative. And SAE-30HD where that's appropriate for break-in ...


I got quite confused with the Silver vs Black bottle VR1 , In Europe all the bottles are black, while in the US they are silver?
 
The 540 thats in my car now is a Reher&Morrison super series motor.They told me to run nothing but 10-30 oil.The motor almost never gets to 200 deg.water temp.I change it about every 30 -35 runs. I bought a ton of the not street legal oil when Valvoline truck would come to the races.I finally ran out.Now im using Lucas 10-30 racing oil.My other motor is a 522 that I built and i use 15-40 in it.It set up for 300+ shot of nos. I also use Lucas 5-20 race oil for my sons jr dragster.
 
That Camaro looks all business. Nice car
smile.gif


Depending on the clearances and what kind of oil pressure you observe at operating temperature, a 15w-40 may do a fine job as well. Buy it by the pail.
 
The clearances in this 468 inch BBC are pretty fat LoL. Main bearings are 0.0035 for positions 1-4 0.005 on the rear main #5 rods are 0.003 1-8. After a pass the idle pressure is about 20# @ the 1400 RPM idle speed with a bulk oil temp of about 220 degrees. Before a pass with an oil temp of 160 degrees oil pressure is about 60. So for my own sanity I will probably stick to a 50wt.
 
Love it!
thumbsup2.gif
Leaves nice and straight!

Looks like a nice track also!



Originally Posted By: FlyNavyP3
Originally Posted By: RazorsEdge
Originally Posted By: FlyNavyP3
Sure no problem, of which part? The car or the engine, or the carnage when things go wrong? Lol.


grin2.gif
Pictures of drag car,carnage is never any fun
wink.gif



As promised





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1VtUF0CL0c#t=17.016897

A few 8.60/8.50 passes Induction Solutions 250 HP jetting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WNY4KJX-ok

8.37 @ 160 and change Induction Solutions 300 HP jetting.
 
The track these were filmed at is local, it's decent, not fantastic. The car is honestly pretty boring out of the hole. 60' is usually somewhere in the 1.1X range. It could really use more converter for this engine but it should be just right for the 540. Car pulls hard all the way down the track, it picked up 20 mph from the 1000' mark to the 1320' beams which is a ton of mph to pick up in 320' when you're already going 140! There is more in the combination with a looser converter, but that's a lot of money when it will be just fine with the new larger engine. At the end of the day we're really happy with how it runs for production parts, many people don't believe us when we tell them it has production iron heads or that it's only 468 inches. Car runs consistent 10.0X off the nitrous. Nitrous passes depend on the jetting and the 8.37 pass is the fastest it's been since we've had it. Hoping to get the car into the 7's with the 540 and some spray, likely 400hp brought in on a progressive. It will be getting an updated cage for a 7.50 cert this winter.
 
You're doing real well with what you have. A new Coan or Freakshow converter would be some serious $$ when you are putting another motor in anyway ... It'll be fun to see how it does with the new motor
laugh.gif


Keep us posted
frown.gif
 
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Nice car.I had a 81 camaro I raced in s/g and s/c.I miss that car sometimes. I know a few racers here that have simular combination that you have. they been using Kendall 20-50 with good results. what oil filter do you use and do you know what micron rating it is.?Do you have a vac.pump on this motor?
 
Gonna try to answer a few questions all in one post here. The current converter in the car was originally built for the 540 to be a 5,000 stall on motor and about 5,500 when launching on about 200hp of spray. It was build by transmission specialties inc TSI and it's one of their billet spragless converters. It's taken us longer to get the 540 built than we hoped and the converter was really too tight for the current 468 on anything less than 250hp of spray so we sent it back 2 years ago to be loosened up about 300 rpm on the stall speed to better suit the smaller engine. It should still work well with the 540 but might be a little loose now when spraying the 540. Time will tell on that. The cars owner and driver is getting a new hi in two weeks so it's going to be next season before the 540 sees any track time.

For the filter we're running a Wix Racing filter that we cut and inspect every OCI. No idea the specs on it. I'll look. But for what we're doing it just needs to catch any big chunks to act as a diagnostic tool for knowing if we have an issue developing. Ultra fine filtration isn't of particular concern to us.

Car doesn't currently run a vacuum pump. Not really in the budget for the extra few hp it would make. We just jet it up if we want to go faster lol.
 
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Elected to pass on the 15w50 Napa Synthetic for the race car for now, partially because I'm a little concerned that it might not be up to the task. But mostly because the owner and driver of the car is down for the season with a hip injury that will require a hip replacement. So no sense in stocking up on supplies when the car wont be making any more passes this year. Thanks to everyone for their replies.
 
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