Another Zddp or lack off thread

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: BrocLuno
My sample size is not huge, maybe 50 engines, but I have discussed this with many other builders along the way. They experience similar results. I'm not knocking GM. Stuff happens. But oil will not save an engine when all the little tolerances add up to miss alignment or off-center running.


To add to your sample, and with a completely different design GM engine.

Holden with their engine, had a number of failures on their 253 c.i. "blue" engines in the '80s.

Not the 308, just the 253 (different cores, machining)... I owned one, the original owner lost a cam, and ran M1 15W50 on the new one...mine did too.

Making me think it was a machining/core shift issue.

 

[SR5]

Quote:
just the 253 (different cores, machining)... I owned one, the original owner lost a cam, and ran M1 15W50 on the new one...mine did too.


I always thought that Holden 253 V8 was a sweet little engine, never knew they had cam issues. Can't have been the oil with M1 15W50, it should have something like 1300 ppm zinc.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: BrocLuno
To my personal knowledge, and only talking about engines I have wrenched on, I have never seen a Ford eat a cam in a 302 or a 351 with OEM lifters and valve springs. Ditto a Mopar. I have seen a fair number of roached GM engines with all OEM parts.

In this case, by "fair number" don't you mean "almost all" really?

I can't think of a GM small block powered taxi back in the mid 1980s and earlier that didn't eat its cam.

Fortunately, it wasn't an expensive or time consuming fix, really. When people push boutiques here for small block Chevy engines, I like to remind them that a cam and lifter replacement cost less that three or four boutique oil changes.