Originally Posted By: n4ue
Was at the auto parts store today and the company bought a bottle of hy-per lube. Now, I don't intend to put it in a vehicle. I like to keep a variety of lubricants at my workbench and thought I'd give it a try. It 'says' it protects better than Zinc, for what that's worth. I have had some terrific result with my firearms by coating bullets with both hBN and WS2... Just wonder about the latest 'snake oil'.....
Ron:
The Hy-per Lube folks make a whole range of additive products - from radiator to fuel tank. You did not specify which particular product you bought, but you mention zinc so it might be
Hy-Per Lube Zinc Replacement Additive.
Reading through the hype: "This reduced ZDDP [zinc] approach works well to protect the catalytic converters but leaves many older and high performance engines without the proper EP (extreme pressure) wear protection they need to protect the cams, lifters and rocker arms." Translated: these parts in 'older engines' may now be suffering at the hands of the EPA.
I don't recall zinc being highly regarded as a lubricant. It is a useful metal, to be sure - there is a zinc block bolted to the bottom of most outboard motors. Hot dip zinc plating (aka
Galvinization) is what makes garbage cans last a long time and public street lamp posts stay silver in appearance (until either gets hit by a drunk driver). Zinc is a sacrificial metal that protects other metals like steel and aluminum from rust and galvanic corrosion by sacrificing itself. Good stuff, zinc... but not as a 'high pressure lubricant'.
For high pressure lubrication, how about good quality motor oil? Or, if you're really a fanatic, you might consider adding MoS2. I've owned and worked on push-rod engines with rocker arms and I don't recall that rods and cams and rockers were a big problem area - at least not wear-wise. After a camshaft is ground, the thin surface of the cam is heat-treated and hardened... made really, really hard. Ditto for the tip of the push rod that rides the cam. Hardening the surface of cams is 'old technology'. As for the rocker arm... it's just sort of there. They can break or the bearings can wear - get egg shaped. But, you push in a new sleeve bearing or replace the whole rocker. All of these parts are operating in a semi oil-bath... and they tend to last a long time.
The Hy-Per Lube product might not cause any harm, but I don't see it solving an urgent problem either. If cam scuffing was such an urgent concern, then it should be a problem on modern engines which still have camshafts and still have metal things that rub against the cam. But, again, I don't recall cam wear or scuffing as a number-one problem, thanks to surface hardening and motor oil.
Maybe I missed something in their advertising.