<VV> Selecting an oil

[Tony Underwood]

At 08:47 hours 05/29/2006, TimogensTurbo at aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 5/29/06 8:21:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time, tonyu at roava.net
>writes:
>
>
> > Maybe this is why it can get away with less
> > than 40 lbs of oil pressure to stay together when that 426 race
> > engine needs almost 100...
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>----
>
>Interesting also!  Might be why you had the problem!


...I didn't have a problem if I used Kendall GT-1... and the race 
Hemi engines had no issues when they used the right oil as 
well.   But they STILL needed lots of pressure AND high volume.

Remember what conditions these engines were working under.


>My experience...and method of most all in So Cal. in the 60-80's, was to run
>a high volume oil pump,  low pressure...15-25psi MAX!


That's smallblock Chevy language.

Bigblock Mopars don't speak it.


>This was accompanied by
>LOOSE  clearances.....brought about by having the crank Polished until the
>desired clearance was attained....cheap and easy on NEW factory engines.


Those race Hemi engines were already running .004 or better on the 
rods and usually as much on the mains.   Even the "stock Hemi engines 
were running .003 or a little looser as a rule.    They also ran a 
deep rotor oil pump with direct pan routing (oil pump on a Mopar B/RB 
is outside the engine) to the pump to avoid turns etc in the pickup 
plumbing.   They used high volume flow as well as damned near 100 lbs 
of pressure in order to keep the rods and mains wet at 9000+ rpm with 
a two pound piston and a three pound rod that had the benefit of not 
stretching or going out of round after three runs.


>We
>also always opened up the Rod's "side clearances"  which made for a 
>real SPRAY
>inside the crankcase...but was always negated by a windage tray...  Ahh, the
>good old DaZe...all this could be accomplished for a $100  if you 
>did the engine
>teardown / buildup...

B/RB hi perf Mopars came with a windage tray, as did the Hemi 
engines.   The "special" engines were also fitted with high volume 
high pressure oil pumps.   The engines prepped for racing got 
additional improvements seeing as how these engines had particular 
demands on their oil systems.   There's a lot of whirling weight 
inside one of those things.   This is why they developed the rep as 
being among the most powerful engines ever to grace the engine bay of 
an American automobile.   They also had a LOT of swept journal area 
on their cranks which placed particular demands on oil, both flow and 
volume.

The small recip hardware that Chevy used, both the V8 and Vair 
engines, made it easier to deal with, far as oil is concerned.   They 
didn't have to work with the mass of weight that lived inside a 
bigblock Mopar engine...  which was a head-ache for anyone who worked 
with such, street or strip.    Then again, with the right setup that 
mass of weight was capable of producing some astonishing horsepower, 
enough to set records that stand to this day and continue to get 
broken by those same engines.



>Then 50 wt  worked fine!   But, Yes,  I ran Castrol 20-50  or Valvoline 20-50
>  in my daily drivers.....but Castrol was the choice for any high revving
>smaller engines.  All the Brit, Japanese  and of course V W  air 
>cooleds seemed
>to thrive on it!


They must have had a different formula out where you were because the 
Castrol 20-50 *I* used kinda alarmed me with its quick failure in 
maintain viscosity.   The fact that the Kendall GT-1 did NOT drop oil 
pressure after a week of use suggests it was more stable... as well 
as being recommended as the sort of oil to use in breaking in 
camshafts, specifically mentioned by name in some of the Crane 
literature packed with the cams.

I never had any issues with Kendall GT-1 race oil and I buzzed that 
426 well past 7000 rpm time and again, sometimes up through valve 
float (very bad thing with intake valves that large) and I never 
scuffed a bearing.

I also have no doubts that today's synthetics would be much better 
suited to a Vair engine with its wide range of operating temps, the 
sort of which the average Mopar bigblock engine never sees.     If a 
B/RB Mopar was ever hot enough to sizzle water off it, there was 
either no water in its radiator or it had just finished being run to 
death and you could expect trouble...  the typical Vair engine will 
run twice as hot every day of the week year after year without issue.

With the oil available in the early '60s, it's a wonder that a Vair 
engine stayed together if a leadfoot had his way, between oil changes 
with the engine running two quarts low and already coking up 
underneath the piston crowns and inside the valve covers.    It's the 
"easy" treatment the engine lays on its lubricating oil that allowed 
those Vair engines to survive teenagers and ignoramouses.



tony..