When I talked to the guys at Erson about using EP additives during run-in, I was told that was unneccesary. They reiterated Cam Run-In importance, and outlined their procedure in depth.
It's a bit different from some of the other cam companies, but not substantially so.

CJ

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This subject has popped up on a number of Forums & there was a big article in Hot Rod recently. They didn't identify cam company(S) by name, probably because of the lawsuit happy society we have now. Discontinualtion of EOS was reported earlier this year, this month there are reports that the newly reformulated EOS is out. This may end up like the unleaded gas scare, much ado about nothing. It may be just bad cams or lifters (China anyone?) or it might be the ZDDP. I mentioned that site for a source of ZDDP, not for unbiased info.

I've always done filters and oil at the same time--but does the filter really catch that much in operation? It's cheap enough insurance, but has anyone cut open filters used on non-racing motors to see what builds up? Or is this where new and old motors differ: new motors are sealed up better (rings and much less grit left in the motors from the factories), while older motors can and do truly have small particles that are easily captured by the filter?

i am curious about the 10w-40w, all i have run in my fresh rebuilds, race motor or street is this grade, when you talk about friction modifers causing sludge in this oil weight are you talking visible sludge on top pan and engine internals or is this a term about the oils ability to lubricate, in my years of engine exsperiences only once with cheap oil and a 100,000+ engine have i seen a sludge up base and top pan. i have tried synthic once and for the cost it wasn`t worth it for me , et`s did have a small gain but when something in the engine is going to give the oil didn`t stop it, so i take the side of more frequent oil changes.

Found this link at the Forward Look website.

http://www.wheels.daytondailynews.com/d ... 15WOW.html

This may not be on the topic, but Ceej alluded to a cam run-in procedure. Can anyone elaborate on that. How soon after installing a new cam should the oil be changed? Thanks. No more 10W40 for me, I'm thinking.

It relates mainly to visible sludge/varnish formation in hot/low oil flow areas of the engine (like the rocker arms) and also to the tendency to form deposits in the combustion chambers when the oil is burned.

The friction modifiers added to cracked petroleum base stock to make multi-grade oils are NOT lubricants themselves. Think of them as microscopic sphagetti strands floating in the oil. But unlike sphagetti the long polymers coil and uncoil depending on temperature in order to make the oil thin out less as it gets hot. The more of those you add, though, the less percentage of the final product actually lubricates the engine. Thats a big reason why manufacturers are seeing such good results now with 5w20 oils. The other reason is that thickness really doesn't have squat to do with how well an oil lubricates anymore. Back in the ol' days, thicker oils would lubricate better because they wouldn't get "squeezed" out from between metal parts. But for the past 30 years or so, the oil companies have figured out how combine the right additives to make oils with super-high film strength even if they've got the viscosity of rubbing alcohol. Compared to thinner, modern, high film-strength oil, thicker oils can actually cause MORE wear because they don't flow as fast, so they don't flood bearings, cylinder walls, lifters, and other parts with a fast-moving stream of oil that lubricates, penetrates everywhere, and carries away heat faster like thinner oils do.

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thanks for the follow up, it`s interesting to think of oil in that way,so a 10w-30 will lubricate better and have a stronger oil film between moving parts. two other question, running a 10w-40 i have been setting my bear clearence at 0.0015rod/0.002mains, do you think running 10w-30 will need tighter clearences? and in my high milage tow rig 280000km will a 20w-50 be a good replacement for 10w-40?

hello,
Dan,this one is for you. is there anyone who might be interested and geographically available to help this guy out with his oil disposal?
sounds like more than enough to break in a HEAP of cams with.
http://www.classiccar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12477

regards,Rod

That was a very interesting read. It did not mention synthetics at all, which was a little disappointing. Forty years ago, when multi-viscosity oils were fairly new, a friend of mine had this experience. AFter running 10W40 for 100K miles in a SBC, he pulled the pan, and there was enough gunk in the pan to stand a screw driver up in. He commented that his dip stick ALWAYS looked clean when he checked the oil. I concluded then, and maybe incorrectly so, that if the dipstick stayed clean, that meant that bad stuff was not staying in suspension, and collecting elsewhere. We decided then to run straight HD-30W, and that worked better. The oil got darker with increasing miles, but the pan stayed cleaner. Changing oil when the weather changed seemed to be the only compromise required.

Something not mentioned also was temperature. It seems as if there is a magic temperature which minimizes the formation of sludge. Too cold, and sludge forms; too hot, and sludge forms. Maybe there are special oils for higher temperatures, or colder temperatures, I don;t know. Anyway, for standard oils, I think the 195 target is a good one, with the allowance for higher temps once in awhile, but not on a regular basis.

The 2001-2005 (or so) Mopar 2.7 v-6 started becoming a self destructing sludge formation machine when they increased the operating temp without increasing the size of the drain down holes in the heads. This was done to decrease emmisions, according to the articles I have read on line. This little trick cost Chrysler dearly, as the value of the early 21st century Mopars dropped seriously when this became known. Customers were stunned when told that their 70K NEW car needed an engine rebuild. Yes most were out of warranty. All from sludge build up.

In most cases the customer did not change the oil every 3000 miles. If they did, they were far less likely to have problems. If I recall correctly, Mopar was, at that time specifying 5K between oil changes. In either event, Mopar and their dealers started harping on the need to change the oil promptly at 3K. Mopar was, or course, trying to blame the customers, with limited success. It seems the culpability was not clear cut. It was a situation that just made everybody feel bad.

As for the filter issue, I have never cut one up, but they do feel heavier when you take them out, even after you have shaken all the oil of them that will come out that way.


Sam

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I liked the thought on seeing the oil get dirty. Long ago, the owner of a Pennsoil gas station said the same thing when he got complaints from customers that their oil turned black, or "got dirty faster. His responce was now you know that it is working.

I've had a fair amount of experience running synthetics in newer and older cars — did you have a particular question(s)? If I don't know the answer, I can probably point you at a source for good info.
That's exactly right. It's not normal or good for the dipstick to stay clean. Obviously if it turns tar-black instantly, the engine's internally dirty and wants cleaning or there's another problem, but it's normal and good for the oil on the stick to darken gradually.

There were (and, sadly, still are) aftermarket oil filters offered with the promise of keeping your oil clean as new between changes. Most of these used a roll of toilet paper (no foolin'!) as the filter media, and the chief offender was the Frantz device. Anyone who's seen the guts of an engine choked with shredded toilet paper (I've got some pretty gruesome pictures) would never even think of running one of these idiotic devices, but marketing psychology is a well-developed science, and a lot of people bought them. And many of them got a happy feeling from seeing the crystal-clear oil on the dipstick month after month. Thing is, the terlet paper was dragging the detergents and dispersants out of the oil. So yeah, the oil itself was staying nice and clean, for exactly the reason you state: the crap was building up in the engine rather than being flushed out with each oil change. Oops.
Well...different kinds of sludge. Cold operation tends to build up water in the oil, due to condensation and combustion byproduct. When the engine never gets up to operating temperature for a prolonged period, that water boils off, but if the engine's never brought to operating temperature and kept there long enough, the water never boils off. So, a lot of short trips in cold weather makes problems of this type.

Way at the other end of the scale, engine oil can cook (or "coke") if it's heated hot enough. Mostly this happens in extremely small passages that reach extremely high temperatures: Turbocharger bearing oilways, for example, or the too-small oil passages in the heads of various V6s from Chrysler and Toyota. It's very hard to reach the extremely high temperatures required for this to happen in a slant-6 engine that's operating anywhere close to normally, and while you can definitely increase cold-sludging by using too cold a thermostat, you're not going to cause hot-sludging with any thermostat you can buy for the slant-6.
The cold-sludging can really only be avoided by bringing the engine up to operating temp and keeping it there long enough to drive off the condensate. Today's oil is a lot better than yesterday's at resisting coking, but in extreme cases — improper engineering as in the Chrysler and Toyota V6s, and/or abusive service such as oil neglect or shutting down a turbo engine immediately after a hard pull — it's going to happen, with unhappy results.
...eh? I don't think I understand what you're saying here.
Granted, but they shouldn't have had to change the oil every 3k miles. Given today's oils and filters, with a properly-engineered engine, changing oil at 3k miles is a collossal waste for the driving conditions many of us encounter. Surely there are exceptions — a lot of short trips in cold weather, for example — but the 3k oil change has long outlived its justification for most of us. On the other hand, there are people who make a lot of money on the common "knowledge" that the 3k oil change is the right way to do it.
...which is still a short interval given today's capabilities in engine, oil, and filter engineering.
Toyota tried the same tactic in response to the same problem with their 3-litre V6. Yes, customers who changed their oil every 3k usually had no problem, but again, they shouldn't have had to change their oil that often. The engines were improperly engineered.

To be completely honest, I can't really work up a whole lot of righteous moral indignation on behalf of those who bought 2.7-litre V6 Mopars. Yeah, the engines were pathetic...and so was the whole rest of the car. From bumper to bumper and doorhandle to doorhandle, they just weren't/aren't very good cars. That's no excuse for DC having released a badly-engineered engine, but then again, what's their excuse for the pathetic A604 transmission, every pathetic headlamp they ever put on a vehicle starting in '88, their failure to hold Mitsubishi's feet to the fire for the pathetic valve guides on the 3.0 V6, the pathetic peel-off paint they applied to their vehicles from '89ish to '95ish...shall I go on? I don't mean to laugh at these people, or mock their plight, but this is a predictable result of buying a car based on the sizzle (liking how it looks, or getting swept up by an advertising campaign) rather than the steak (how it's engineered and built). I have an easier time sympathising with the Toyota owners, who had every right and basis to expect a lot better than they got, and whom Toyota dismissed in a very callous manner. It's a question of track record. It's normal operating procedure for Chrysler to try to shift the blame for their halfbaked engineering to the customers. It's not normal operating procedure for Toyota to release halfbaked engineering or try to weasel out of the consequences when they make a mistake.

(And yes, I wish Chrysler were still what they were in the mid-1960s when everything their engineers touched turned into gold...but we have to live with the world as it is, not as we wish it were.)

I don't really understand Supton's question. Yes, the filter traps and sequesters a great deal of trash that would otherwise ruin the engine very quickly. That's why the filter's there!

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Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

My wife and I have bought seven new Mopars since I moved to Texas 11 years ago, and, all have received oil changes every 3,000 miles. When going over the warranty, they make sure you understand that even though you drive normally, you must follow the maintenance schedule for severe driving conditions to keep the warranty in effect. Our hot summers are brutal on mis-treated engines.

So far, we have experienced absolutely no engine problems, and that includes two 2.7s, both of which performed flawlessly and got excellent mileage. Most were traded off in the 70-80k range, but a 3.3, 98 Intrepid remains in the family, and still runs fine as it nears 200k.

Well, why does motor oil change color? Is it particles in the oil *not* filtered out?

I'm sure that chunks of metal that might fall off (flash, left over sand from the molds, etc; and not all just in the initial miles) are bad, and need to be caught. But I wasn't sure how much stuff actually produced in the crankcase is actually getting caught--it seems just "conventional wisdom" that oil filters are necessary--just like the old 3k oil changes--but oil changes color for a reason. I've also see fuel filters with 2 or 10 micron ratings; but I haven't seen that for oil filters.

Unfortunately, I can't look at my filters to see what they are trapping--the oil is pitch black in my car, and that would mask whatever was caught.

So, is the stuff that makes it past the rings, is it caught by the filter, or by the oil?

On the Cam run in procedure. Generally most of them call for the 20 minute run in, then a full oil change.

An example of what the cam companies want is 2k rpm once oil pressure comes up, varying up to 2500 or 3k for 20 minutes. Or something similar. Just depends on what your dealing with.

500 Miles and change it again. I change the filter every time.

The procedure can be different for various cams and engine configurations. Follow what the manufacturer's recommendation is, and you'll be in good shape.



CJ

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