Rotella T 15-40

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73Dart340Sport

73Dart340Sport

73dart340
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Hughes Engines had a good article on oils last fall. Their recommendation for "flat-tappet" engines was Rotella T. Supposedly Shell Rotella still contains zinc, which helps reduce cam lobe wear.

Any feed back or ideas; positive or negative?
 
Rotella with the "triple protection" label on the front no longer has the zinc required to ensure proper flat tappet cam break in. They removed the zinc phosphate to prevent diesel "scrubbers" from getting clogged. Use the mineral based oil of your choice plus the comp cams or crane oil supplement. Once the cam is broken in, change the filter and refill with mineral based oil.

Once you have 500 mi on the engine, use the oil of your choice, mineral or synthetic without the additive. Some would suggest waiting 5k or 10k miles before switching to a synthetic to ensure proper "wear-in" of all parts but I don't personaly think that this is necessary.
 
It's not zinc it's a zinc derivitave called ZDDP and all HDEO rated CI4+ oils have the same old amounts and are still available. The new CJ4 rated HDEOs have only slightly less ZDDP.
 
Ace,

If you would like to split hairs, ZDDP stands for Zinc dialkyl dithio phosphate. If you read my post, I mention zinc phospates.
 
Ace,

Shell Rotella with the "triple protection" has 30% less ZDDP than their previous formulation.
 
I'd be interested to compare the labels, becasue I've seen some like Delo400 that have almost the same amount.
 
ramcharger said:
Rotella with the "triple protection" label on the front no longer has the zinc required to ensure proper flat tappet cam break in. They removed the zinc phosphate to prevent diesel "scrubbers" from getting clogged. Use the mineral based oil of your choice plus the comp cams or crane oil supplement. Once the cam is broken in, change the filter and refill with mineral based oil.

Once you have 500 mi on the engine, use the oil of your choice, mineral or synthetic without the additive. Some would suggest waiting 5k or 10k miles before switching to a synthetic to ensure proper "wear-in" of all parts but I don't personaly think that this is necessary.
Click to expand...
So my engine has already been broken in by the engine builder. So if I read correctly I should go ahead and replace the filter and refill with a mineral based oil (what kind would that be?) for 500 miles then change to oil of choice. So after 500 miles, which oils without additives would you choose Ram? Should it be an oil that still has the ZDDP in original amounts?
 
Your right about Delo Ace, ZDDP content only went down from .148 to .130%. I went to the Rottela website a few weeks ago and may have confused their claim of "30% less particulates" with 30% less ZDDP.
 
Dave,
After the cam has broken in, I think viscosity is more important than ZDDP content. I set my bearing clearances tight, so 10w-40 is more than adequate in the summer and 10w-30 in the winter. I also don't get too crazy trying to restrict oil from the cam with radical scrapers, cam tunnels and top end oil restictors. These mods are worth power but my stuff sees street time. All I use is a windage tray to separate the crank from the oil pan. If I could only find a high ZDDP content oil in 20w-50 (after the cam break in), I would not use it in my builds as it would cause more harm than good. Of course, I would use 20W-50 in an endurance scenario in far Southern climes like the Silver State 100 or Baja 1000.

All that being said, Royal Purple is a great synthetic and has never caused me nor anyone I know any problems whatsoever, as long as the engine is oil tight to start with.

Valvoline and Penzoil are my two mineral based oils of choice. I never had an oil related failure using these two oils, but I'm sure there's a few more good ones out there as well.
 
In any case, I wouldn't recomend anyone use the new stuff (HDEO/CJ4 or SM for the regular gasser oil) as long as the old ones are still available. If and when they finally disappear, stick with the HDEOs for our old Mopars.
 
Yeah Ace,

This whole oil thing/EPA/emissions has become a complete pain in the ***. My next build will have a roller cam and run on E85 just to avoid this altogether. Hopefully we'll have more E85 stations here in Colorado by the end of the year.

Oh yeah, I was having trouble here with the website too. Don't feel bad!
 
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