Found this on another site...
OIL ADDITIVE TEST (http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/images/lucas/lucas.htm)

Interesting tests - I love it when someone takes a subject like this and makes it ridiculously easy to see.

So, my question is...

Is it better to have a non-foaming oil that is lightly coating the bottom of those gears and being dragged around the rest or is it better to have foaming oil covering the gears entirely? I can certainly see where the vicosity of the oil must be far less where it's foamed up dramatically, but which scenario is better (or worse) ???

:confused: :confused:

Hoffer, thanks for the link. This just goes to show you that high quality lubricants are precisely engineered and "fixing" them with additives that the makers didn't contemplate simply is a bad proposition.

No additives for me! I'll just take top quality lubricants by themselves, thank you.

BOD

I will only use marvel mystery oil in my cars.

I've been using good old MMO and STP off and on, depending on how loose my motors were, for more years then I care to think about without any ill affects(Sp?)!!

In fact, I just changed oil and filter in my old '80 P/U. I put 5 quarts of Walmarts, el-cheapo, Tech2000 10w40 oil, a half a small bottle of MMO AND a REALLY old can of STP that was my now gone F-I-L's just to get rid of it!! The can musta been 25 years old???

Plus put the other half of the bottle of MMO in the gas tank.

New sparkplugs and wires AND the old P/U fired right up GREAT and almost quit steaming/white smoking completely so hopefully I've been worried about a bad head on the old 6-banger motor for nothing..

pdq67

Originally posted by dittoz:
Interesting tests - I love it when someone takes a subject like this and makes it ridiculously easy to see.

So, my question is...

Is it better to have a non-foaming oil that is lightly coating the bottom of those gears and being dragged around the rest or is it better to have foaming oil covering the gears entirely? I can certainly see where the vicosity of the oil must be far less where it's foamed up dramatically, but which scenario is better (or worse) ???

:confused: :confused: =
Oil with air in it is about a half step away from no oil,, air is not a real efficient lubricant :(

saw one for stp once take a butter knife coat the blade with oil hold the blade with two fingers try it with stp it will slip out of your fingers I like using additives the oil companyies are after money not good oil ever look in the bottom of and oil can theres crape setteled in the bottom

Has Patter been reincarnated? ;)

Rase car ;)


Rocky

Originally posted by wagon:
I will only use marvel mystery oil in my cars. Ditto! Its the only one i will use too.

Thanks, Rocky. graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Originally posted by 32fire:
saw one for stp once take a butter knife coat the blade with oil hold the blade with two fingers try it with stp it will slip out of your fingers I like using additives the oil companyies are after money not good oil ever look in the bottom of and oil can theres crape setteled in the bottom Huh?

Originally posted by 10sec69:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by 32fire:
saw one for stp once take a butter knife coat the blade with oil hold the blade with two fingers try it with stp it will slip out of your fingers I like using additives the oil companyies are after money not good oil ever look in the bottom of and oil can theres crape setteled in the bottom Huh? </font>[/QUOTE]Ditto to HUH graemlins/sad.gif

32fire,
You gotta be kidding right??
What the hell does holding a knife between your fingers have to do with the loads imposed on parts in an engine??

BTW, I have this bridge about 3 hours south of me I can give you a real good deal on, I still have it for sale :D

Best use for oil additives is to dump the additives in the trash and put bolts in the can. Use good oil, skip the additives. I've disassembled many engines and seen the results of the miracle additives. I also heard a dab behind each ear is good for dandruff.

Originally posted by 32fire:
ever look in the bottom of and oil can theres crape setteled in the bottom Them little flimsy french pancakes that get stuffed with fruit and cheese? Settled in the bottom of the pan?

I use the MMO but I WOULD NOT SUGGEST using flimsy pancakes as an oil additive. Just bad all the way around.

MMO is whats happening!! But I put it in the gas tank instead of the crankcase. Takes care of carbon in the heads and pistons. I did use it in the oil about 15 years ago on a 318 BMW that smoked because of valve seals and it cleared it up after a month or so and two oil changes. Regular name brand oil has come along way in the past several decades to the point that regular oil changes out weigh any reason to add Snake Oil to it.

The thing bothering me about this test is the mixing ratio of the Lucas to the other lubricants. Just looking at the levels before and after adding Lucas stuff it looks like a 50/50 mix, I don't think that's the recommended ratio.

As for the settling to the bottom issue I don't think it will take many rpms of highway driving to mix things up again.

I run the Lucas additive with Mobil one. After the last cam failure I had(too much spring pressure)when I tore the engine down I could still see the honing marks in the cylinder bores and the engine had about 5000 miles on it at the time. My oil pressure is still as good as when I first built it even now after about 10,000 miles. Also when I pull the dipstick immediately after shutting down the engine I see no evidence of discoloration indicating air in the oil. So, I'm not ready to stop using it yet!

Funny you should mention the "crap in the bottom of the can" sorta sh-t b/c I just emptied a gallon of 85w140 Gear Lube AND it was full of it at the bottom!!

I figure THAT is the extreme pressure, (E-P), additives the refinery puts into the stuff to make it work!!

As for crap in the new, honey-colored oils, ain't gonna happen b/c the EPA has limited uses of E-P metallic stearates and such b/c they shorten cat's lives such that since EPA want's cat's to last like 125,000 miles they won't using E-P additives!!

And one other point I have mouthed about several times, is that I firmly believe that synthetics are so slick, that if cam lobes are too smooth, that roller lifter wheels will skip on them and gall b/c they are so slick together that they can't grab good enough to roll!!

Think about this for a bit..

And If I was that anal about oil, I would run Amsoil for a synthetic oil with a bottle of EOS OR old-fashioned dark teal colored dino oil "ROTELLA"!!!

OR if I can find it, a diesel motor application oil named "URSA"!!

BUT for the money, good old Walmart Tech2000 has done me fine for many, many years!!

pdq67

Hmm, Paul, the thing about the roller cams and synthetics is something to think about. You bring up a good point. But aren't all Corvettes shipped with Mobil 1 and equipped with hydralic roller cams? I heard once that all those LS1 powered F-bodies also came with Mobil 1, but I'm not sure about those.

Anyway, never heard of any problems with the roller-cam'd, Mobil 1 lubed Vettes. I don't think GM would use the Mobil 1 if they had any fear of the rollers skipping, and I bet they would know if this was a problem, with all the testing they do.

I guess I'm talking about aftermarket hy-po solid roller, "knarly", stuff moreso then stock stuff. But I will say that the new motored 'Vette had a problem early on as far as pan design and stuff like that. Not really oil/lube related but in a way is....

pdq67

ill tell you try putting stp in a motor bike and see what happens it will make your clutch slip i think what they were trying to get across is it cuts down friction by being slippery works good in air cooled motors to like old v'w s

32fire, Whatever you are ingesting is making your clutch slip also.

Awe, come on Greg, lighten up some b/c we all got our 2-cents worth to contribute here..

He, He!!

pdq67

I propose that we perform a "butter knife" test on all motor oils... dip the knife in and see if we can hold on to the blade. I'll bet that with Mobil 1 it'll sguirt out of our fingers like a wet bar of soap!

For gear oils, we'll dip a paddle in a vat of it and try to squeeze it between our knees.

STP was really onto something, and we just weren't paying attention.

hey i know we can run the motor on soap

You're a good sport graemlins/thumbsup.gif I like that.

what kind of soap? wouldn't foaming be a problem?

The "metallic stearates" are chemically in the "soap" family!

The extreme pressure, (E-P), stearate additives are "metallic soaps" IF I have this right??

I think they are zinc, cadimum and I suppose a couple of others?? Maybe sodium and lithium??

pdq67

This thread IS going somewhere after all! graemlins/hurray.gif

All through my mechanical training, all the instructors told us the the motor oil, as delivered, has all the additives necessary for proper operation. I have, on ocassion, used Marvel Mystery Oil for a noisey lifter, esp on an engine that I bought used. Just my opinion.

I asked a Petro-Canada so called "oil expert" about oil additives a few years ago. His response was, Quote: If this stuf was so damn good, and did everything thay claimed it did, don't you think we would have it in our oil already?

We had a snake oil salesman stop by our race shop a few years back as well. I think the product he was selling was called Power Up. He had one of those machines that you pulled the handle and tried to get the machine to stop spinning. By adding the power up or whatever it was called, it seemed to reduce the friction alright, but we put maple syrup on it and it out performed all the oils! Would you put maple syrup in your engine? graemlins/clonk.gif
He also had some grease he was trying to push and the good old fashioned red grease Chevron has been selling for years out performed it on his own machine. :D

Yes, good old "snake-oil" named MMO is good stuff and for me has always done what it said it was supposed to do...

AND it doesn't cost and arm and a leg to use every so often either!!

pdq67

What about adding a quart of ATF to the engine before changing the oil. Is it true that the ATF's detergent quality cleans the internals without harm...or is this another old wives tale?

Novaman: If you use a quality oil there will be no sludge to remove. After 40k miles with mobil 1 I looked in the lifter valley and under the valve covers and it looks just like when I put it together. No dirt or sludge.

That said: There is one case where I have found MMO to work great, and that is to free sticking lifters. I have a second car that I don't think ever had any maintenance, a 1983 Cadillac. I had a loud ticking that sounded semi-terminal. A bottle of MMO in the oil and after less than a minute the ticking stopped. That was 2 years ago and it hasn't made noise since. Impressed the hell out of me (and saved me an engine tear down)!

all i know is ive ran my motor with no oil if the additive i put in wouldnt have been in there i would have been buying a new motor like one guy said air dont lube seems like my cars ware out faster than my motors these days used to be the other way around i get 3 times the miles i used to better mileage to im sold on additives but thats me.

A little off track but, has anyone here besides me used STP oil treatment in automatic transmissions? About twenty years ago I walked into a parts store looking for something to help a slippin trans in a car I had just bought, an old timer behind the counter said use STP oil treatment, I thought he was nuts but gave it a try. The trans lasted years and I ended up selling the car. I've seen it work again and again on cars in the family and friend's vehicles. I don't know how it works but transmissions sure seem to like the stuff, now I put some in on every fluid and filter change. The wife's voyager had a trans leak in the bellhousing area which I assumed was the torque converter seal. I wasn't very enthused with the idea of pulling the trans so I dumped a bottle of Lucas transmission additive in and it quit leaking-that was eight months ago. Some additives do work.

How much STP do you add to the trans along with a ATF fluid change?

I add one bottle.

The thick "STP/Motor-Honey" stuff??

If not, I guess I haven't looked all that close enough at the shelf to see that STP now has a thinner viscosity oil treatment additive??

pdq67

With regard to power increases these oil additives "dealers" claim; when I worked for a major aftermarket performance engine part manufacturer, snake oil company after snake oil company would come showing us glowing dyno test results and try to convince us to market their snake oil through our catalog. We would say if we can back-up your results on our dyno we will sell it. 100% of the time the additive would fail to produce any results. The snake oil salesman would always claim that something was wrong with our test, that their additive always works. We would then send them away. As was said previously if their additives really worked it would be in mainline engine oils.

Jim,

I don't doubt that at all b/c my Buddy Doc is always trying to get me to use Roil in my motor. A "shot-glass" addition AND I tell him to find out what it is and he can't tell me.

Anyway, I figure STP/Motor Honey is supposed to make oil thicker so it can help a loose motor last a bit longer by "tightening up" the bearing clearances by making the oil thicker WHICH both products do fine, imho!!

As for MMO, I use it as a top-oil lube/cleaner and a combustion aid WHICH to me it does fine in both applications so I have no problem with either products!!

My problem comes in when oil additive products cost say, $20 to $40/quart!!! Then the old "B/S-Indicator" sounds off big-time!!

BUT I will say that no more then pure SOY BIO-DIESEL is an EXCELLENT lubricity increaser additive in very small amounts like say the already mentioned "shot-glass" deal!!

Even the EPA has proven this b/c they are considering adding it in small percentages to ultra-low sulfur containing diesel fuels that they are mandating by, (I think?), 2007 to 2010??

Diesel fuel is going down to 15ppm sulfur so diesel engine exhaust emission tech. will last longer just like when the EPA removed TEL from gasoline for cat. life extension.

And everybody is worried about it's lower lubricity which soy bio-diesel seems to take care of..

pdq67

PS., and I am onna those "old-timers" that has used a quart of Diesel Fuel in the oil to clean/purge all the crap out of an old motor!!

NOW, I'd rather use something cheap like good old, MMO instead!!

PS., and I am onna those "old-timers" that has used a quart of Diesel Fuel in the oil to clean/purge all the crap out of an old motor!! HaHA, My Dad used to do that all the time with old engines. I've seen motors that I thought were junk come to life after he did three oil changes using a quart of kerosene before changing the oil. He just added a quart of kerosene to the oil and let it idle for an hour before he dropped the oil and changed it. They really came back to life with good compression and power. I guess some of the older oils really sludged up the lifters and rings and the kerosene must have cleaned it all out. He also used to dribble water in the carb at part throttle to boil the carbon off the combustion chambers, pistons and valves-this also seemed to work good. Sometimes simple stuff works good. Bob

Originally posted by 32fire:
saw one for stp once take a butter knife coat the blade with oil hold the blade with two fingers try it with stp it will slip out of your fingers In the late 60's or 70's STP had a commercial on TV where someone would try to pick up a screwdriver that was dipped in motor oil,which he did no problem.Then when he tried to pick up the same screwdriver dipped in STP he couldn't pick it up.Anyone remember that one?I figure that was just good acting :D
For the record I've used STP in every car that I owned that had alot of miles on it.All my newer cars I just use Mobil 1 without additives.

zwede, i have a 68k+ engine in my daily driver and after an oil change, the new oil turns black within a few hundred miles.

What would be the best way to clean the engine...ATF, Kerosene or a couple of very frequent oil changes?

baddbob71, i too have tried the STP oil treatment in an old and worn TH350 and it helped tremendously. Had slippage in third and after adding a can of STP, the tranny worked perfectly.

Novaman: The oil turning black doesn't mean there's anything wrong. Actually just the opposite. The oil is doing its job. The oil in my 454 will also turn black really quickly, yet all the internals are spotless. The oil suspends the dirt instead of letting it build up in the engine.

So before you try to clean it out make sure you really do have a problem. Pop the valvecovers and take a look. If you do have sludge I guess some form of engine flush mifght get it out, but I have never used one so I have no recommendations.

/Markus

Another vote for just using "good" sythetic oil. Mobil 1 is required (not recommended) for the Viper, Corvette, SRT-4, SRT-6, SRT-10, Merecdes AMG, and countless other high end machines, might actually be something to the whole sythetic thing.

I brought this up again, because I went through the posts again and didn't see any mention of GM's EOS
or
Engine Oil Supplement

I have seen folks recomend this product, especially for break-in. I have never used it and wonder what you all thought??

Excellent stuff for break-in!!

But it has too much heavy-metal extreme pressure stuff in it to run all the time b/c it is not ashless and it will also kill the cat. due to heavy-metal poisoning.

I think I said here that if I was anal about oil, I would use either Amsoil fortified with EOS OR ROTELLA and URSA oils.

Rotella and URSA oils have a lot of extreme pressure stuff in them OR at least they did??

pdq67

FWIW, I brought this home from work today from my "Useful Tips" folder.

Zinc dialkyldithiophosphate containing extreme pressure lube additives are;

1. Mechanics Brand Engine Tune Up.

2. K-Mart Super Oil Treatment, and

3. STP Engine treatment with XEP2.

pdq67