[geeteeohguy]

Very glad I built the 389 in my '65 41 years ago and the 400 in my '67 34 years ago....with USA made cams and lifters that are still trouble free 50,000 and 90,000 miles later. We didn't give flat cams a second thought back in the old days. They rarely happened.

[Formulajones]

I doubt that's the issue.

I'm still building flat tappet cam engines today, and both of our daily's with engines I built in the last 5 years have flat tappet camshafts. Both have over 50k miles on them without a hint of a problem. One is a solid flat tappet and the lash hasn't changed in 5 years !!

Shucks my old truck just used a cheap Melling camshaft with their cheap lifters and we put about 25k miles on that before I sold it, drove it everyday and ran perfectly. My Firebird has a cheap melling cam with Johnson lifters and I drive and race the snot out of that car. Never had a valve cover off since it was built years ago.

Oil is a bigger player than the internet will lead people to believe. Spring pressures are more important than worrying about when or where the parts were made.
Some of the more recent builds I've nitrided the camshafts and run a lifter that keeps pressurized oil on the lobes, and I sleep fine at night.

[FrankieT/A]

I rebuilt two of my engines side by side simultaneously 40 years ago.

70 RA III "12" heads
72 455 HO "7F6" heads

Both use identical parts as follows.

Melling SPC 8 or 3 (I can't remember the part number off the top of my head)
Ram Air 4 cam
Factory Ram Air 4 lifters (Try and find those today)
HO Specialties springs

I always used Pennzoil 10w30 oil until the Zinc was reduced or eliminated then always used Zinc additive with oil changes. Never any problems in 40 years.

NOW all the oil I see is 100% synthetic and made from natural gas. WTF?

I always used Pennzoil because it was always made from Pennsylvania grade crude oil. Not anymore-Not sure what I will do from here...Both cars still run fine though.

[Formulajones]

There are quite a few good oils on the market that are marketed specifically towards classic cars and flat tappet camshafts.

The issue I hear all the time is people not wanting to spend a little extra. I look at it this way..... For what it costs to build an engine these days, it's cheap insurance. I'll gladly pay a little more for a good oil. And if you shop around and buy in bulk it's really not that bad.

For as little as everyone drives their classics anyway it's not like they need to change the oil super frequently. They even make oil specifically made for cars that sit a lot. For people only driving 2 or 3,000 miles a year I don't see a need for them to change it but once a year So spend what.....$50-$60 bucks every spring and don't worry about it.

Honestly the best way to approach it if anyone cares about their engine is send a small sample off to blackstone for analysis. They tell you exactly when an oil change should be done, how well the oil and filter choice is working for you, and if there are any potential issues. You can then make a better decision on what you want to use and when to change it.

[Tom Vaught]

Originally Posted by FrankieT/A

Ram Air 4 cam Factory Ram Air 4 lifters (Try and find those today)

If you have never taken the RA-IV Lifters apart, if you do, you will notice that the pushrod cup that is
retained inside the lifter is actually different from a normal lifter in height (if you sit them side by side on the bench).
(the bottom of the RA-IV lifter Pushrod Cup is thicker vs a normal lifter). The part is taller.

This makes them a "Limited Travel" lifter which helps with them not "pumping up" at high rpm and hanging a valve open.

Many times the special Pushrod cups can be swapped to several lifters sets over time if you were trying different
camshafts at the race track.

RA-IV grinds but with different advance/retard profiles.

I wish Johnson or someone would build some of those pushrod cups again.
Then you could use the cups in other lifter sets from Johnson.

Tom V.

[dataway]

I still think a source of many lifter wear problems are lobe taper, and lifter crown mismatch from different manufacturers. Probably no big deal if a cam lobe taper is off 0.0005 ... but if the lobe taper is off 0.0005 one way and the lifter crown is off 0.0005 the other way ... could lead to problems with lifter rotation and consequently lifter wear.

I had good luck with Melling cam, and Melling lifters. Both mic'ing very well before installation. Best lifter by far I've ever measured is GM NOS lifters ... zero error that I had the ability to measure. Good chance NOS GM lifters were also made by Melling.

Materials are important, but so is the quality of the machining. I tend to trust a manufacturer that is both machining the lifters and the cams in house. And I think high volume manufacturers are likely to have the most modern machine tools.

Some of the highly touted lifters I've measured have surprisingly loose tolerances on their crown machining. If you have a decent lathe, surface plate, and the measuring tools, sometime chuck up a lifter and check the face for perpendicularity to the sides and crown taper. Or if the lifter had a machined top side, stand it up on a surface place and check the crown. You'll need tools that measure 0.0001". (better to use a V-block clamp on the lifter .. the top sides are probably not carefully machined). There are numerous articles on the proper ways to measure lobe taper and lifter crowns.

Typical lifter crown is about .002" ... cam lobe taper can vary from .002 - .004. I think the higher lift cams usually are on the upper end of that scale. If you have a lobe that is a bit low at 0.0015 ... and a lifter on that lobe that happens to be a bit low at 0.0015 they add up to a contact angle that is probably not sufficient for good lifter rotation.

Usually you don't have to measure every lobe, or every lifter ... you can get a feel for what specs the manufacturer is using by checking a couple of lobes and couple of lifters. What is perfect? I have no idea, I'm sure there is a paper on it somewhere .. but I'd start worrying if both taper and crown were not both 0.002 or greater.

[TCSGTO]

I tend to agree with dataway on the machining issue. It’s amazing how many errors there are these days compared to the past when the CNC’s of today make the machines and tooling of the past look Stone Age.
When the OEM’s moved to roller valve trains it seemed to really hit the QC of the flat tappers hard. That and the fact there are a lot more machine operators than true machinists in the trades these days.

[Cliff R]

Here is some good reading if you have time:

http://toplineauto.com/wp-content/up...on-Catalog.pdf

I've never had any lobe/lifter failures here with any of the engines we've built with flat camshafts but I do a few things a little different than most.

I do NOT worry much about "break-in", but absolutely and for sure the engine is "static timed" and carb has fuel so it doesn't make a full revolution till it's running. A few minutes at fast idle is all they get, no special oil used in the engine but I do use Moly Grease on the camshaft instead of the purple lube supplied with the cams.

I do NOT use a lot of spring pressures on my engines. Most are very close to stock spring loads when using flat camshafts. I also test any springs supplied no matter where they come from with the retainers being used. Not uncommon at all to find the springs have a LOT more pressure when you check them than what the literature supplied with them would indicate. Case in point, the last set of Comp 995 springs I checked showed 160 pounds on the seat at 1.700". and up near 400 pounds over the nose...yikes! The customer supplied the springs and the retainers. I did not used them, installed Crower 68405's instead closer to 120 pounds on the seat and nearly 100 pounds less pressure at full lift with the cam we were using.

I avoid flat camshafts with super-quick seating velocity. Specifically Comp XE flat cams. I've seen so many of those cams fail I wouldn't touch one with a 200' pole and they don't bring anything to the table for making more power than a plain old Melling cam with similiar .050" numbers.

Have had perfect success with Crower cams and make great power with them. The flat grinds don't have very aggressive lobe profiles so pretty easy on the lifters and valve train components and will run fine at high RPM's with "normal" spring loads.

No special oils used either. I stick with Rotella 15W-40 simply because my brother buys it in bulk for his work trucks and diesel farm tractors and I fill my jugs from his 55 gallon drums of it. (One day I'll pay him for it!...LOL).

I use Lucas oil additive and have dating back at least 2 decades. It was more by accident but I started using it back in 2001 when I bought my first Harley Davidson Road King. Those engines get really hot and I felt it would be a good thing to have some additive in the oil.

In my roller cam engines I use 10w-30 NAPA oil and Lucas additive. I pint per oil change, I think the Morroso pan holds 7 or 8 quarts.

As a precaution I paint a white line on the visible part of the pushrods under the valve covers. Once the engine has returns to idle, checked for leaks, verify timing, set the mixture screws, etc I shut it down and remove the valve covers. Very quickly I'll fire it up and at a very low idle speed verify that ALL the pushrods are spinning nicely. Ya, it's a little messy but I want to know that I'm not grinding up some lobes and putting a butt-ton of ground up metal into the assembly, that NEVER works out well.

With the valve covers off areas where oil "pools" up are inspected to look for metal. If you see any "glitter" better pull the oil filter and cut it open and take a look. It ALWAYS tells the story if something is getting ground up or coming apart someplace.

Most of the engines we've done were dyno tested. Great way to find oil and coolant leaks or anything else that may lead to issues later on. For the most part after you've made a half dozen pulls or so on the engine if the oil filter media is clean when you cut it open the engine is headed for a long healthy life for the end user.

It is my opinion when it comes to this topic that most of the issues that started showing up in force around 2004-2005 are simply a combination of circumstances that came together all at about the same time. Crappy lifters flooding the market from Mexico and China and the MAIN culprit. The problem is amplified by companies pushing camshafts with ultra-quick seat timing events, recommending WAY too much valve spring pressures for "street" engines, and maybe a little less protection by removing some materials from the lube oil. The oil thing is so easy to cure it really isn't a player here for me as additives that add film strength to lube oil are abundant as blades of grass in your yard these days..............Cliff

[glhs#116]

I've got to say I agree with Cliff. I had a beater Suburban in Doha with a flat tappet Big Block. 200,000 miles or so. Original camshaft. Never an additive in its life. Whatever cheap oil.

I think the big components are likely to be:
* worse QC in the cams and lifters now that these are not in volume OEM production
* fast ramp profiles along with
* heavy springs
* shade tree rebuilds (like mine) that don't start right up and crank for a while until you discover your timing is 180 degrees out or you aren't getting fuel

I used to always tip in a can of STP with every oil change in Qatar. In the UK it's just too damned cold for me to feel right adding that honey to things and I just use the modern 5W-30 that goes in the modern cars. Good oil should be good oil. And depending on climate thin oil that gets to the part is always going to be better than thick oil that doesn't pump on a cold start.

Sam

[Cliff R]

Thanks. I'd also mention here that when you look at what's going on with a pushrod equipped flat tappet V-8 engine using valve springs approaching 400 pounds open pressure, which isn't all that uncommon these days, is like having 16 fat guys standing on your pushrods!

It amazes me that anything before the valve springs lasts more than ten minutes cruising down the highway at 2500rpm s or so.........and as many have found out sometimes these parts don't hold up very long........

[Tom Vaught]

Cliff, I thought I was doing good when I bought that 100 quarts of 15W40 oil when it was dirt cheap at Farm Fleet. You got me beat with your brother's access to the oil in large quantities. LOL! Enjoy your retirement, I am.

Tom V.

[geeteeohguy]

I've been running Rotella 1540 diesel spec oil in my GTO's for the past 20 years without issues. Many, many miles. Run it in my '83 Toyota and my '61 Chevy too. My '65 GTO has a Sig Erson cam and my '67 GTO has a Melling cam. There is an interesting short video on Uncle Tony's Garage (youtube) that links up to another video about what's really going on with lifters these days, and it's scary stuff. No actual new flat tappet lifters being made, all are claimed to be reconditioned off shore, the bores are honed oversize to clean them up but the pistons are standard and bleed down, the foot of the lifters are ground flat and not convex and not hardened, and on and on. It took him something like 3 sets of 'new' HFT lifters from Jegs or Summit to make ONE set of decent ones that passed the bleed down and rocking tests. Sad.

[Sirrotica]

Originally Posted by FrankieT/A

I rebuilt two of my engines side by side simultaneously 40 years ago.

70 RA III "12" heads
72 455 HO "7F6" heads

Both use identical parts as follows.

Melling SPC 8 or 3 (I can't remember the part number off the top of my head)
Ram Air 4 cam
Factory Ram Air 4 lifters (Try and find those today)
HO Specialties springs

I always used Pennzoil 10w30 oil until the Zinc was reduced or eliminated then always used Zinc additive with oil changes. Never any problems in 40 years.

NOW all the oil I see is 100% synthetic and made from natural gas. WTF?

I always used Pennzoil because it was always made from Pennsylvania grade crude oil. Not anymore-Not sure what I will do from here...Both cars still run fine though.

FWIW, Pennzoil is still excellent quality oil, the reason they make it from NG now is because crude oil is always contaminated by dirt, because it comes from the ground. If they use the natural gas it comes out much cleaner than oil made from crude.

From Pennzoil's website:

Pennzoil Platinum Full Synthetic motor oils are made from natural gas, not crude so its base oil is 99.5% free of engine clogging impurities.

Pennzoil took the 100% Pennsylvania crude off of the cans back in the 70s, so you haven't been receiving 100% PA crude oil for decades in Pennzoil products.

Hot Shots Secret/LSI (Lubrications Specialties Inc.) tested new Rotella as it come from the bottle, and it has quite a bit of solids still floating in it. Here's the particle count of new oil chart. The third one is Shell Rotella brand new:



One of the reasons I use a by pass oil filter on my own vehicles, new oil just isn't as pure as you think it would be. And after you start the car it degrades from that point.

Also note that Pennzoil, and Quaker State are both now owned by SOPUS, or Shell Oil Products U.S.

Shell, Pennzoil and Quaker State, are all very similar. There are some differences and areas where the products don't overlap, such as specialty oils that one brand may cater to that not all are available under the other two labels.

In the past I was a Pennzoil dealer, that was in 1977. I have all the faith in their products as I did back then when they were headquartered in Rouseville PA. I believe that Quaker State has actually improved under the Shell umbrella.

Back in the late 70s the Pennzoil refinery workers were on strike each rail car was tested as it arrived at the refinery, before they refused, or received it. One of the salesmen that had my account was working during the strike. He told me that the railcars that were refused by Pennzoil, were then sent to Quaker State, because their requirements were no where as tight as Pennzoil's were.

One other thing I also heard, was that in the 70s Quaker State decided they knew more about additive packages than the companies that supplied most oil companies. They made their own additive package, and it ended up with a gray deposit in the engines, even if the oil as changed as per manufacturers schedule.

When I started wrenching upon graduation in 1970, I saw countless cars that had this gray deposit under the valve covers. Invariably I'd ask the owners if they were using Quaker State, and the answer was always, yes. Latter years they did go back to industry suppliers of the additive package, abandoning their home brew additives.

Living in Erie PA (only about 40 miles from Oil City PA) for 47 years, you find out some things most people never have access to.

[Tom Vaught]

My uncles dealership used to use Pennsylvania oil called Wolfshead oil in the 1970s and many years before that.
He told me stay away from the offshore, Shell, etc) type gulf grade oils.

At one time it was a true Pennsylvania grade oil. See Below.
Then in 2009 Pennzoil was bought by a gulf manufacturer. I stopped using the stuff then.

Info on Wolfshead oil:

Wolf's Head motor oil company manufactures various weights of motor oil, synthetic oil, and other automotive fluids. The company was founded in Pennsylvania as "Pennsylvania Crude" in 1879. Presently, its company headquarters is in Tampa, Florida. The company slogans are "The Finest Of The Fine Since 1879" and "Run With The Wolf". The oil is marketed as "superior performance, but exceptional value" and has been well respected in the muscle car community. The trademark was originally registered to Pennzoil (now owned by Shell) until at least 2009.[1] The trademark is currently registered to Amalie Oil Company.

Pennzoil is just another Gulf Oil sold by Shell for at least 13 years now.

Tom V.

Glad I bought my 100 quarts when I did.

[Sirrotica]

Originally Posted by Tom Vaught

My uncles dealership used to use Pennsylvania oil called Wolfshead oil in the 1970s and many years before that.
He told me stay away from the offshore, Shell, etc) type gulf grade oils.

At one time it was a true Pennsylvania grade oil. See Below.
Then in 2009 Pennzoil was bought by a gulf manufacturer. I stopped using the stuff then.

Info on Wolfshead oil:

Wolf's Head motor oil company manufactures various weights of motor oil, synthetic oil, and other automotive fluids. The company was founded in Pennsylvania as "Pennsylvania Crude" in 1879. Presently, its company headquarters is in Tampa, Florida. The company slogans are "The Finest Of The Fine Since 1879" and "Run With The Wolf". The oil is marketed as "superior performance, but exceptional value" and has been well respected in the muscle car community. The trademark was originally registered to Pennzoil (now owned by Shell) until at least 2009.[1] The trademark is currently registered to Amalie Oil Company.

Pennzoil is just another Gulf Oil sold by Shell for at least 13 years now.

Tom V.

Glad I bought my 100 quarts when I did.

Before Pennzoil was bought by Shell (which makes the same Rotella oil you've stockpiled, from gulf crude), Wolf's Head was owned by Pennzoil. I was in the Pennzoil refinery warehouse in Rouseville PA, (early 90s) and Wolf's Head was there by the thousands of cases. Since my father used to use Wolf's Head I asked about it, Pennzoil had acquired it years before. It was the same oil that was in the yellow bottles, same formulation. Pennzoil acquired Wolf's Head in 1963.

Looking around in the warehouse there were many private label brands as well as some national brands. The warehouse guy says it's all the same oil as comes in the yellow Pennzoil bottles, just a different label on the bottles. Just as NAPA used their own bottles, it was Ashland oil, otherwise known as Valvoline. That may have changed, but in the early 70s NAPA was all Valvoline oil, in their bottles.

Wolf's Head used to be an emerald green color, which usually indicates a high zinc concentrate oil (Brad Penn is green in color also). Any Wolf's Head oil made in the last 50 years is amber colored, not even close to the original formulation green colored Wolf's Head oil. I was 10 years old when Pennzoil bought out Wolf's Head, but I still remember my father changing oil, and seeing that green oil from the cans.

I really don't want to screw up the OPs thread talking about oils, but by the same token want to keep facts straight.

[PunchT37]

Originally Posted by Sirrotica

FWIW, Pennzoil is still excellent quality oil, the reason they make it from NG now is because crude oil is always contaminated by dirt, because it comes from the ground. If they use the natural gas it comes out much cleaner than oil made from crude.

From Pennzoil's website:



Pennzoil took the 100% Pennsylvania crude off of the cans back in the 70s, so you haven't been receiving 100% PA crude oil for decades in Pennzoil products.

Hot Shots Secret/LSI (Lubrications Specialties Inc.) tested new Rotella as it come from the bottle, and it has quite a bit of solids still floating in it. Here's the particle count of new oil chart. The third one is Shell Rotella brand new:



One of the reasons I use a by pass oil filter on my own vehicles, new oil just isn't as pure as you think it would be. And after you start the car it degrades from that point.

Also note that Pennzoil, and Quaker State are both now owned by SOPUS, or Shell Oil Products U.S.

Shell, Pennzoil and Quaker State, are all very similar. There are some differences and areas where the products don't overlap, such as specialty oils that one brand may cater to that not all are available under the other two labels.

In the past I was a Pennzoil dealer, that was in 1977. I have all the faith in their products as I did back then when they were headquartered in Rouseville PA. I believe that Quaker State has actually improved under the Shell umbrella.

Back in the late 70s the Pennzoil refinery workers were on strike each rail car was tested as it arrived at the refinery, before they refused, or received it. One of the salesmen that had my account was working during the strike. He told me that the railcars that were refused by Pennzoil, were then sent to Quaker State, because their requirements were no where as tight as Pennzoil's were.

One other thing I also heard, was that in the 70s Quaker State decided they knew more about additive packages than the companies that supplied most oil companies. They made their own additive package, and it ended up with a gray deposit in the engines, even if the oil as changed as per manufacturers schedule.

When I started wrenching upon graduation in 1970, I saw countless cars that had this gray deposit under the valve covers. Invariably I'd ask the owners if they were using Quaker State, and the answer was always, yes. Latter years they did go back to industry suppliers of the additive package, abandoning their home brew additives.

Living in Erie PA (only about 40 miles from Oil City PA) for 47 years, you find out some things most people never have access to.

Quaker Cake, as we called it.

[Sirrotica]

Originally Posted by PunchT37

Quaker Cake, as we called it.

I never heard that one before, but it is very true of what you'd find in the valve covers, and pan

[scott70]

My engine builder used to use brad penn way back but he said it changed. Started using cenpeco years ago and recommended that. My latest engine has been using cenpeco 15w-40 and so far so good. Reading up on their company it sounds like a good oil.

[JLBIII]

Originally Posted by PunchT37

Quaker Cake, as we called it.

That's a new one here too. Working in the garages back in the 70's the older mechanics told me that the crud formed inside the engine was because of the high Sulphur content in QS oil. None of them ever ran it in their cars.

[Sirrotica]

Originally Posted by JLBIII

That's a new one here too. Working in the garages back in the 70's the older mechanics told me that the crud formed inside the engine was because of the high Sulphur content in QS oil. None of them ever ran it in their cars.

As has been said, after looking at the insides of engines that ran QS, I never used it in my own stuff. I used to run Valvoline, but when I was running dirt track cars I had bearing failures. I was working for a Pennzoil dealer at the time, (1977) and he was generous enough to offer to give me free oil for the race car. He ordered racing oil to keep in stock.

I switched over to The Pennzoil, and the bearing failures went away. It may not have had anything to do with running Pennzoil, but at the time I was happy that the engine problem was gone. I've been using Pennzoil ever since, almost 45 years now. There were lots of racers in the OH, PA, NY tri state area that run it in their dirt cars. When I bought out the garage, service station from my former boss, I sold a lot of Pennzoil racing oil to dirt track racers in the area.

I believe now that QS and PZL are fairly close in formulation now, if not the same oil, since they are under the Shell umbrella. Just theory on my part though, no evidence.

The element that made Penn crude oils better years ago, is now added to most oils, and is made synthetically. Most brand name oils now have it in their formulation, so it's no longer something that only Penn Grade oils have any longer. The name escapes me, begins with an A, it makes the oils similar, when before it was only found in Penn grade crude.

Over the years I have found out that there is a lot of engineering that goes into the formulation of oil, but no matter what label is on the bottle, keeping it as clean as possible is more important than who made it.