Eric VanBuren
Member
sorry to read about your lifter luck. I've never seen "flat" lifters out of a box, but sh** happens I suppose. I found this article at camcraft, you probably already know most of it. I learned a few things from it, particularly in the lubes area. I suppose as the oils get more 'n more legislated, I'll be buy'in more "break in lube" for lube.
camcraft cams - cam failures: some thoughts on cam and lifter wear
That info is seriously out of date and incorrect, yes the epa did legislate reduced zinc and phosporous levels but did not eliminate it entirely as they state. This did affect oils labeled "sm" for spark ignition engines first and then later the "cj-4" oils for compression ignition engines. While the "sm" spec reduced the zinc limit below the IH minimum spec of 1000ppm "cj-4" oils can still contain up to about 1200ppm, doesn't mean that they all do, but they can. The engine supplier I use specs delo or rotella for their warranty requirements and other than a few engines that we installed right after the change to "sm" spec oils, before we and the rebuilder knew about the change, we have not had any cam failures. This is in a fleet of sbc powered p-30's that does daily home delivery, some units exceeding 200mi and 300 stops per day so some of those engines are nearing 100k running on exclusively delo 15-40. No failures in the dt466, t444, t444e, 6.5l powered IH/navistar/workhorse either and many of those are 50k per year rigs as well.
Long story short there is no need for any of the special additives if used with a known high quality "cj-4" or one of the still available "sl" oils that carry only the "sl" designation w/o "sm" on the label.
For the real story straight from the main source for engine oil additives check out the lubrizol corporation Or www.cj-4.com
