Don Terrill’s Speed-Talk

I have read that some oils fight issues common to hydraulic lifters. Has anyone tested various oils and come up with an oil that is superior to others, and provides the best power? This is a smallblock mopar, rpm range 3500 to 6300 shift. Cam is a Muthr Thumper, 235/249 @.050 Comp. Melling roller lifters. I figure my motor will use 10w40 for the clerances on the bearings.

If the bearing clearances are set up for 10w40, run 10w40. I really like the Royal Purple oil. Been running 10w40 HPS since day one on my Morel 4708 lifters. Works great.

I should have been more specific in my question. As I understand it, some oils fight lifter pump up/bleedoff at high rpms better than others, making for a significant power difference. So my question is, what oil does the best job; makes the most power due to this issue?

I believe you're thinking of anti-aeration formulations like that of Ultra Pro Machining as referenced in Daniel Jones post here: http://www.speedtalk.com/forum/viewtopi ... =1&t=32193 and in David Vizard's How to Build Horsepower book: https://books.google.ca/books?id=OAw1GD ... EILzAB#v=o

Stick with a good group 4 or group 5 oil. Shifting at 6300 you're not really pushing it. Did you calculate that Mother Thumper to be the best cam or is it "the sound"?

gregsdart wrote: ↑Thu Feb 15, 2018 6:30 am I have read that some oils fight issues common to hydraulic lifters. Has anyone tested various oils and come up with an oil that is superior to others, and provides the best power? This is a smallblock mopar, rpm range 3500 to 6300 shift. Cam is a Muthr Thumper, 235/249 @.050 Comp. Melling roller lifters. I figure my motor will use 10w40 for the clerances on the bearings.

Is this a magnum block that uses drop in style lifters or tie-bar style lifters???
I have seen good results in the small morpars with a Delo-400 15/40 oil for the stock replacement drop in lifters.
Same goes for the tie bar type as well. BUT,
the big issue here can be the lifter bore clearance.Some are worse then others but oil pressure is what makes the lifter work correctly and if the lifter bores are worn more then acceptable amounts the only thing that will help is to bush the block.
And since 99% of most basic job shops don't have small bore gauge to measure the lifter bores they don't often get the attention they really need to fix the issue.
Lets face it if you have .005" clearance that is a large waste of oil flow and not enough is really getting to the lifters.
A heavier/thicker oil will not fix the issue but can be helpful to a point. Since most hyd. roller lifters don't like heavy oils you must be able to get the oil temp up to at least 200 before they will quiet down in some cases hence they are noisy during warm up and take a long time to get quiet.

Magnum style block, 408 cubes, Melling stock replacement lifters.
Cam was chosen by Brian at IMM. The whole valvetrain is from IMM to compliment the EQ 318b heads. The motor made 504 hp at 5700, still at 500 at 6,000 rpm, end of dyno pulls. Airgap intake, 10.1/1 compression.
Very good power for what it is, but I'm a greedy person

Great numbers!

cstraub wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2018 12:39 pm With hyd roller lifters, you want a lifter with a centistoke number in the teens or low at 100 degree F.

At 100 deg F? I See more specs at 40 and 100 deg C. And alot seem to be way higher than teens at 40 deg c (104 f)

Orr89rocz wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2018 1:24 pm

cstraub wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2018 12:39 pm With hyd roller lifters, you want a lifter with a centistoke number in the teens or low at 100 degree F.

At 100 deg F? I See more specs at 40 and 100 deg C. And alot seem to be way higher than teens at 40 deg c (104 f)

I'm sure he meant 100c. Amsoil, Brad Penn, and Gibbs Driven all have good centistoke numbers

AND the oil needs to have great foaming resistance, the Delo 400 15/40 that pro power mentioned is great for this reason.

Lighter viscosity engine oils allow hydraulic lifters to function properly. The oil needs to get into (and out of) the lifter body efficiently for proper results. 10W40 oil will work well in conjunction with juice lifters.

I have been running 10-30 Mobile 1 in all my hyd roller engines.Have made HP to just shy of 7000 on Big Joes dyno with 150 on the seats.FWIW,Tom

treyrags wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2018 2:21 pm

Orr89rocz wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2018 1:24 pm

cstraub wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2018 12:39 pm With hyd roller lifters, you want a lifter with a centistoke number in the teens or low at 100 degree F.

At 100 deg F? I See more specs at 40 and 100 deg C. And alot seem to be way higher than teens at 40 deg c (104 f)

I'm sure he meant 100c. Amsoil, Brad Penn, and Gibbs Driven all have good centistoke numbers

Define "good" centistoke numbers? This number is only a measure of viscosity - doesn't tell you anything about the oil characteristics. I'm sure there are certain dollar general oils that have good centistoke numbers too, but I don't think I'd want them in my engine.

Based on what Chris said, I would probably be looking real hard at Mobil 1 0W-40. Looks like a "thin" 40 wt based on viscosity at 100 deg C and has a high HTHS number. There is probably a reason why 0W-40 is getting spec's into new corvettes and other high hp / ci modern engines.

"Good" (lower centistoke) in comparison to other brand oils with the same sae viscosity and have comparable NOACK volatility, viscosity index, high temp shear viscosity, and total base number