• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

ZDDP Oil Additive...

Share this page

SCguy said:
I saw that mentioned on the 6-pack. I checked e-bay, but the lowest price I could find was the same as what Moss sells ZDDplus for. At least it would seem to be readily available and help solve the worries over the newly formulated oils.
Click to expand...

Yeah....That's what I figure. I'm using Delvac 15W40 in my older flat tappet engines...I've had real good luck with it in my big trucks and the oil samples come back real good even at extended drain intervals (50,000 miles)...
 
blkcorvair said:
Buy 20-50 Valvoline VR-1. Already in there.
Click to expand...
That works well BUT racing oil isn't designed for everyday driving as the additive packege doesn't have the same detergent package as a street oil. Good stuff for a TR that's run hard on the highway and never sees everyday stop-n-go traffic.

The ZDDP would work well when you need a 5W30 or 10W30 oil in your daily, older driver.
 
YankeeTR said:
blkcorvair said:
Buy 20-50 Valvoline VR-1. Already in there.
Click to expand...
That works well BUT racing oil isn't designed for everyday driving as the additive packege doesn't have the same detergent package as a street oil. Good stuff for a TR that's run hard on the highway and never sees everyday stop-n-go traffic.

The ZDDP would work well when you need a 5W30 or 10W30 oil in your daily, older driver.
Click to expand...

Actually, Valvoline VR-1 is fine for street use. Ask Hap Waldrop, he uses this too.
 
I ran Valvoline Racing for many years in my daily driver TR3A and it worked just fine for me. I know the detergent level is supposed to be lower than 'normal' motor oil, but when I eventually tore the engine down, it was just as clean as you could ask for. Much cleaner than I've seen with other brands of 'regular' oil. No sludge or varnish anywhere.

I also saw something that really impressed me with the VR. As it happened, I pulled the pan and then let the project sit (in an open shed through an Indiana winter) for nearly a year that way. When I finally got around to pulling the bearing caps, not only were the bearings still nice and oily, there was enough oil left in the passages to drip off the crank ! That kind of staying power has got to be a boon for engines that are only driven in the summer.

Also seemed to work very well in my Chevy V6. Though I never had the pan or heads off, the rocker area looked nice and clean after 120,000 miles or so on the VR.
 
Are there two kinds of Valvoline Racing VR1? The first case I bought actually labeled the bottle stickers as containing extra ZDDP. Last summer I was about to buy another case and could find no mention of ZDDP and noticed that it had the new oil rating symbol. I decided to purchase Brad Penn instead.
 
So it really is true that 20 40 regular Castrol oil will not protect a tr3 engine? I have been using that stuff for 20 years. Do I need to drain it out and put in the Valvoline 20 50 right away? I just changed the oil. How serious is the problem. What is kinda weird is that I have a funny lifter tick that I was not too sure about. I thought it might be a small exhaust leak that is just starting or perhaps a virus from Louisiana. Yesterday my son and I looked around for an exhaust leak, but I could not see anything. It is really difficult to see the bottom of the exhaust manifold gasket even when I use mirrors, so thought I would let it go for a while. However, now I think I will set the lifters and perhaps add some oil treatment or just change the oil out. I was always the guy who said that people did not need oil additives if they used good oil. Things like this always remind me that I am not in-charge.
Steve
 
Yank,

Delvac is one of three on the list of oils preferred for Flat Tappet Cams from the AERA spec sheet that came with my new cam.
 
I have been told that Rislone works well along with todays oils for older engines. What does this group think?
 
The ZDDP topic is popping up on almost every forum I visit. Inevitably the conversation comes around to are the claims true and conflicting studies.

As insurance I will keep adding ZDDP to my oil and I plan to keep buying the Castrol and/or Valvoline 20W50 I've been running in LBCs for years.

However, I have no intention of investing in the expensive or mail order additives. ZDDP is present in a very common additive, STP. I wrote their tech support to confirm their products contain ZDDP. They confirmed its presence and suggested for small displacement engines that I use STP in the RED bottle. That's cheap and readily available insurance.
 
sp53 said:
So it really is true that 20 40 regular Castrol oil will not protect a tr3 engine? I have been using that stuff for 20 years. Do I need to drain it out and put in the Valvoline 20 50 right away? I just changed the oil. How serious is the problem. What is kinda weird is that I have a funny lifter tick that I was not too sure about. I thought it might be a small exhaust leak that is just starting or perhaps a virus from Louisiana. Yesterday my son and I looked around for an exhaust leak, but I could not see anything. It is really difficult to see the bottom of the exhaust manifold gasket even when I use mirrors, so thought I would let it go for a while. However, now I think I will set the lifters and perhaps add some oil treatment or just change the oil out. I was always the guy who said that people did not need oil additives if they used good oil. Things like this always remind me that I am not in-charge.
Steve
Click to expand...
No you don't need to change your oil right away. The main issue regarding zinc is with breaking in new cams.
My personal feeling is that modern oils are much better that the old. While the zinc has been reduced, there are other different additives which have taken their place. Zinc was used because it was convenient and CHEAP. Modern oils use Molybdenum, organic phosphates and a bunch of other compounds to achieve the same effect.
 
Just my $.02 Steve : I think the whole thing has been blown way out of proportion. Reduced ZDDP is just the latest scapegoat for early cam/lifter failure; which oddly enough was a problem years BEFORE they started reducing ZDDP in motor oil.

And while a little extra ZDDP during break-in, or racing, isn't likely to hurt anything; I've not seen ANY evidence that higher levels of ZDDP are needed for a nearly-stock engine that is already broken in. Worth noting that too much can also be a problem in the long run, which is why GM only sells their additive for "break-in", not as a general additive.

Some interesting reading at
https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1049812
 
TR4 said:
I have been told that Rislone works well along with todays oils for older engines. What does this group think?
Click to expand...
I tried Rislone exactly once, in a Chevy V6 with over 200,000 miles on it. Before the Rislone, it still ran OK but seemed kind of tired.

Didn't notice any immediate change with the Rislone; until about 3 weeks later when the crankshaft snapped ! Just driving down the freeway, nothing special ... BANG ! Ok, it was near the end of it's life anyway (rest of the car was pretty well worn out too) and that particular engine was known for having a weak crank (GM increased the size of the journals not long after mine was made). But I feel it would have still been running today if I hadn't dumped Rislone in there.

Doesn't prove a thing, of course, but I'm never going to repeat the experiment.
 
dklawson said:
They confirmed its presence and suggested for small displacement engines that I use STP in the RED bottle. That's cheap and readily available insurance.
Click to expand...
OTOH, I've always had a problem with taking advice from people that the FTC says have indulged in fraudulent advertising not just once but multiple times :
https://www.ftc.gov/opa/1995/12/stp.shtm

You might also want to read this; even though it's about a different additive :
https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/images/lucas/lucas.htm
 
Thanks Randall for your comments, now I can go back to my conservative mechanical life style. It was just weird to look at the forum on the very day that I was thinking about my lifters, and see all this questioning of oil. This noise I have is something that I am not sure of. It sounds like a lifter. However, it has that kinda loud popping noise like an early exhaust leak, but it seems/does improve somewhat with warm up. I really expected to see some exhaust deposits down around the pipes when I looked, but I did not. I will set the lifts soon and see if that is it.
Steve
 
TR3driver said:
Worth noting that too much can also be a problem in the long run, which is why GM only sells their additive for "break-in", not as a general additive.
Click to expand...

From what I have read on the subject .120% to .130% seem to be the magic numbers for the level of ZDDP. A .200% level has been shown to cause damage.

One of the problems with an additive is just how does one ensure that the percentage level is correct and not too high or too low? It would take a detailed knowledge of the oil properties as well as the actual properties of the additive as opposed to those advertised. The oil properties would be more certain because of government regulations, but the additive propereties may be little more than anicdotal.
 
Back
Top