Important Message To
All Racers About Engine Oil
OIL
WOES - WARNING TO ALL RACERS
At Prather Racing, we
have been concerned with oil and lubrication issues for some time. The MG
engine is the most common engine built here. However, we do a lot of RX7
Rotary and now considerable Miata engines.
Cam
lobe life was a big problem 10 years ago with any MGA or MGB over 7200
RPM. When we had good racing
oil, such as Kendall GT-1, we saw greatly reduced wear and also developed
cams that had good lifter rotation and low hertz pressures.
At this time, we had no bearing issues at all.
We really liked the quality of Red Line Oil and saw excellent
results in all or our Mazdas and any engine without 10” pushrods.
However, the Redline didn’t protect the cams as well as a high
zinc mineral oil.
Then,
Kendall
was sold and the quality went downhill. Tom Whitfield totally burnt up his
Kendall oiled engine and spun a bearing in
Atlanta
. Because of this, we switched
to Phillips 66 TropArtic Racing Oil. Every
oil high in zinc exhibits all the wear protection that is needed for
break-in, but we still feel that Red Line is a better race oil after
break-in. We have been using
Delo 400 for a while in our Toterhome (diesel) with great results and feel
this could be a good break in oil, as well as Valvoline 20-50 Racing or
Rotella.
We want proper cam
break-in and then longevity. The
oil pump drive gears are also a major component of concern.
If the pressure is too high (80 lbs), the gears wear.
If the pressure is too low (60 lbs), then the engine may not see
proper oil volume. Red Line
gives us the best anti-wear with drive gears.
So we now break the engines in with a good high zinc mineral based
oil and never pull over 4000 RPM during our 1½ to 2 hour break-in period.
This oil goes out and Red Line goes in to do power pulls and Dyno
tuning. Then, we recommend Red
Line for the race weekend and then change it when prepping for the second
race weekend. This is going to
increase the cost of our racing, but if we can get the projected life from
the engine we expect, it’s worth the increased price up front.
So what do you do for
your street cars? Standard API
oil with the energy conserving label is not the answer for 3000-mile
intervals. We feel the Delo for 3000 or
Red Line street
motor oils at 5000-mile intervals would be good choices.
Here is a link
to a piece written by Keith Ansell at Foreign Parts Positively, Inc. His
comments run along the same lines as what we have found.
If any of you have additional info or comments we would welcome
your input.
Sincerely,
Kent &
Jesse Prather
Prather Racing
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