MOBILE 1 IN MY DINO?

Dino 246's have been known for excessive cam wear, it is well documented.
What is not documented is that the root cause was oil viscosity breakdown which you are semming to blame it on.
I think this is only conjecture at this point and not conclusive.

 

Dino 246's have been known for excessive cam wear, it is well documented.
What is not documented is that the root cause (if it was oil viscosity breakdown).
I think this is only conjecture at this point and not conclusive.

 

The fellow in Italy that works on some of my engines said a batch of the Dino cams were not properly hardened and that is where the worn lobe issue arose.

 

all i know is i have turbo Audi that i run hard, had it since new, now over 155k miles no probs , no coking , no sludge, mobil 1 all the way. im sold.
i cant understand how a 15-50 syth can be any different(causing leaks) than a dino oil. only that is more stabile under a broader , extreme temp range. less foaming too.

tell me how hot does your car run in 95 degree summer sun?

 

Broke in my 246 after rebuild with 5-30 synthetic Amsoil, broke in fine with no oil burning and then changed to 20w50 Mobil one and just runs great. No seal leaks, what else is there to say?

 

I sold my 330GTC to a very nice guy in Florida last year (wish I hadn't). He did a prepurchase inspection at Lake Forest Sports Cars. The compression and leakdown was so bad that the car should not have even run. We did the tests several times and could not believe the results (as the car had excellent results a few years back). We found out the cuprit was SYNTHETIC OIL.

The oil is so slick, the rings could not compress against the clynider walls. We flushed out the synthetic oil a few times, ran it hard and put in Castrol 20W50. The compression, leak down and power all went back to acceptable specs. Mike Sheehan was involved in the transaction and was going to write a piece on it.

It is hard to believe that no one else has had a similar experience to this. Dont use synthetic oil in vintage cars, use regular oil and change it often.


jts

 

The old V-12's would often have sticky rings and would test lousey on compression tests especially after sitting for a time and not using upper cylinder lube like Marvel Mystery Oil in the gas. Chances are your efforts loosened up the rings. Old Ferrari buffs would often take out all the spark plugs after a bad compression test and add MMO to the tune of a couple teaspoons per cylinder and let set overnight and then start her up. She would smoke like hell for about 2-3 minutes and then clean up, after that the compression would test much better and this was with dino oil in the crankcase. In all probability synthetic oil is not the culprit but rather carboned up rings that needed remedial treatment and maintinence doses of carbon reducing upper cylinder lube added to the gas. I had used MMO and Lucas upper lube alternately for three years before dissasembling the motor in my 246 and I found the intakes, valves, piston tops and piston rings extremely clean and with a fine coating of light oil on the rings and found them completely free and very movable

 

I'm always up for a good oil debate. Gary lists some things that synth can do better, such as higher temps, longer engine life. Well, lets see the data that supports it. I cant find the site now, but some time ago there was an article that listed all the different oils and showed results for flash point, pour point, etc. The truth is, Castrol 20W50 had just as high of a flash point as Mobil 1, with both around 500*F. That is so high that you seriously should never have to worry about coking oil.

The pour point was a lot lower with Mobil 1, but seriously, who is going to operate a Ferrari with 20W50 oil at -25*F???

I have worked on engines and been around them my whole life. Airplanes too. I have seen the guys who run 25K oil change intervals on synth and I have seen them doing top end work at 100K miles and blame the engine. I have also seen engines that were well over 40 years old and never been apart and never ran anything but dino oil. To me personally, I havnt seen any real benefit that justifies spending 3 times as much for oil in a normally aspirated gas fueled engine. I would run synth in a diesel if I had to start it in the winter, but otherwise I would leave it alone until its price competitive.

As to oil leaks, all I can offer for first hand evidence is my 93 F350 diesel. I bought it used and the previous owner ran synthetic oil. It leaked oil like a sieve. Seriously, the whole motor was dripping and black all covered with oil. Front seal, rear main, and the bad one was the oil cooler where is connected to the block. Well, one oil change and it virtually stopped dripping. So sorry, but no one will convince me changing back wont stop leaks. That was 4 years ago and it still dont leak.

 

artvonne, I don't believe this is an "oil debate" but mearly a discussion as to wether someone should run syn. in his Dino. Gather all the info. you can and run what you want based on your equipment and conditions. Opinions will always vary and the discussion will continue and that being said true synthetics will always offer much better engine protection, reduced friction and better milage plus extended drain intervals. That has all been well documented.
It is a fact that Castrols syn. formulas are not true synthetics but rather hydrocracked dino oils with no sythetic basestocks used in their production. For the record Castrols 20w50 gets a score of 440 on flashpoint and the Mobil 1 20w50 V-twin which I am running get a score of 518 on flashpoint thats a 78 point spread, both still very respectable, but when you look at total scores Castrol 597, Mobil 1 728, I know which one I would run especially if it was a higher performance engine.

 

I use 20W50 in my 34 year old Lotus. I change it every 3 months regardless of miles (I've never come close to the recommended 5000 mile interval in that time). I think a lot old older carb cars tend to run a bit rich and with the manual chokes you end up with gas in the oil. Frequent changes are just a good precaution IMHO on vintage cars. People who use Mobil 1 and don't change it for a long time may have lost a lot of lubrication due to this, hence the top end work on an engine that shouldn't have needed it.

Ken

 

Well put, yet another aspect to look at, one size does not indeed fit all.

 

These discussions that consist of guesswork and baseless opinions drive me nuts.

Synthetic oil is better than dino oil. End of discussion. At the price of Dino engine parts, you should use synthetic, even if it were to leak a bit more (doesn't for me).

After a year of use the 15W-50 Mobil 1 in my Dino was analyzed and found to be indistinguishable from virgin oil--no gas in it at all. So it's still in there.

Guessing how often you should change oil when oil analysis exists is silly.

 

pantdino pretty much sums it up! put "real" synthetic in your Dino and you will put money in your pocket.

 

Scott, sorry, I had not picked up this thread again until now.

To be clear, I am not quoting from personal experience. I am however, relaying the details of a conversation from a guy, Dema Elgin, who i suspect knows more about cam wear than most. He was relaying his experience. It is not a 246 unique issue. I had the same experience on my 308 P6 factory comp cams. 2 lobes were worn. Dema, who's been fixing cams for 30+ years, from Studebakers through Ferraris, attributes this to long periods of inactivity, occasional and short periods of use causing maximum wear. In addition, with some models, like the wet sump 308, there is an oil feed issue to the cams under hard cornering (one of the first places the oil gets starved). Bill Pound (another fabled name in Ferrari lore) confirmed this to me. Short of a dry sump conversion (I did this on my own 308 before running slicks), Dema's advice is to run a synthetic of a certain set of characteristics. I believe him.

To dismiss this as "not proven" may be fair. To dismiss this as conjecture ignores the experience of someone that's been at this for 30-odd years.

Philip

 

Gregg,

Synthetic basestocks are superior in every way to conventional baseoils. That being said, you also need to be concerned about the additives that are blended into the oil. The latest oils API (SL) have cut down on the ZDDP (aka zinc), phosphorus, and other additives that come into play when boundry lubrication is lost. The anti synthetic sentiments on this thread are peddled by the naive and misinformed. You should contact f-chatter A E Haas, he wrote this http://63.240.161.99/motoroil/ He is probably the most informed individual on tribology on this forum. Here is another good primer http://motorcycleinfo.calsci.com/Oils1.html

 

This reminds me of a TEST I ran on motor oils just after Mobil 1 came out(25 years or so ago)- I put a can of 10w-40 Valvoline and 10w-40 Mobil 1 in my freezer overnight. The next morning I opened and poured both oils into a container. The Valvoline poured like molassis (literily), the mobil 1 poured like water. That sold me on synthetics. If you're in a climate that gets cold in the winter and you like to exercise your Ferrari every couple weeks in cold weather do you want oil that flows like molassis ?

 

Lucky you! I've never done an analysis but it looks like a good idea. I agree synthetic is better for most applications, leaks not withstanding. I always say, if your engine leaks, fix the leaks! But if a rebuild is going to run $10k and oil is a buck a quart, you do the math.

Ken