AvBlend

You want to sue an oil additive? Great! I'm a lawyer and also an FAA-certified aviation mechanic, let's sue! no, just yanking your chain, I'm bad about that.

I haven't touched an airplane in awhile, and never a Ferrari, but they seem like very different critters to me. I'd be extreeemly cautious about putting an airplane-kinda product into a car engine, and this product doesn't necessarily belong in an airplane engine either. For one thing, what does FAA-approved mean? Beats me--Avblend has a letter from the propulsion branch of the Chicago Aircraft Certification Office that says "we hereby approve AvBlend as an engine oil additive for both Textron Lycoming and Teledyne Continental engines and Pratt and Whitney radial engines." Okeydoke, but that probably means that FAA has reviewed test results and determined that AvBlend doesn't seem to harm said engines. Doesn't mean it HELPS the engines either. By saying "FAA Approved" in an advertisement, they want you to think it somehow makes your engine better. Remember, almost every airplane that crashes is FAA-approved, although what the pilot was doing with it probably wasn't.

Even assuming AvBlend is good for Lycoming, Continental, and Pratt aviation piston engines, keep in mind that they are literally 1930s technology. Nothing wrong with them at all, in fact that's why we still have them--we know they work. All are air-cooled and have rather loose tolerances compared to modern car engines. The first two are opposed-cylinders and I can't remember (and won't try without looking it up in a maintenance manual) what oils Lyc/Cont recommend, and the third is a radial, anything from the R-985 to the R-4360, that runs on MIL-F-1100 straight mineral oil. One of the endearing qualities of large radials is that before you start them if they've sat for more than an hour, you'd better pull the propeller through a few blades to see if it turns freely. If not, you get out your 7/8 and 9/16 wrenches and pull the rear spark plugs from the bottom cylinders to drain out the oil that's seeped past the piston rings. Even after that, it's normal to get more smoke than a forest fire when you start it. Man, I miss those days.

I sincerely hope you don't have to do that with Ferraris, which are I believe all V-8 and V-12s designed for a different mission by different people, and made by different people in a different way, from airplane piston engines. So, I would ask some more questions of Ferrari gurus before trying oil additives. What is AvBlend supposed to do for your Ferrari anyway? It sounds to me, at least from reading posts by Those Who Know What They're Doing (example, Rifledriver; I may know less than nothing about fixing F-cars but I am pretty good at smelling BS and I catch not a whiff from him), that Ferraris do just fine if you exercise them regularly and follow the gosh-darn bleeping owner's manual recommended maintenance. I would be surprised, greatly, if an oil additive is the cure or even a treatment for whatever it is that ails your F-car.

All that is just my estimation, open to serious question, I don't mind a bit. Here's a little something

http://www.avweb.com/news/maint/answers_about_oil_195194-1.html?type=pf

a Q&A session about airplane engine oil with reps from Exxon/Mobil, Shell, and Phillips. They nicely say they don't have enough test data about AvBlend to know if it's any good, probably because they're busy with testing their own additive blends to make sure they actually work well, instead of just claiming they have a magic formula that makes engines run "smoother, faster, longer" or whatever STP used to say ... uh oh, can of worms ...

 

Am a pilot and own my own plane and a Ferrari. Do not use AVblend in Ferrari. Different creatures, different needs.
Docf

 

The EPA is slowly forcing all engine manufactures worldwide to accept lighter grade motor oils and extended drain intervals, and the manufactures are then dictating this information down to the service centers. They even run phony tests to show its equal or superior to conventional methods. Even if aviation oil had superior lubrication properties, the fact it is not energy conserving or 100% enviromentally approved ties those manufactures hands from saying anything. They are forced to repeat the same canned speach like a bunch of mind numbed automatons. To say anything different would gain them so much legal trouble its not worth it. Freedom of speach has officially been usurped.

I have become cautious lately because more and more motor oils are dropping zinc out of the oil and not telling anyone. AFAIK Castrol still has it, but I know for a fact that aviation oils do. In any case there has probably never been a better time to keep as watchful an eye of valve train wear and keep researching motor oils with an open mind.