Six Years of Blackstone Lab Oil Reports - Now Questioning Joe Gibbs

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by Smallblock454

Just a few thoughts:

ZDDP won't prevent plastic from aging. Chain ramps are made of plastic.

ZDDP will always harm your catalysators. It's not a matter of the amount in the oil.

So DT 40 was designed to be changed every 6 months or less than 5 K miles. Nice cash cow.

Are there alternatives? There are ester based fully synthetic oils - for example Motul 300V - out there that can be used for 12 months and more miles that don't harm any catalysators, but have a maximum sheer stability.

Just my 2 cents
Regards, Markus

Worn plastic wear pads on chain tensioner paddles do not often kill engines, but metal to metal wear always will.

There are several good full synthetic products out there, but none of them has an appreciable level of ZDDP in them, and ZDDP remains by far the best anti-wear additive currently available. The data implicating ZDDP's role in cat degradation appears questionable, at best. And, while shear stability is important, it is not the entire determinant is engine wear, which is why all oils carry anti wear additive packages.

So you can call it a "cash cow" if you so please, but at the end of the day you have a $20K lump in the back of your car whose life expectancy that just may be dependent upon the quality of that additive package.

[Jake Raby]

Modern oils are trying to systematically advertise to the world that ZDDP is not needed, and can be substituted with other anti- wear packages just as well. I believe (and so do others) that this is from an economic stand point, as Zn is a very expensive additive.

Lubrizol is one of 4 companies in the world that make additive packages for oils, its a company that Warren Buffet brought. Lubrizol doesn't just formulate the additive packages for the Joe Gibbs oils, they also make the oil. Coincidentally, Lubrizol invented ZDDP in the 1940s.

I have changed one bad catalytic converter int he past 3 years, and we see about 100 of these cars per year. The cats simply do not fail, but if anyone needs one, I have a stack of good used ones thats 4' tall with all years and models represented.