What is the best Oil and SAE to use when running Alcohol in a BBC with a vaccum pump.

THANKS,

Lee

Lee,

You want to go with probably a 40 or 50 wt racing oil.

We run Valvoline NON STREET LEGAL 50 wt Racing in our Top Alcohol Funny Car.

Most people aren't aware of this, but about 3 years ago the fine folks at the EPA made the over the counter oils take alot of the zinc phosphates out of the oils. I'm no chemist, but these zinc phosphates helped the oil bond to the metals, greatly reducing wear. Since they have pulled the additives, flat tappet cam engines and high rpm applications such as drag racing and sprint car racing have seen the worst effects. Thus, most have went to racing only oils or racing synthetics. The racing oil you buy at O'Reilly will not have as much zinc phosphates.

That being said, for a typical alcohol bracket motor, on the shelf racing oil will be ok. Be careful if you select a synthetic oil, many of them just don't do well at all with the alcohol pollution. Stick with your 'nitro' racing synthetics like Red Line, Royal Purple, etc. These oils are designed to handle the pollution/dillution from alcohol and mix well.

The Valvoline non street legal 50 we run is about $4 a quart. It has the zinc phosphates the EPA made them remove for over the counter oil.

Other oils that would work good- Brad Penn (the old Kendall) and Kendall are about the only regular oils I would recommend.

Synthetics - Redline and Royal Purple...If you know what you're doing, you can reuse the oil. After draining, the alcohol will actually seperate from the oil, and you can either boil it off, or take a meat baster and suck the oil off the top, then re-use. I know of many Top Alcohol and even Nitro teams that do this with Redline. One nitro team I know will do this method, then mix it 50/50 with new oil. Several top running alcohol teams I know rotate the oil out. Let one batch seperate and replace with another batch that they have removed the alky.

If you're looking for the convience of going to your local parts store, Valvoline Racing VR1 50 will work just fine.

Long winded, but that's what I know...

Happy new year to all!

Will,

Thanks for the input on the different types of oils. I have had a few people tell me they are using Rotella T because of the zink problem. Some are using Valvoline Racing 20w - 50w with a quart of TX7 added.
What do you know about TX7?

Thanks Again,

Lee

re: tx7. I have only heard good things about it. As far as how many/much zinc phosphates it adds or replaces, I don't know.

from a bracket standpoint, it may be cheaper in the long run to buy some redline and clean the alky out about once a month. if you don't have it idling too rich, you should be able to race for about a month on oil.

Rotella T 15w40 is what I will be using with a dash of 3 & 1 oil and a sprinkle of Johnson Baby Oil and hope for the best!!!

Thanks for all the input.

Lee

I HAVE USED KENDALL 50 RACING OIL FOR YEARS WITHOUT ANY PROBLEMS,IF IT GETS REAL MILKY CHANGE IT. JUST THE COST OF RACEING. KEEP IT IN MIND THAT IF YOU DO NOT HAVE GOOD CLEARENCES LET THE MOTOR GET TO TEMP BEFORE HAMMERING ON IT. ALSO SOME SAY THE NEW SYNTHETIC OILS WORK GREAT AND THE FUEL AND THE OIL SEPERATE, I WOULDNT KNOW BUT THERE AR PLENTY OF RACERS THAT COULD HELP