engine oil additives....

just out of curiosity, what(if anything) are you guys and gals adding to yur motoroil???
have a friend who swears by running 4quarts of oil, and one quart of automatic transmission fluid (obviously it's a 5qt. oil system.) he apparently has been doing this for years, and claims that since the atf contains all sorts of good detergents to keep those transmissions clean, the inside of the motor will stay nice and gunk free...
i've heard of using tranny fluid if you wanna clean out a motor real nice (either that or kerosene), but as far as everyday use is concerned??????
just wondering if anyone else does this or has any experience with this..don't really wanna experiment on one persons word alone. thanks in advance...chris

 

i have heard all these additive stories for years... and after building hundreds or engines, some gas and a whole bunch of diesels this is my take on it.

forget the additives..

oil manufactures spend millions on research and developement of there products. These products are better than they ever have been.. period..

adding ATF is the equivalent to adding 1 qt of 5 or 10 weight oil to the system... and that is not a good thing at all.

if you stick with a good oil to start with,, and service the engine at regular intervals, don;t overheat the shit out of the engine, keep the systems up to snuf such as PCV, breathers, filters, exhaust crossover valves etc. your will likely have a clean engine without all the other crap being added.

what kills engines is things like..

poor maintenance, or the lack thereof,

poor maintenance practices such as letting dirt fall into the intake when servicing the aircleaner elements, transferring oil from dirty funnels and container and the like.

over heating, or short drives that dont bring the engine up to temperature long enuf to boil of condensation in the crankcase.

well maintained modern engines run well over 200,000 miles these days... and in some cases longer than the POS bodies that they drag around.

so bottom line... pick a good oil,, dont add shit to it, and maintain it properly.

bob

 

brutus has some good points, but to add to it, you don't even need good oil, if you change it every 3000, or so. Even a cheaper oil will be OK if you change it out often. When I worked for Exxon Engineering, I attended many "Technical Seminars", where researchers would 'practice' doing their research reviews on their co-workers, before doing them in front of management, or customers. I have seen a few of them that delved into the science of additives in the oil. It is truly a blancing act of chemicals to make a good oil. A little too much detergent, or anti-wear, and it throws off the entire package, making the oil worse. Too little or too much of anything destroys the package as a whole.
So it makes sense not to add anything, including 'engine additives' to your oil. Even extra anti-wear additives may actually give your oil less good qualities. In a good engine, just run a decent oil, change it every 3000 miles, and change the filter every time. Use all of one brand for an oil change...don't mix different brands together. They may have different formulations. If you are not diligent about doing oil changes, you may want to run a 'good' grade of oil..preferably not a Pennsylvania based oil, as it has extra parrafin in it to cause sludge, and a sythetic may be best for you. Syn's are also recommended for high temps, as in turbo motors, or lots of towing/racing.
If you do have an old, worn out, engine, though, then maybe some of these 'crutches' may help, but no guarantees from me!

 

i appreciate the posts...i'm glad i asked. i was a little bit leary of mixing my fluids, as good as the whole deal sounded...better safe than sorry. anyone else have any other experiences????

 

Hey guys. Just tell Kritz to get rid of his God Damn Flatty and get a real engine! That's what I been tellin' him since he bought the car!
What you guys aretalkin about makes sense, but Kritz has a '50 8BA, and I was there when he changed the oil this past spring (he'd just bought the car), and it looked like that was probably the first time the oil had ever been changed. It was water thin, black as hell, and is filter housing was full about half way up with some shit that was like wet clay. We cleaned the filter housing really good, and flushed out the line, but I think he wants to try to clean out the rest of the engine without having to tear it down. Any advice?

 

From my minimal experience with my flatty and reading lots about them. I found that the oil in these gets dirty really quickly. After even 100 miles they look like the haven't been changed for years. Partly due to the fact there is no filtering system in these things or if there is one on the 50's style it only really filters a small portion of the system. Everyone says change the oil alot. I do. Alot of the flathead guys swear by the Marvel Mystery Oil. They put it in the carb, In the fuel system tank and In the oil. Some use this straight to actually unfree a stock block. Alot of guys claim it's a good cleaner and is designed for all those applications. I use it on occasionly in the fuel system and oil.

 

Similar question.

I'll be running a late flathead with a fairly serious cam and two deuces. I'm gonna run a Mercury rear sump pan and no oil filter. The pistons are 4 ringers and the carbs have no aircleaners. I'll have new crank oil seals front and back. Modified EAB heads for only slightly higher compression and best breathing possible.

Am I stuck changing the oil every 1500 miles or so? That's been my experience with similar engines without air or oil filters. Hopefully the 4 ring pistons will keep out the air-gas for a while untill the unfiltered air starts scoring the bores.

Any comments?

 

on an engine that is so sludged up as the one in reference here, i would drop the oil pan,, and clean it out first...

the last thing you want to do is add something to break up a lot of sludge and get it down to the oil pick tube/screen.

so drop the pan,,, and clean it out first,, then add whatever you like to clean the engine up...

that is what i would advise.

bob