Posted by Brian in Oregon on August 13, 2000 at 15:45:38:
In Reply to: detergent vs. non-detergent posted by Tim McGowan on August 13, 2000 at 14:39:18:
I went just the opposite. I stayed with a racing oil with very high detergent content in my race and street rod engines, all of which had two-gallon oil pans. I changed the oil every other month, regardless of the mileage.
When I tore the engines down after years of use, both the race engine and street rod engines looked like new. No crud, and the bearings looked almost like the day I put them in.
I also ran a high quality oil filter. Two of them in fact on the race engines on parallel. Plus all engines had high volume oil pumps, though only the race engines had a high pressure one as well.
I also ran the same oil in an old beater truck, just changing it regularly as well, though not as fanatically as the high perfomance engines. About every three to four months.
I contend that if you change your oil frequently, which is what manufacturers stress, then you will never have a problem with acids, particles in suspension, etc.
On the other hand, neglect ANY oil, and you are slowly but surely turning into a fine quality lapping compound.
As far as non-detergent oil, yes, I do have a use for it. I put it in fine mechanisms where the detergent oil would gum it up. This is for machinery w/o an oil pump and filter. I'm going to go out on a limb here, but it may be possible that non-detergent oil has an advantage for those engines which have splash oiled rod bearings, such as the old Chevy 235. Whether this is true or not, I cannot say, as I have not run a Chevy 235 to find out.