Break in oil- first 20 minutes- Brad Penn or standard non detergent

[Neilk]

Hello,

Yet another engine break in question. In short, do I save my case of Brad Penn break in oil for the 20 minute initial start up or use it for the first 1K?

I hope to start my engine up this weekend or early next week. I reused the P&C and had them re-ringed, reground cam and rockers, so for the first 20 minutes, should I use some FLAPS non-detergent 30W oil and save the BP break in oil for the next 1,000 miles or should I use it for the first 20 minutes and then get a decent 30W oil? What is a decent non-detergent 30W oil that you can buy locally?

Any advice on this tiresome question would be appreciated.

[Henry Schmidt]

I understand that the Porsche world loves Brad Penn but we're seeing some of the worst results (wear) in engines that use exclusively Brad Penn. We're using Delo 400 in everything.

[Neilk]

Originally Posted by Henry Schmidt

I understand that the Porsche world loves Brad Penn but we're seeing some of the worst results (wear) in engines that use exclusively Brad Penn. We're using Delo 400 in everything.

Ahh Panic...

So I should be fine with this stuff then?



Thanks for the advice!

[Green993]

And... You can get it at Costco. Although, their version is Delo 400 LE. Not sure what the LE stands for?

[Henry Schmidt]

Originally Posted by Green993

And... You can get it at Costco. Although, their version is Delo 400 LE. Not sure what the LE stands for?

Delo LE is for low emissions cars 2007 and later. It's all we can get in Cali.

[Henry Schmidt]

Originally Posted by Neilk

Ahh Panic...

So I should be fine with this stuff then?



Thanks for the advice!

Perfect.....

[K Sykes]

Not sure I'm tracking vs the original question. My understanding is to just use a basic 30 weight oil for the very initial run it to get rid of the assembly lube, initial metal wear and other junk from the first 20 min or so. Are you recommending the "Delo" for that, or for regular use?

Hopefully days away from heads coming back and getting on the road again..

[Henry Schmidt]

Originally Posted by K Sykes

Not sure I'm tracking vs the original question. My understanding is to just use a basic 30 weight oil for the very initial run it to get rid of the assembly lube, initial metal wear and other junk from the first 20 min or so. Are you recommending the "Delo" for that, or for regular use?

Hopefully days away from heads coming back and getting on the road again..

Delo, start to finish..... good to go.

[Smoove1010]

The Delo 400 LE 15W-40 that I can get at Costco is labeled as having "ISOSYN" technology and touts "synthetic performance" though it is not a synthetic oil. I couldn't help but wonder, given the conventional wisdom against using synthetic oil for break-in, if these near-synthetic properties would make it unsuitable for break-in.

I'm determined to make sure my rings seat, so (based on fear and superstition) I'm breaking in with Rotella-T before changing to the Delo 400 LE I've got in a box in my garage...

[irobertson]

Hi Henry,
Interesting observation on the engines running Brad Penn.
I was going to pick some up in a couple of weeks. Now you've got me rethinking.

The Chevron site shows a Delo Multigrade 15W-40 for use with pre-2007 engines.
Curious if this is preferable to the LE designation?
Also, would you recommend SAE 30 for the first 20 min run in period, then the multigrade after that?
I was planning on just using the multigrade from the get go.

cheers

[James Brown]

interesting, the lycoming service bulletin i just looked at says it is ok to use the same oil (like 20W50 phillips 66 aircooled engine oil) for both break in and normal use. I always used the mineral ashless dispersant oil for the first 25 hours. Now it is ok to use the same oil for that. the oil game continues.

[kenikh]

Gibbs BR.

[Lapkritis]

Cheapest oil you can get off the shelf at autozone/checker/oreilly/bond/napa/advance auto/parts plus/krager/pep boys which is normally the store brand stuff. Change after the first 30mins of operation and again at 1000 miles.

Synthetic after that at 2500-3000 miles. I've done this on a number of engines with great results. Mobile 1 or Castrol Syntec for the life of the engine. Dino oil is far more prone to caking/sludging. The brown surface stain/slime is not present inside a synthetic oil engine if you may have noticed...

[JFairman]

Originally Posted by Lapkritis

Cheapest oil you can get off the shelf at autozone/checker/oreilly/bond/napa/advance auto/parts plus/krager/pep boys which is normally the store brand stuff. Change after the first 30mins of operation and again at 1000 miles.

Synthetic after that at 2500-3000 miles. I've done this on a number of engines with great results. Mobile 1 or Castrol Syntec for the life of the engine. Dino oil is far more prone to caking/sludging. The brown surface stain/slime is not present inside a synthetic oil engine if you may have noticed...

That's what I've done in the past too. Advance auto parts down here in Florida has their own 30 weight oil in gallon bottles for a low regular price.
I switch to the good synthetic oil after around 100 miles in a turbo though.

[Nicks911]

Sorry for the sorta hijack, Its interesting on the Brad Penn comment. I moved from Mobile one to Brad Penn and notice better oil pressure for a given engine temp. I even started a log book to make sure I wasn't convincing myself b/c its what I want to believe. Maybe Bard Penn is better than mobile one and Delo is better than Brad Penn in the order of things. I guess this should be obvious but maybe factors other than psi at a temp are more important

[Henry Schmidt]

Originally Posted by Nicks911

Sorry for the sorta hijack, Its interesting on the Brad Penn comment. I moved from Mobile one to Brad Penn and notice better oil pressure for a given engine temp. I even started a log book to make sure I wasn't convincing myself b/c its what I want to believe. Maybe Bard Penn is better than mobile one and Delo is better than Brad Penn in the order of things. I guess this should be obvious but maybe factors other than psi at a temp are more important

My observations with Brad Penn have to do with excessive wear and Delo is observed to produce better numbers on the dyno.
Another observation is that air-cooled 911 engines that don't leak quite often leak when synthetic oils are substituted for petroleum oils.

[Lapkritis]

..and toilets flush counter clockwise in Australia for no apparent reason.

[kenikh]

Coriolis

[CaptainCalf]

Originally Posted by kenikh

gibbs br.

+1

[Steve@Rennsport]

Speaking only for myself, I just haven't seen ANY wear problems using B-P 20w-50 racing oil or the 15w-40 stuff.

Recently, a 3.0 race engine was disassembled after 200+ hours (thats a LOT of time for a race engine) which has been driven quite hard and everything was virtually like new: cams, rockers, bearings, etc. We simply installed new rings (old ones were still within spec), new rod bearings for insurance, and buttoned it back up. P/C's had 100K++ on them.

Two things come to mind: we are very careful about air filtering and do not use glass beading during the engine cleaning process due to the difficulty in getting every last bit of abrasive out of everything (same reasoning for never using abrasive discs for cleaning gasket surfaces).

We use soda for all parts cleaning task since it leaves a virgin surface, is water soluable, and leaves no abrasive residue.

Maybe we are just lucky, but I've been very pleased with the Brad-Penn oils for many years. Its the same basic product as the original Kendall GT-1 oil which was the gold standard since the early sixties.