Great Video on Oil Film Stength

I am sure many of you have see the Rat540 or the Project Farm oil film strength testing.  Well this new video pretty much shows that this test is bunk when it comes to motor oil.  It shows how the oil film test is best used for something like gear oil and is not really applicable to engines and motor oil. 

There is also some interesting information on flat tappet wear. Surprisingly, the new SP grade oils work pretty well. In fact the Castrol that did poorly on the film tested had less cam wear that the older SM rated Valvoline VR-1.  

These videos be Lake Speed Jr are pretty good.  He uses real data to back up his claims and he is a tribologist who has worked in the oil industry for years.  His father is involved with NASCAR.

Lake came up with joe gibbs driven line of oils, which were ahead of their time 20 years ago. My father owned a team of dirt late models and even with a valvoline product sponsorship offered, we used driven. Of all the claims of lower temps, better wear, etc. that I've heard claimed over the years, the driven stuff was the only one that actually backed it up. We actually saw lower oil temps, better wear numbers, and more dyno HP using driven.

Wiping a lobe on a flat tappet would more then cover the cost difference. I'm not saying driven would prevent every wiped lobe, as manufacturing errors happen. But I'd be pretty confident saying that driven wasn't the issue if one did flatten. We ran a combo of different zddp and pressure additives with pennzoil conventional 20w50 at the recommendation of a former engine builder. When we switched to our current/final builder he told us you can use all the seasonings you want, but sh!t is still sh1t. We actually talked to Lake at PRI and he echoed the same sentiments. He said there's only so much surface area that's metal on metal in an engine. You don't need the detergents in an oil competing with the other additives(like zddp) that are needed, so it can actually be detrimental to run a diesel oil that has them.

Anyways, we went from requiring mid-season engine rebuilds to not, and kept the same oil change interval(5 nights/500 laps). The extra HP, likely from running 5w40 vs 20w50, was a bonus.

I guess being in Canada, certain things get crazy expensive when crossing the border, some things more then others. But I'd recommend anybody to give driven a good look, as it's pricing is not all that out of line compared to the other boutique oils like amsoil, schaeffers, redline, lucas, etc.