ZDDP and flat tappet cams

Im a fan of joe gibbs driven oil products, been using them for a few years. So going through their website i came upon this and thought id share. Hopefully most of you know by now about the zinc content in oil and flat tappet cams, and how the two havent been getting along in the last 10 years or so. Modern oils will protect a flat tappet cam in a stock (low spring pressure, low lift cams) street driven engine. Once you start racing, changing spring pressures, cam lifts and duration, is where you will start running into trouble with modern oils. Please feel free to read more here:
http://www.drivenracingoil.com/news/dro/training-center/articles/zinc-in-motor-oil/

That's good advice!  I run Valvoline VR 20W50 racing oil in my hypo 327 flat tappet setup.  3 years strong and no cam damage.  I too was leery about the zinc factor of today's oils when I decided to build an old school flat tappet 327, but on advice from a guy who's been building engines for 40 years, I decided to go with the racing oil. It's actually cheaper than buying regular oil and adding zinc since mine needs 7 quarts.  It's a street car, but it does get played with every once in awhile.

Agreed! Good advice. Thanks for the post.

Back in the days when I used to race we used nothing but Valvoline oils. They were more performance orientated than any of the other main stream oils and was easily available.

When i first got the new crate engine, i had the cam broken in on the joe gibbs br30 break in oil, and no problems. Then for the next two years up until now, ive used valvoline vr1 10w 30, with a bottle of zddp plus from eastwood and also good luck with that. But now since im installing heads, much harder valve springs and a bigger cam, i think i might switch to joe gibbs permanently. I used the br30 break in oil again when i did the cam swap, so i still have that oil in, says you can use it up to 500 miles, and i intend to, to make sure the cam is covered and fully broken in.

Good info indeed thanks. I have been debating whether to go with a hydraulic roller cam or for this reason.

From what I have read though the roller cams won't give a stock or close to stock idle and are best suited

to high rpm but if I go with regular hydraulic there is the issue of wear and rpm. Definitely a lesser of two evils

situation lumpy idle vs premature lobe wear and\or even possible failure from crappy oil. In fact I think this motor

I am rebuilding was the victim of low zinc as all the wear was in the bore a sign of low zinc oil.