What type of oil should I put in my 63 292 Y block?
thanks James

 

Man you have opened Pandora's box asking that question. I'm looking forward to all the responses. I use oil from this company in Iowa. Home - Cen-Pe-Co Lubricants
But I have a lot of time and money invested in my engines.
As far as off the shelf reasonably priced oil that still has 1200 ppm of zinc in it Rotella T4 is OK for a well broke in engine. I use it in the 352 in my old F250 parts truck that still runs enough to get out of the way of the lawnmower.

 

As Crop said, you've opened up a can of worms so I'm not going to preach. But I will say this. More important than the brand of oil you use is how you use it. I was weaned working on and driving those engines, and I always had more mechanical ability than money so I always bought the 100,000+ 10 year old cars. And most of them burned oil when I got them and got better from taking care of them.

3 things you need, clean good quality oil, good oil pressure and a warm engine.

I'm a little lost with the engines produced after say '79, but everything before that I have always used 10w-40, I've always used a top quality oil that was on sale at the time I restocked, and I always changed it at 5000 miles. I still use this practice, I have never warn out an engine, (lost all my vehicles to cancer).

And I always warm up my cars, trucks,boats,machines, everything I own with a gas or diesel engine. And do not free wheel an engine. If you treat it hard, make sure it's under load.

Now you guys can all fight over the Best Brand.

 

For an old engine with a flat tappet cam, I use 2 quarts of break in oil with high zinc (zddp) with every change, and I also change oil at 5K miles just so it's easy to keep track of when it's time. I've used 3 different brands of break in oil; Royal Purple, Lucas and Joe Gibbs. It's high priced, there are limited offerings and I have to order it on line. If I can get it on sale that's the brand I go with. As far as the base oil I use with it, Valvoline high mileage synthetic blend. It consistently scores well for both price and break down resistance.

Changing the oil in my Toyota Tacoma at 5K miles using just the Valvoline synthetic blend I'm pushing 300K miles.

I'm sure there are many other good offerings, maybe even better ones and I wouldn't try to convince anyone my way is best. Just letting folks know what I do.

 

Let's back up a bit first. Y-blocks in particular had upper valvetrain oiling issues, make sure the oil to the rockers, fed through through a single passage to the heads and through the rocker shafts is flowing well, check oil pressure with a mechanical gauge etc.

It won't matter a whit what oil is used if it can't get to where it needs to be. The operator's manual said 10w-30 in "practically all cases" is specified, fwiw. A 20w oil was spec'd for sustained operation in extreme cold. The filter is just as important, don't cheap out on these. Most have been converted to spin-on, the FL-1A is a good choice.

 

Thanks guys

 

Calmest oil thread ever...good job guys!

 

Here we go. 5 qts Castrol, 1 pt ZDDP, 1 pt stabilizer and a Napa Gold filter. About $80

 

Been running Delo 15/40 at up to and over 5500 rpm for the last year in my 352. 4000-5000 mile interval with no issues as of yet.

 

I run the zinc for the cam and the stabilizer to prevent dry starts after sitting for a week or 2.