[Shotimes] 60k austin

[Donald Mallinson]

Steve,

All the major mechanics in the SHO community are aware of 
the controversy by (2) mechanics now.  These people HAVE 
been paying attention, and usually know what oil goes in the 
cars they work on.

Nobody else has been able to verify a wear problem with 
SHO's and synthetic oil.  The few cases of cams gone bad 
could be caused by anything.

The facts are that cam lobes have been going flat since the 
first cam was used.  They still do today on a regular basis, 
and the usual cause is a bad cam casting or bad hardening, 
or it could be abuse, or a bad shim, or just not changing 
the oil.  FActs are that even the cases that are cited are 
just a guess as to what caused the cam to fail.

I have run synthetic in my '89 since 45,000 miles (now 
190,000) and hundreds of other SHO's have had synthetic 
since new or nearly new.  My cams show now irregular wear, 
and the vast majority of mechanics are finding no smoking 
gun against any type of oil.

IF synthetic oil was a major contributor to cam wear, we 
would be seeing an epidemic of failed cams, and that just is 
NOT so.

A couple (or three or four?) examples proves nothing.  I 
wish we could get this across.  NOBODY has any proof.  At 
one point I asked for a failed cam that was attributed to 
synthetic so I could send it to Amsoil for analysis. 
Certainly it would be interesting to see what they had to 
say, and yes, they probably would be biased, but it was 
worth a try and it would be free.  I never got the cam to 
send in though, so in that case, again, there is ZERO proof 
that the oil caused the failure.

Even Doug L. told me at one point that he thought synthetic 
was good for most motors, just not the SHO (and maybe a 
couple others).  Doug and I are good friends, but he and I 
don't agree on this point.  The SHO cam (talking V6 
here)isn't that much different, that a type of oil should 
cause wear on it and NOT on many other types of motors.

Till there is an unbiased test of lots of cams with and 
without synthetic, in a big enough sample to eliminate 
regular failures from the mix, nobody will be able to say 
for sure.

The best evidence is that virtually all SHO top mechanics 
recommend synthetic. or at least don't advise against it.

I like synthetic for the temperature extreme protection it 
offers, and use of synthetic by a lot of high end 
manufacturers speaks well of the product.

Don Mallinson



Steve Tatro wrote:

> Okay, you got me.  There are only two.
> 
> Scott would only report this if he had seen it multiple times (he has) and would only report the cases on cars that had seen a pure synthetic (typically Mobil1) for the entire life of the car.
> 
> Sure, there are other "SHO mechanics" who haven't noticed this, but have they even looked?  Have they taken the forethought to pay close attention to this on a synthetic-only SHO?
> 
> I'm not saying Scott or Doug L. are right or wrong.  I just think if there were more examples of synthetic-only SHOs *and* a greater number of mechanics looking for this type of wear on these cars we *may* find it's a possibility.  General consensus right now is to just discount this anti-synthetic talk as bogus.
> 
> How many people do you think have done 60k services?  What percentage of those have even looked at their cam lobes for wear?  I know the first time I had mine open I didn't.  Then the second time I had them open I didn't again!  I was lucky I had taken a couple of digital pics that clearly showed the cam lobes, so I at least had an idea what condition mine were in.
> 
> Just food for thought.
> 
> Steve Tatro
> Red/Black '93 with 173k miles
> Cincinnati, Ohio
> 
> -- Paul L Fisher <sho@paul-fisher.com> wrote:
> So there are now 2 SHO mechanics that say this? Wow!