Engine Removal Questions

[cbarge]

I don't know why they sent 20W-50 but we used it so we comply with warranty. Warranty is supposed to be 7 years/100k miles. I emailed them about using ethanol containing gasoline but they haven't responded yet.

Compression wise you should be fine as long as you tune your ignition to it (recurve distributor,etc).
But I do not use gas with ethanol in it.
Period.
I find it is not carburetor and rubber line friendly.

 

[PontiacJim]

I used what the builder sent which was Joe Gibbs 20w-50 oil. It has come down since I have been running it. That video was initial start in 35 degree ambient temperature. Now, it runs about 34 at idle.

Edit: that was a Harbor Freight pressure gauge, so it may not be super accurate.

OK, if the builder sent it, then I suppose they know what they are doing. The Joe Gibb oil is good, along with Brad Penn which are both formulated for the "older" engines. Harbor Freight gauge could indeed be a little off.

The cold weather will make the oil thicker and give a higher reading as will a new engine until it gets a little wear on it.

The hi-performance Pontiac engines use a 60 PSI pump (the family car got a 40 psi pump). I had an issue with oil pressure and used 20-50 plus a little STP just to keep it alive knowing I was going to have to pull it for a rebuild. Got some high oil pressures when winding it out to near 6,000 RPM's, the high oil pressure seemed to have a tendency to push oil past the oil ring seal on the spin on filter. Slowly over 7 years and 20,000 plus miles not even the STP helped and one day I fired it up and the gauge read "0". Gave me the excuse to side line the car and do a complete frame off resto-mod which it is still undergoing.

The ethanol laced gas should have no impact on it. Never heard of any problems during a break-in.

Don't know if they recommended a "break-in" procedure or if the engine has already been broken in by them? You want to do some acceleration (pressure) as well as deceleration (vacuum) runs with it to seat the piston rings.

 

[Joseph James]

OK, if the builder sent it, then I suppose they know what they are doing. The Joe Gibb oil is good, along with Brad Penn which are both formulated for the "older" engines. Harbor Freight gauge could indeed be a little off.

The cold weather will make the oil thicker and give a higher reading as will a new engine until it gets a little wear on it.

The hi-performance Pontiac engines use a 60 PSI pump (the family car got a 40 psi pump). I had an issue with oil pressure and used 20-50 plus a little STP just to keep it alive knowing I was going to have to pull it for a rebuild. Got some high oil pressures when winding it out to near 6,000 RPM's, the high oil pressure seemed to have a tendency to push oil past the oil ring seal on the spin on filter. Slowly over 7 years and 20,000 plus miles not even the STP helped and one day I fired it up and the gauge read "0". Gave me the excuse to side line the car and do a complete frame off resto-mod which it is still undergoing.

The ethanol laced gas should have no impact on it. Never heard of any problems during a break-in.

Don't know if they recommended a "break-in" procedure or if the engine has already been broken in by them? You want to do some acceleration (pressure) as well as deceleration (vacuum) runs with it to seat the piston rings.

They recommend the same thing you said. Varying rpms, etc for 500 miles and then change the oil.