To answer MrT.
Silicone oil is polydimethylsiloxane. Now there is a mouthful, can't pronounce it, only write it.
Silicone oil is polydimethylsiloxane. Now there is a mouthful, can't pronounce it, only write it.
Z-Max, STP, Motor Honey, Lucas and all those similar products are silicon based additives. If you want to drill a hole in tough steel or stainless steel they are great. Silicon creates less friction between two rubbing surfaces. Some of those products have a strong detergent in them, but so does dino oil contain a detergent...
Ive heard of that done but I'm not convinced your going to get all the kerosene out unless you run a few oil flushes.
Todays oils clean pretty good so if you wanted to clean an engine running short oil change intervals would work. Safer than kerosene or diesel in the crankcase to.
Ive heard of a guy who was running nothing but ATF in his crankcase instead of oil and it worked fine. Its not something I would try with an IDI but mixing it with the oil to clean the engine would not worry me much.
ATF does seem to clean pretty good from what Ive seen. I was filling my buddies manual trans in his camaro with it and overflowed it. The trans was greasy and dirty and where the ATF ran down the side it revealed clean aluminum. Really surprised me considering how dirty the trans was.
Back in the mid 90's I lived in Woodland Park CO. The police force mechanic swore by diesel flushing the engine of their 5 patrol cars. Every oil change he would put the old filter back on and fill her up with diesel and run it at idle for about 7 or 8 minutes. He told me that they were getting 200,000 out of their Crouwn Vict's and they sat idling 75% of the time!
I use Restore in every oil change (every 5K miles). I noticed it's better than oil only, I get whatever oil is on sale at Walmart (usually is the Mobil Delvac 1300 Super). I would like to see the needle of the oil gauge move a little more to the center but so far no additive has done that. It goes from the left to the N of Normal when oil is fresh and cold, it goes back a little lower when running hot. Sometimes it worried me I may not be getting enough oil pressure through the engine, but I learned here that there is enough volume of oil circulating even when the gauge shows little movement. Restore has helped in keeping the oil viscocity also. When I was using oil only by the time it needed to be changed it was not only black but it flowed like water, very thin. My van's engine uses about 1/2 quart of oil every 5K miles oil change. I don't know if it goes through the rings or if it leaks at some other point but the engine is clean all around, and no drops of oil under either.
I would like to check this Z max stuff but I haven't see that around. Does NAPA has it? Restore costs me about $9 at Walmart. How much is Zmax?
Thanks,
Burt.