oil additives?

I saw an oil additive called Restore in a mag and i was wondering if it would help my car out any? It says that it will restore compression, power, less oil burning, and that it would help lubricate.

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88TC Black 5spd conversion, 153k, with front mounted air filter, Gillis Boost Valve at 13 psi until dad lets me go higher

I use Prolong. Duralube, Slick 50, and some others use an additive that bonds to metal. Restore is something different. I would not try it unless I was waiting to get money to do a tear down. I would use it and try to stretch the tear down as long as safely possible.

The Prolong and Mobil 1 gave me original crosshatching on my 210,000 mile V6 Explorer. It convinced the mechanic that the heads were the only thing wrong, cracked. I now have 250,000. Still going strong.

When I purchased my 88TC I put Mobil 1 and Prolong in as soon as I got home.

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Terry: 88TC, 5spd, Gillis valve.

Oil additives = snake oil. Do some research on the net, looking for INDEPENDANT studies of all this crap, and you will see what I mean about these things being junk. The additives that contain Teflon (PTFE) are especially bad, and can easily do significant damage to your engine. In fact, DuPont, the company who holdsthe patent on Teflon, will not sell Teflon to any company who wants to put it in an oil additive. They have to get it from off shore sources.

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Jeff Korn

88 Turbo Coupe: Intake and exhaust mods, T3 turbo at 21 psi, forced air intercooler, water injection, bypass valve, Ranger roller cam, subframes, etc., etc.. // 86 Tbird 5.0 (original owner): intake, exhaust, valvetrain mods, 100 HP nitrous, ignition, gears, suspension, etc., etc.... // 91 Escort: Bone stock winter car // 02 Taurus Vulcan(wifes car)

Just say no!...
http://www.authorized-amsoil-dealer-for-...additives/
http://www.smartsynthetics.com/articles/...l_addi.htm

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Joe F.

My 87 TC & mod list with sources

I don't see any info on the "Restore" product that danadj is talking about in those links. "Restore" is an additive that is supposed to 'fill in' the minor scratches in cylinder walls helping to restore compression resulting in less oil burning, better fuel economy, and decreased power loss. All of the claimed advantages would actually happen if only the one thing that the product claims it can do would happen...to fill in the tiny grooves in the cylinder walls to help compression. This product isn't supposed to reduce friction like the ones in the links so it's not the same. Does anyone know of any negative information directly related to the "Restore" product? By the way, I don't represent, sell, or even care about the company that makes "Restore"; I'm just curious as always.

Kev

If it claims to fill in the minor scratches, what does it fill them in with? I'd bet that one of the instructions say to shake it real good before pouring it into your engine. Why? Because those pesky little metal particles (which is probably what they claim fills in the scratches) just love to come out of suspension.

So what keeps them in suspension once the additive is in your oil? Does your engine get shook up before you start it each time? And what limits the particles to just the cylinder walls? Won't they go elsewhere, too, where it could do some harm, like bearing surfaces?

IMO most of those particles are probably going to wind up in your oil filter anyway - reducing oil flow and decreasing lubrication to the engine.

It just doesn't make sense to me to buy good oil, a good filter, and then gunk them both up with stuff they're designed to protect the engine from to begin with.

Just my 2 cents worth - and that's probably all it's worth! [Image: biggrin.gif]

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Joe F.

My 87 TC & mod list with sources

[This message has been edited by JoeCool (edited 07-28-2004).]

I know a little about chemistry, metalurgy, and materials science, and as Joe has said, there is NO WAY any product is going to fill in small scratches. Lots of those "reduce oil burning, restore compression" products are just increase oil viscosity, which will slightly increase compression, oil pressure, and reduce oil burning. If that is what you are after, just use a higher viscosity oil in the first place.

Oil manufacturers spend MILLIONS of dollars formulating the additive packages that go into their oils, and many of the "miracle cure" products out there throw the additive package out of wack, causing more harm than good.

Besides the links Joe mentioned, look for a site (lost the URL.... sorry) where Briggs and Stratton exhaustively tested a bunch of additives, and EVERY ONE caused damage to the test engines.

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Jeff Korn

88 Turbo Coupe: Intake and exhaust mods, T3 turbo at 21 psi, forced air intercooler, water injection, bypass valve, Ranger roller cam, subframes, etc., etc.. // 86 Tbird 5.0 (original owner): intake, exhaust, valvetrain mods, 100 HP nitrous, ignition, gears, suspension, etc., etc.... // 91 Escort: Bone stock winter car // 02 Taurus Vulcan(wifes car)

I agree with the oil additive=snake oil comment. I've just done some looking into the "Restore" product before and realized it wasn't claiming the same attributes as Slick 50 and the like so I was curious as to what the deal was with it. My thoughts follow those of Joe's. If "Restore" fills in the tiny grooves, what else is it filling in? Probably the oil filter and anything else metal that it touches. I just don't see a way that they could help the cylinders and not touch anything else with the 'filler'. Thanks for your thoughts.

Kev

Generally I think that oil additives are nothing more than "snake oil" too, but here is my experience with Restore.

Several years ago I was given a couple of free cans of Restore by a vendor rep.
I ended up putting them in two vehicles I owned, a 1973 Jeep CJ-5 with a 304 V8, and a 1975 Chrysler Cordoba with a 400 V8.

The Cordoba was a winter beater that I drove for two winters.
I did notice one difference in the way the it ran and that was on the highway.
After the Restore it actually took less gas pedal to maintain 65 MPH than it did before, it wasn't much, but it was a noticable difference and the only thing that I can think of is that may have in some way actually did what it advertised and "restored" the compression to some extent.

The Jeep was strictly a trail Jeep that rarely was "street" driven, I trailered it once a year to a trail ride in the Smoky Mountains.
I saw no difference in than way it ran but it would rarely see anything much above and idle for most of the time.

This stuff was given to me and I would never have purchased it otherwise. I also figured I have nothing to loose since both vehicles were high mileage engines that were at the end of their life cycle and were close to needing a rebuild anyway.

Brent



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1985 Cougar XR-7 5-speed - 1 of 7,860 built
1986 asc/McLaren EuroCoupe - 1 of 47 built
1971 Ranchero
Hi-Jumper SSIII w/2.3L Turbo power

NATO member

You all have been talking about stuff like prolong and slick 50 but what about Marvel Mystery Oil? I saw this stuff at walmart and thought about buying some. What do you all think or know about it?

Huey


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87 Turbo coupe, 5spd, full factory options, custom 3 inch exhaust