Mobil 1 is synthetic. You're mistaking Mobil 1 with Mobil Super and Mobil 5000. If it's labeled Mobil 1 it's synthetic.
VR1 has the necessary ZDDP content. So does Mobil 1, Royal Purple, Amsoil. Amsoil was one of the first synth's and has been around for decades. My old man ran it in his flat heads. Yeah, you read that right: in his flat heads and you really can't get much older than that.
I've never rebuilt an engine because of a wiped cam and lack of zinc. I have, though, rebuilt plenty of engines due to oil sludging, usually caused by high paraffin bases, improper maintenance, a lack of warm up times as well as those that have been run hard and put away wet. Stuck chokes that cause bearing wash with all that gas wiping the oil off the cylinders and getting into the oil pan where it's pumped through the engine (talk about wiping a cam... have the pump push diluted gas all over the lobes) Getting back into engines from the 50's and the 60's I've rebuilt a lot of engines because of people running HD's and then switching to ND's and back and forth. A 392 Hemi that had absolutely no oil going to the valve train because of it.
Speaking of switch back and forth, one of the worst things you can do to your engine is switch out your oil. Each of the oil refiners has it's own base formula to start with. Many of them put a "glaze" on the machine surfaces that doesn't necessarily play well with other oils. Switching every time your local retailer has a package deal doesn't help and can actually lead to the sludging I'm talking about.
Wiped lobes usually happen within the first thousand or so miles and has more to do with inexperienced builders not knowing how to break in the cam and a lack of break in lube or they don't know how to get it to fire immediately and grind on it until it does. Wiped lobe.
I gotta admit, I didn't read the article from Hot Rod or the Wiki link. Didn't need to. Got experience on my side as to what works and what doesn't. Been doing it for a great many years and learned from a man who cut his teeth hot rodding engines since he was fourteen (he's 74 now, if that means anything).
The thing is this: how many of our cars are used as dailies vs used as summer rides. Synths work in doing a lot of things: they are better at combating friction, they work in coating machine surfaces better which serves its purpose in long storage, especially in non-climate controlled storage.
Even then, if you do use your car as a daily and only for short hops synths work better against sludging. They also work better against carbon build ups (better friction wicking).
By the way, most of you do realize that "synth" are just oils that are more refined than "conventionals" right? To break it down think of three stages of refinement: "conventional" is the most rudimentary refinement, with a few additives, "synth blends" have been refined more with a few more additives, with "synthetics" being refined even further with even more additives. Many people are under the mistaken belief that "synthetics" don't come from the same barrel of oil as "conventionals." It all starts from the same barrel of crude.
By specification, any oil, synthetic, conventional, blend, if it carries an API starndard of SH or newer DOES NOT HAVE THE ZDDP content that our engines were designed to run on. Period end of sentence. Articles posted have stated that the specifications themselves DO NOT ALLOW IT. Any oil that has the ZDDP content of oils up to standard SG will not get the SH or better rating. Read the articles to understand why, and yes, you did need to read it. Your experience is your experience, however neither Wikipedia nor HOT ROD derive any benefit from explaining the reduction in ZDDP. They both DO state the reduction in ZDDP has occurred, and both offer the exact same reason why it has been reduced. As vast as your experience is, and that of your mentor's I sincerely doubt that you can look at an oil sample and determine that it had adequate levels of ZDDP, or whether it is SE, SF,SG, SH, or any other standard of oil. You can probably tell if it a heavy oil. or a lighter one, and possibly if it a converntional or synthetic, but that is about all of it.
As for yours, or anybody's experience, it is at best, limited. The only real authorities that can say what oil to use are the designers of the engines, who are more familiar with the lubrication requirements of their engine designs than anybody, no matter how vast their experience is. Amybody who deviates from that is doing on the basis of guesses at best. Nobody else understands the exact details of what the metallurgy, clearances, expected temperatures inside the engines will be than they do. And they are very, very clear on what oil to use, and tell you straight up, in the owner's manual. And in my manual, it says to use SE/SF, and when it comes out SG grade oil. Guess what, all of those oils have approximately the same amount of ZDDP. Guess what started to happen when the SH grade came out?
My reasoning in choosing oil is very simple: Follow the owner's manual. No guessing, no vast amounts of exprience, no second guessing the design engineers. Just plain and simple: Follow the guitdelines in the owner's manul. If the manual says synthetic, I use synthetic; if it is from the 1980s and says use SE/SF/SG, I will use an oil that is closest to that. Change filter at every oil change. WIX (actually WIX XP) for tne 2006 Monte Carlo SS (manual says use synthetic, so I use synthetic), high ZDDP conventional oil for the J bodies, was WIX for the J bodies, will be Baldwin next time I buy filters.
