Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

Don't take advice on your high-performance, flat tappet camshaft break-in from the Economist anymore than you'd take global economic advice from Car and Driver.

Cam break-in on flat tappet systems is not a mysterious process. Use the right assembly lube, fire the engine and don't let it idle but instead run it up to 2500 RPMs and vary the RPMs for the first 15 minutes, and if you're anal (or the flat-tappet engine is in an aircraft), cut open and inspect the oil filter media at the oil change.

Implying that a poorly made or improperly broken in camshaft is failing in 300 miles because of new oil additive packages makes me question why the Economist is publishing poor articles on fringe motoring topics. Improper assembly, pre-lube or engine start of fresh rebuilds has been wiping cam lobes for 6+ decades now.

PS: For infrequently used engines with flat tappet, splash-oiled cams, use CamGuard: http://www.aslcamguard.com/ It's not cheap ($26 a pint or so), but it's well regarded in the piston aircraft world (where light airplanes frequently sit for weeks at a time, unlike your daily driver, but very much like your occassional usage of a 60s Mustang).

It never ceases to amaze me the absolute depth of knowledge available on HN.

> Don't take advice on your high-performance, flat tappet camshaft break-in from the Economist...

But do take heed of their admonition to understand precisely what you are putting into your vintage engines. I frequent a vintage motorcycle list and the discussions regarding additive packages and ZDDP specifically are frequent.

The consensus there is that ZDDP is the most important factor in engine longevity.

Absolutely right. I built several flat tappet engines years ago and the failure is because people don't break them in and take care of them.

Many people who are newly interested in classic cars are under the impression that they can treat them like modern cars after a restoration. Unless you've spent the money to update the internals, you need to follow the tried and true practices of the past.

Though that impression quickly changes as soon as things as simple as starting it can be a problem. Though my experience may be colored by too much Lucas Electric in my life.

The economist is publishing articles blaming 'the greenies' for your car failing by banning toxic metals in your oil.

It's a standard economist article - they are basically just fox news with a higher reading age.

"It's a standard economist article - they are basically just fox news with a higher reading age."

Are you implying that the Economist is a right wing propaganda rag?

Actually it's an economically very liberal magazine and _extremely_ liberal on social issues.

And for hating greens? They published a special report on forests a couple weeks ago, which could have come straight from the WWF.

It seems you're quite prejudiced here, without really being informed.

The Economist is certainly not "Fox News with a higher reading age". Name me one other publication covering: business and politics. They have decent quarterly summary supplements on technology and good weekly science sections.

They have a bias in both their writing and their world view, but so does any publication, including HN. As long as you understand the bias then you shouldn't be led astray too far. There are of course articles which don't reach their average quality, but the quality is generally quite high. Higher than any other news and analysis publication I know of which is published every week.

Edit: grammar

And they don't pretend they have don't a bias. They often express an opinion, but its always clear that it's an opinion. "Balanced" reporting has never existed, but the crazy practice of pretending it does is disappearing in this age of Fox news and the internet. (Is this the only good thing that's come out of Fox news?)

Add to that that it's one of the rare publications willing to admit mistakes in judgment

One of the more recent examples is the Iraq war, which they supported. They don't deny that they did that, but think it was a mistake in hindsight. Note that this is quite different then hanging the flag into the direction of the wind of public opinion.

Opinion journalism? Hell yes, and they'd probably be the first to admit this.

There are areas where I very much disagree with their opinion. This is not only to be expected, but it's actually quite rewarding for the reader.

See, reading a well reasoned and researched opinion, which differs fundamentally from my own, actually makes me think through such reasoning and it helps to achieve a world view, which has far more shades of gray then black & white.

[edited, typo]

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