scooter1265

Hi everybody I have a 1988 Iroc with a 5.7 350 and was going to use Z-Max in it should I or not will it wreck my engine....

Guest

Why would you use it? Just another snake oil product to remove money from your wallet.

racing geek

iTrader: (5)

Do you have proof?

89Nighthawk

You know I use Lucas Oil Products and I have no proof that they work. They are huge sponsors of NHRA drag racing, so I'm going with them. I have never seen anything published good or bad about Z-Max. My son saw their infomercial and is convinced it's good stuff...

racing geek

iTrader: (5)

I like to give things a chance before I blatantly say one way or the other. That is why it bugs me when people like madmax just jump to conclusions when they have no way of backing up their statement.

Now, if madmax has had experience with Z-max in the past and it proved harmful to his engine, I can understand why he wrote what he wrote. However, based on the last thing he said ("Just another snake oil product to remove money from your wallet."), I highly doubt he has ever tried this product.

Saber

iTrader: (2)

I have always found their infomercials kind of weird, from what i can gather it does look like another one of those ploys to get your money, I tend to stay away from things like that. regardless of what they sponsor. I highly doubt your engine will last long enough for you to really find out, if there is even a way to find out. The only engine oil additive i trust is that engine system cleaner from Gunk. One flush of that through your system and it literally destroys buildup.

Stephen

iTrader: (12)

Got a link to show it? I searched Gunk & fund a lot of exterior cleaners, but nothing like an oil additive.

Timothayyy

iTrader: (2)

Well we cant go out and test every product. Im sure if it really did even half the things it claimed that everyone would be talking about it. So basically we have to jump to conclusions about things, how else can you decide whether or not to buy something without having prior experience with it? And in order to get experience with something you have to buy it. Just google around about Z-Max, some people who have used it say it does nothing, some say it is harmful, some say it helps. With such mixed bag impressions of it, I say steer clear, its just snake oil.

Saber

iTrader: (2)

Its not an additive per say, you put it in your old oil and run the engine for 5 mins, than change the oil. I had my valve covers off cause my car had no oil pressure for a while, the system was completly siezed and i literally watched it clear up. ill go dig up a link for you.

heres the link to the gunk website with the picture of the stuff i used.
http://www.gunk.com/prod_photo.asp

rsrsrs

iTrader: (9)

http://www.gunk.com/menu_EO.asp

Bottom right

Guest

Wow I need proof that an additive makes magic power? There hasnt been one that has worked yet, I dont need to blow my money on another as an experiment. You want to? Go ahead. That site reads just like every other product from the past, STP, Slick 50, Prolong, etc etc. Where did all those go?

antoine

just use atf it will clean the insides of a motor also

Saber

iTrader: (2)

I didnt know that, but this stuff cost like 6 bucks or something like that, and it works pretty damn good.

91z 2 8

Use it its well worth the 30 dollers i used it right when i got my car, before i got my car it was sitting for about a year just getting started once or twice a month, and i put that in it when i started driving it alot and it ran alot better like before i used it black smoke shot out when you got on it and about a 3 days later it had more power and such it actully worked

arrowcamaro

iTrader: (2)

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2001/02/zmax1.shtm

Stephen

iTrader: (12)

My initial thought is that Zax does NOTHING good, after looking at that. Then I realized it is from Feb. 1, 2001....7 years old.

If Zmax was that bad, wouldn't have gone out of business? But if Zmax was good stuff, we wouldn't be questioning a 7+ yr old product, would we?

Saber

iTrader: (2)

yes, i have the same question, that FTC article is rather harsh? if it does that that how are they still in business?

danziger

For the same reason we still have horrible public officials...nobody does research. People see the advertisements and buy the product, unlike the savvy folks here that actually question the "results". When I was young and less cynical, I used Slick 50 stuff and, although I never got burned by doing so, now I realize what a waste of money it was. It's an experience learning curve...

DSmith

Save you snake oil money and invest in some really good oil and change it like it needs to be changed. I'm not one to change on 3000 miles on my daily driver, I go to 5000. But if for some reason I have engine trouble, say the water pump goes out and the temp gets up 235 or so I change the oil.

On my Camaro that gets hammered often I change the oil way more often.

I believe the key to engine life is a good quailty clean oil.

I also believe the only time to use additives is when its worn out and will not hold good oil psi and you don't have the $$$$ to rebuild, then Lucas is great but anything that will thicken up the oil will help.

gearhead0384

iTrader: (7)

I would not bother with this garbage. Like stated before use good name brand synthetic fluids and you will be A OK. Last I head Z Maz had a class action law suit against them.

http://neptune.spacebears.com/cars/legal/index.html

irockid86

my mom has bought just about every product you can see on tv. she had bought that z-max stuff for her jeep and a little later she brought the jeep to the mechanic for routine maintenance and when they went to drain the oil hardly anything came out. they said her engine probibly should not have even been running the way it was. but it was running fine. she credits that to z-max, it could also just be that it was the bullet proof 4.0Ltr jeep engine.

mrgoodweather

I am have been around cars trucks all my life! Was once too a beleiver that all additives was snake oil! However when i was driving truck for a living! I used lucas for the first time in my 1994 freightliner that at the time was pretty "wore" She was smoking pretty bad and not overly powerful! The lucas worked to clean her up and she ran smoother and the smoke dissapeared! I was now hooked on it!
In 2003 i bought a brand new Peterbilt weith another CAT engine (best ever by the way) I never ran the Lucas for the first year (because bein old school was worried about warranty issue's! After the year i ran it again got over 1.5 miles per gallon better in fuel mileage after two jugs of Lucas! 1.5 mil to gallon in a big truck is huge!
To my point about z max i know run that in my trucks! the stuff works i have no affiliation with them or do i know any one who does im just a guy tryin to save a buck! They run cleaner more power and better fuel mileage for example we have a 96 gmc yukon with 200,000 km we put z max in it went from getting 550km to a tank to over 700! That has been my expereince!

mrgoodweather

Because your right That crap didn't work! it's 2009 now GRAMPS!

freestylzz

Use a good quality motor oil and change routinely.

Screw the additive stuff. It's all garbage.

DJP87Z28

It only works if you think it dose.

StevenB L98/LS1

Dont buy this crap. I work for parts store, it always the same crap that list everything it does to your engine to help it, its just to make money. I personally just tryed the stuff about a year ago just because i wanted to experiment with my silverado, i personally didnt see a different between the lucas and the zmax. zmax is just a gargage product of a company trying to make a successful business like slick 50 and lucas does, the stuff does nothing. Ive tryed it, experienced it, its not worth the 35 bucks. Just do your regular oil maintaince. If anything you need to buy the additives buy the lucas, i personally believe it actually helps out more than the zmax does, and lucas is a hell of a lot cheaper. Sure my Trans Am smokes on start ups at it sits for a while, but its just coolant burning out, idk normally its a habit with tpi cars to blow white smoke out sometimes after ageing, but she still runs like a bat outta hell though.

F-Body Demon

iTrader: (1)

If you read through it you see that they were under restriction of advertising for 5 years. So that let up what, 3 or 4 years ago. Also said they had to refund the customers who bought it.

406z

If it works why don't the OE manufacturers use it in every vehicle? Improved gas mileage would help them reach cafe fuel requirements, and it could save them big bucks on warranty fixes. I wouldn't buy Zmax or an additive, changing your fuel filter, air filter, plug wires, plus, clean your fuel injectors, and change hoses all would be better investments. Just upgrade/replace one thing every oil change, instead of buying some iffy product. Go with the proven stuff first, and if that doesn't help... use zma...rebuild your engine.

firebird1992

ok . z-max is said to soak in to the metal last time i had a chemistry class they called that acid.
engine flush think about it the clearance in your motor is like .00xxx for the oil to get in there and the carbon and sludge is way thicker and bigger then that so the engine flush could have easily just moved it and blocked an oil passage making it 10x likely to spin a bearing or something.

and lucas it foams it up the oil and lets air get trapped in the oil http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/images/lucas/lucas.htm

and there's alot of stuff that been around for years and people don't know if they work STP the stuff in the little red bottle they been around since in 1960 does that work i dont know but they pack the selves with it.

now if it work for you then hey fine it's ur money but to just see it on tv without doing resreach isnt the way to go.

89_RS

You must have had chemistry in the Dark Ages then, because I've never heard that definition for acid. Acid is reactive because it likes to give up electrons. Conversely, bases are reactive because they like to absorb electrons. I'm not 100% sure of this, but my dad is a chemist for a living and he'd be able to tell me if I'm wrong.

Engine blocks are not 100% solid metal. Down on the microscopic level, you can actually see the space between the grain structure of the material and the individual bonds that join the grain structure together. Think down on the nanometer (ie 10^-9 meters) level. If the molecules that make up z-MAX are smaller than the space between the grain structure, then yes, it will soak into the metal.

And believe me, quite a few lubricants out there have molecules that are measured on the pico-meter (ie 10^-12 meters) level in size.

RED86Z28

Those anti Lucas tests dont show how the oil reacts in an actual engine. Like most of the home testing done on oil filters it proves nothing.

firebird1992

but the funny thing is if u go to a store and see one of the Luas oil table top diagram its the same way 4 gear in a clear glass.


http://lucasoil.hodgsoncorp.com/cata...ucas_10500.jpg

???

iTrader: (5)

that's not coolant unless you have a headgasket blown. its your valve guide seals. over time they get hard and don't seal the oil right and after it sits away the oil leaks by them into the clys. next startup it burns it. its light blue smoke. the seals are cheap, the work is harder but its worth it not to puff blue every time it starts after sitting for a while.


luas is good stuff for gears, like rear ends and some manual trannys, as long as you don't have the fiber blocking rings, it might eat the glue off them like gear oil will. but I've never researched that. but unless you have a low rpm motor, I wouldn't really use it in there. unless as said above you have low oil pressure and are trying to put off a rebuild.

firebird1992

ok ok not an acid then my bad i jump the gun on that one. but i did a test at work today i put zmax on one of the 1inch beams we got sitting around the shop waited 5 hours and nothing but on the tv commercials it took what 30 mins and it was halfway in the metal i mean thats a litte there fun how fast theres worked

Brennan

thats what im thinkin. placebo effect. go and throw some in your dads pickup without him knowing and see if he mentions a difference in power or gas mileage

89_RS

z-MAX is nothing more than a micro-lubricant. It'll help reduce parts wear, but thats about it. You won't have anymore HP with z-MAX than with 89 vs 91 octane.

874ME

iTrader: (1)

I have seen the snake oil " life extenders " since the mid 80's. They always promise the same things, sell well for a couple of years then fade away. A better investment would be to use synthetic oil.

Anyone remember Split Fire spark plugs?

I have used a top end engine cleaner that really worked. GM sells it. If you use it follow the instruction and make sure your in a wide open area, the less living things around the better. I was shocked at how much carbon came out the tail pipes. Always wondered what the cats looked like after using it on two vehicles.

89RS_82Z

iTrader: (2)

yep and there split wires too, like the crap box boushs 2 and 4s

i will say i noticed a diff with E3's going from a new regular plug to an E3 in my lawn equipment and other toys (ac delco rapid fires in the maro)

slick 50 is almost gone now ....... dang if only i could remember all the snake oils

Big Cleatus

I had a valve tick in my Silverado and used Z max after I saw a thing about it on Powerblock tv. I drove my truck from Wyoming to Missouri and the valve tick went away. I'm no chemist or engineer but as far as I can tell it cleaned up some junk in my engine.

89RS_82Z

iTrader: (2)

powerblock tv is one long infomercial

sometimes a click will come and go, i used zmax in a satty and seen no diff at all.... that same car the trans was "clunkin" into 1st, i used a thing of lucas trans fix to get me by.......totaly fixed the problem with plenty of miles added, then sold it

i do think the zmax comercial is BS, because the use 100% pure zmax on the parts to show it soaking in, and cleaning the deposits, well your zmax aint going to be 100% pure zmax when you put it in 17gallons of gas and 5 qts of oil

but who knows, i do know the original part of the post is old

Autosound Pro

I was doing some more research on Zmax tonight and I see that they were sued by the FTC and Zmax was the one of the only companies that won the lawsuit based on all of their claims. I think that is pretty impresive.

I will continue to use it.

cscampbell92

I used zmax once on an engine with quite a bit of miles on it. I rebuilt the engine (not because of failure, but performance parts were installed) about 7,000 miles afterwards. Everything looked like new inside the engine. No gunk or anything. Kind of wish I had pictures. All the bearings had the correct clearance, nothing at all seemed as if zmax had damaged it. It's good stuff for sure. I got the car used, the body had about 136,000 miles on it, but I wasn't sure about how many miles the engine had on it.

From what I could tell, there wasn't much of a performance boost like the car suddenly gained more oomph. Everybody's gonna have their own experiences. I use seafoam, my fuel pump went out once right afterwards. I still use it to this day. Stuff happens at weird times. Like these guys are saying, it's best to keep up with regular maintenance so you won't have insane failures that you can't afford.

Another thing I wanted to point out is that it's kind of bad to use engine cleansers after 100,000 miles. After lots of use, the engine has sort of a barrier of protection from the oil which helps maintain clearances. It sticks to the surfaces of the engine. If you use a product, like zmax or engine flush, you can have some problems. Those protective barriers are washed away, which just leaves the metal sufaces against each other. Yes there may be oil in there after you fill it back up, but the clearances expand, allowing the metal to bang around more. That can lead to failure of components, bearings can get worn away and your oil psi might drop. That might have been what happened to cause that bunch of claims, because not a lot of people know this.

ploegi

What I find most amusing is, the folks singing the praises here of z-max, only have a few posts...... Show some EVIDENCE that ISN'T from the company that makes it, to show it actually does anything at all.

As for folks being able to sell products of this nature, I would point out, that oil additives aren't the only products that do this. Throttle body spacers? A 'chip' that will give you 50 horsepower, and 20mpg better fuel economy? Etc. Etc. If someone here started marketing a an 'additive' that promises better gas mileage, increased engine power/longevity, and would attract more women, folks would buy it, and some of them would even say nice things about it. People are gullible. Tell them what they want to hear, and chances are good, they will believe you.

QwkTrip

iTrader: (22)

It's called an LS swap.

Vinscully50

It's like Monster Transmission. A few other drag racing and car forums I am a member of, have a Monster Transmission complaint thread. A good 50% of posts are brand new accounts talking about how great of a company they are.

Regarding Z-Max, why bother. Synthetic Oil does the samething and is probably safer in the long run since we actually know what is in it. Using Z-Max is like trying to play bathtub chemist.

ShiftyCapone

iTrader: (7)

Its just like rogain or extenze, if it really worked they would have more money than Amazon and Microsoft combined.

QwkTrip

iTrader: (22)

What was the reason for invention of zmax and first application?