Marvel Mystery Oil,Is It Alright To Use To Assemble Pistons And Rings?

Hi, we are getting ready to put our Procharger Alcohol motor back together and was wondering if it is alright to use the Marvel Mystery Oil on the rings,pistons and cylinders? We used it the first time we assembled it,and seemed to work fine,but thought I read somewere people didn't like to use it for an alcohol motor.....so just wanted to make sure. We ran our new alcohol procharger motor 3 passes,and it had to come back out because the impeller in our F-1R came apart and went through the motor,we got lucky,it didn't damage anything hardly,just dented the head and piston on #3 cylinder,but didn't hurt it bad at all.

Thanks,Brian

 

we use 30wt motor oil and wd 40..Dave

 

use the marvel in your fuel system (NEVER wd40) as a post event lube/flush with air

use an assembly lube on the lower end and moving pieces rods/bearings/pins

and i'm sure there will be nay-sayers... but i put rings/pistons/cylinders together dry (as in light wipe with a lint free towel and a touch of lacquer thinner. not trying to get 100k miles outta the thing... i want them to seat in the first few cycles

 

Why not WD-40 for post race? Been using it for awhile with no apparent issues. Your thoughts?

 

i used wd-40 at one time as well. why? well basically monkey see monkey do. until i had some wd and alcohol mix inadvertently in one of the dips/panels in the bed liner of our truck's tailgate. WOW... it turned to this cloudy mixture and sorta gelled up. now i don't know the exact mix/amounts of each product but since that day i refused to put wd-40 in my fuel systems. marvel is a great lube and conditioner and mixes well with fuels so any residue will blend right in with the first lil gulp of fuel when you put fuel back in your system

ps... random trivia: why is it called wd-40?

 

The WD means (water displacing) and it was the 40th formula...... I think.


I've seen that white clowdy alcohol plug a fuel filter and nozzle filters, it wasnt fun.

 

ding ding ding!! correct on both accounts! (the wd-name question and the reason NOT to use wd in alcohol/nitro fuel systems)

i've always heard it was a nasa driven formula... 40th attempt/formula was successful!

 

mistery oil

Yes on the cyl walls + rings. JE rec-amends using it. That stuff is awsum. been using it for years. On everything. in ,on + above. everyone has there way of doing things. , but I haven,t put a motor together dry since the mid late 70,s. when I used double molly TRW,s.But again, it is choice, if it works for you keep doing it. Don

 

ps... random trivia: why is it called wd-40?[/QUOTE]


Water Dispersant formula #40

 

And I like Marvel better than WD on the chassis

 

Marvel is great stuff lite coat on the ring or put it in a spray bottle and mist it we use it in the down service of my fuel system always had great luck and I used to use it on the rings only reason for a change is arias said to do it..dave

 

might add to the statment of putting the in dry,,when i worked for a top fuel team we always put them in dry...Dave

 

I agree with Mike on this,

Most all the ring manufacturers have specific lubricants and application amounts to seat thier rings correctly, of course a specific finish on the walls is also called for, so unless you are following all the instructions you may not get the intended results, regardless of which lube is used.

 

I was told to never use synthetics when assembling a new engine because you want the rings to have a certain amount of abrasion so they will seat.
Don't quote me on it but..... I believe that Total Seal recommends wiping the cylinders with lacquer thinner and only a light amount of oil on the skirts if the engine isn't going to be started immediately.

 

cyl, oil

Let me quote from JE ," JE recomends a light coat of assembly oil "[Marvel Mystery Oil or similar ] But like I said before everyone does what they know works for them. Don

 

I use engine oil on the skirts only during assembly. Rings are essentially dry other than residual oil from handling. Right or wrong it has given me no issues that I can point fingers at.

Marvel is fine for pump and barrel valve preservation as long as you get through tech.
The only thing WD40 is good for is getting a nice finish on machined aluminum and wiping fingerprints off of polished hats.

Just to show you how gummy WD really is, I was experimenting with different fluids in the fuel flow bench. Bought a few gallons of WD and had at it. Within 20 minutes my hi buck flow sensors were slowing down and locking up. After cleaning that crap out of everything it took 3 solid days of constantly running filtered methanol through the sensors and system to clean it out.

Those of you that have bare chassis might want to give this stuff a try.
http://getgibbs.com/
Great stuff. I have been using it for a couple of years now on every bare surface with no rust issues. Chassis, machine tables, guns, polished alum parts, etc. Way better than MM for the chassis.
It also has caused no issues with pumps and BVs.

Dave Koehler
http://www.koehlerinjection.com

 

Wow, that sounds like a combination of WD-40 and Liquid Wrench. Will have to give it a try.


As far as the rest: I've always used 10w-30 on the cylinders, pistons and rings and Nitro 70 on the bearings with Moly lube on the seals. Never had a problem seating the rings no matter what material, even chrome rings from Warchawski (J.C. Whitney). I'd never put the piston and rings in dry.

Tom