After reading the entire RAT540 oil blog I decided to give Valvoline VR1 dino oil a try. I bought it at my nearby NAPA store for about $6.50 per quart. According to RAT's blog the VR1 silver bottle ranked 36th out of 200 oils, It had a shear strength of 103,505, 1472 zinc, 1544 phos, 3 Moly, and 2,707 calcium. In comparison the Brad Penn had a shear strength of 71,206, 1557 zinc, 1651 phos, and Moly 3.
I also followed his guidelines of using a multi weight oil versus a single weight oil so I using VR1's 10/30wt oil versus the 40wt Brad Penn I had been using. I'll see how the new oil affects anything, if it does. The ZDDP numbers were pretty close to the BP so I'm not worried about that. I am excited to see the shear strength of the oil is just under 30,000 more and that was the single most important factor to me.
I also decided to change my pushrods. I thought I'd have stock chromoly pushrods in the car but they were aluminum. However, they were a little beat up and the tips were wore out and slightly bent. I put in CB Performance Super Duty Aluminum push rods and had Pat D cut them to the correct length for me. Put them in, torqued the rockers back in place, adjusted the valves, warmed up the car, and changed the oil. The engine is a lot quieter now with the new push rods.
Let's see how it goes.