Reply to "Which engine is this"

@Sacto Mitch posted:

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@Carlos P ,

There are a few thorny, technical issues at the root of this. Most of us don't understand these very much, but's it's important that you at least sound  like you do. You need to have a few key terms handy and ready to toss into the conversation whenever this comes up amongst car guys, if you're to be accepted as a legitimate Speedster owner.

As far as oil is concerned, people who claim to know say our ancient VW engines differ from modern ones in one essential way. Modern engines can use all sorts of different modern oils because they have something called 'hydraulic valve lifters', while our ancient engines have something called 'flat tappets'. Now, I don't pretend to know what that means (and you don't have to, either), but just toss the phrase 'flat tappets' into the conversation in a knowing kind of way and you'll be fine.

Anyway, because of these so-called flat tappets, in the old days all oil supposedly had stuff in it to protect the flat tappets and some of that stuff was zinc. 'Zinc' is the other word you need to know to toss into the conversation to sound like you know what you're talking about. That's pretty much it. Just say 'flat tappets' and 'zinc' every once in a while, in an off-handed kind of way, and you're good.

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