I used to be a die-hard Kendall GT-1 user. I always used Nitro-70 in my race cars and 20W-50 in everything else I own. Then, for some reason, everyone in town quit carrying Kendall, so I switched to Castrol GTX. I have never had an oil-related failure in anything I have owned...

Mike P - Take it apart and clean everything. A few years ago, we ruined a camshaft in a brand new engine (caused by unexpected coil bind on the valve springs) the first time at the track with it. When we pulled the bottom end apart, the rod and main bearings had tiny particles of cast iron (from the cam) imbedded in them and had already started to score the crank journals. Fortunately, we caught the problem soon enough and we were able to get by with just having the crank polished and installing a new set of bearings.