Years ago I had a conversation with Kurt johnson, son of pro stock driver Warren johnson. I was excited to be able to talk to one of the best big block chev engine builders in the world! We started talking about oil and he said they make more power with conventional oil but they would have wrist pin wear issues. When they used synthetic they had zero wrist pin problems. They started even breaking in the engines with synthetic at that point. They would make 5 more hp with Kendall conventional oil.