streckfu's

= Old technology.

Sasquatch

I am going to interject some of my own personal opinion. Granted, it is an educated personal opinion, but opinion none the less. Bit of history to back up the "educated" part. I used to build and race an 11 second VW back in the 80's. I have also been avidly part of superbike racing since the mid 80's and still build a couple of race engines for my old customers each year. I grew up in a racing family and never paid anyone to build a motor for us.

Now, to the point. I am probably the most **** person on the face of the planet in regards to my passions, which is my cars and motorcycles. I will research data on oils for hours on end. I have files on studies, reports, and opinions.

I would be willing to lay money on the line and say that as long as a quality filter is used, and a change interval is adheared to that is appropriate for the type of oil you use, none of us will probably ever see a difference in the longevity of our motors between dead dino juice and synthetics. Yes, that is a bold statement, especially when some of us spend $10+/qt for our precious juice.

Even the bargain basin no name stuff you pick up at the corner store is so much better than the best stuff we used 20 years ago. Not only that, but the engines today (our '44s included) burn so clean, and are built so well that the oil simply does not get as contaminated as the old iron clunkers of the 70's.

When you get down to it, the synthetics are better, but that advantage has more to do with drain intervals rather than protection. I bet that if you took 50 modern engines, 25 with synthetics, and 25 with a decent conventional oil and tested them long term you would find the following: Both groups would last for the same relative service life. The Synthetic group would have a little less overall operating costs due to longer drain intervals and a bit better mileage. The synthetics may actually prolong engine life a bit, but with all things being equal, and both groups getting good service records, I dont know how noticeable it would be. In the real world, the car would be ready for the heap before those factors come into play..

When you consider turbo engines, that changes things a bit as synthetics are much more stable with the high temps in the turbo bearings. That said, most commercial diesel engines are running much higher compression ratios, higher boost levels (30+ psi), higher contamination levels in the oil (soot), and still run 30-40 thousand miles between oil changes on conventional oils like Delo 400. And they last for over a million miles. Our Cummins ISM 525 hp (1600 ft lbs of torque) in our test coach goes 20k on oil chages with Delo 400 and regularly hits 35psi of boost.

Bottom line is that we debate oil too much, and we all change our oil much too frequently. We have all been brainwashed far too much in the past. Pick an oil you like, run good filters and get out there and drive.

95Juan

that's really hilarious to read in a thread on a forum dedicated to 20 year old cars.

WesM951

Same here, Syntech Blend 20w-50 since the day I bought my car. No oil leaks, no problems!

streckfu's

I have made that assertion in almost every oil thread I've seen.

Tony K

I was sold on synthetics when I worked as a summer college student at Lubrizol Corp. in Wickliffe, Ohio, in the summer of 1995. I regularly got to see what was going on in the "mech lab", where they ran engines for long periods of time hooked up to simulated loads, each with different fluids in them, and then the engines were disassembled for inspection.

I remember seeing dismantled engines that had gone 100k, 200k, 300k miles on synthetics, and the engineers measured the parts and in many cases the parts were still within factory tolerances of new. There was one engine (a diesel truck engine, I think) that had either 100k or 300k miles on it and the cylinders still had some of the crosshatch honing marks.

I have driven an average of 18k miles per year since obtaining my driver's license, and have owned a handful of cars on which I have put close to 100k miles. My cars have all been older cars (8+ years), most with high miles (70k or higher) at time of purchase. I take a lot of long interstate freeway trips. For these reasons, and my experiences with synthetics 11 years ago, I don't mind paying the extra money for synthetics--it is like insurance against being stranded, potential repairs, and having to change the oil more often. And when you actually *drive* cars, the oil changes stop coming too frequently -- sticking to a schedule then becomes a burden!

bader$

The twin cam engines have an oil check valve in the rear corner of the head. It is designed to limit oil pressure when running and hold oil in the head after shut off. That being said my S does not tick if it is started every day. If I let it set for 4days or so it will tick for just a few minutes then it will quit. If I run 10w30 (only in the winter) It is louder. I run 20w50 castrol and it is fine. I would not run a straight weight oil I.E. SAE 50 in anything. If it had the viscosity/heat tolerance of a multigrade oil I would think SAE would rate it as such. I.E. 10(viscosity at 0degrees) W (winter rated) 30(viscosity at 210degrees).

SwiftyZenBadd

i read thru this post and i came to the idea of using 15W40, but its apparently for diesel motors and its a heavy duty kind from amsoil, and the same from mobil 1. if some of u guys are using 20w50 im sure a 15w40 is gonna be ok, so why is it heavy duty diesel oil?

AR10

Sasquatch, I agree 100%! I have been in the auro repair business all my life
and have seen all the studies and sales pitches. Fact is most any oil made
today will work just fine in any application, including racing. As far as viscosity is concerned just stay in the range for expected temps and you will be OK. Back in the 60`s (ya I`m that old) I saw a Nash 6cyl. engine with
over 200,000 mi. on it that had nothing but 10W oil since new. Granted it was not abused, but was driven at legal hiway speeds all over the country.
As for synthetics they were originally designed for turbine (jet) engines which is very different environment than piston engines. Synth. will work
fine in piston engines as long as you observe the same change intervals.
Synth. still becomes contaminated with carbon and dust just like dino. oils
I see no reason to spend the $ for synth.
Fwiw, that is my opinion and I am stickin` to it!!