What type of oil to use?

[Shadrack]

Uses no oil, just an occasional puff of black smoke from the carb when I change gears at WOT.
Not sure how old/warn my motor is, but it seems to run just fine. At startup idle, it holds 50psi, once it warms up it drops to 20ish psi???
Change oil weight?

 

[aleborjas]

i have 70lbs cold in iddle when the engine is hot after few runs goes down to 38-40lbs in iddle with 15w40 with pennzoil for me its an exelent oil...

 

[garystocker]

absolutely

Uses no oil, just an occasional puff of black smoke from the carb when I change gears at WOT.
Not sure how old/warn my motor is, but it seems to run just fine. At startup idle, it holds 50psi, once it warms up it drops to 20ish psi???
Change oil weight?

You will have better pressure with the thicker oil. It can in no way hurt your engine and is really better for an engine with high miles IMO

 

[Shadrack]

10w30 seem to be a good oil, or something a little heavier?

 

[garystocker]

10w30 seem to be a good oil, or something a little heavier?

10W-40 will be perfect for this time of year. I might go with 10W-30 in the cold weather.

That will improve your pressure year 'round

 

[Shadrack]

 

[BLADDER92FOX]

Well i'm going with 10W-30 and FL-1A motorcraft oil fiter like i always do,my car has great compression and runs strong at almost 83k miles. I've had my car since Dec 16 of 2003 with 65k miles,close to 2 years now.

 

[vristang]

flim-flam-frim-fram filters

Another downside to the Fram is it allows the oil to drain back to the pan. I pulled a couple empty filters from the motor over the years. I exclusively use K&N now, mostly for availability reasons.

I have a table of synthetic oil power outputs that shows Mobil 1 as producing more power than others. The closest was 3hp and the farthest trailed by 8hp. No comparison to dino oils though. These were all 40 or 50 weight for the most part.

I went Mobil 1 15w50. First of all because of availability. I can walk into any parts store locally and pick it up. Also, the higher viscosities are because I don't care if I lose 5-10hp from the oil. It is worth it for the shock protection in my opinion. Also the thicker higher cold viscosity has been better for the forged pistons when cold. I used to run 10w30 in the 180k mile 302 and the 351w bottom end that came from the Bronco. I am a little worried about the life expectancy of forged pistons though.
jason

 

[big blue]

I just got done changing the oil in all of my vehicles today and the FRAM comments are right. I used to use motorcraft on my 93 5.0 and my wifes 03 4.6 and granted the 5.0 has alot of miles, I don't drive it that much, and the oil at 3 months is still got some golden color to it and my wifes car at 3k mikes still looks like new. I changed to fram and both of the oil came out looking like unrefined crude . I bought Motorcraft all the way around and I know it works . I don't know why I even switched?

 

[giddyup306]

Judas here we go.....


5W20 Castrol Syntec. FoMoCo usually recomends 10w30 but in the late 90s put out TSBs saying to put 5W20 and gain a 1/2% fuel mileage increase. For the same price mind you. I was a big advocate of Motorcraft oil untill I ran Castrol Syntec. Gained +4 MPG in my contour on the first tank. If you don't believe me, get ahold of the API reports and see how well they do.

 

[vristang]

Judas here we go.....


5W20 Castrol Syntec. FoMoCo usually recomends 10w30 but in the late 90s put out TSBs saying to put 5W20 and gain a 1/2% fuel mileage increase. For the same price mind you. I was a big advocate of Motorcraft oil untill I ran Castrol Syntec. Gained +4 MPG in my contour on the first tank. If you don't believe me, get ahold of the API reports and see how well they do.

I believe you. Lower viscosity = Less resistance on the pump = Increased efficiency.

There are tradeoffs though. For example I am more concerned about cold start engine wear, and am willing to trade some power and economy for it. Although with rising fuel costs maybe it would be cheaper to rebuild after 75,000miles instead of 150,000miles?

 

[giddyup306]

I believe you. Lower viscosity = Less resistance on the pump = Increased efficiency.

There are tradeoffs though. For example I am more concerned about cold start engine wear, and am willing to trade some power and economy for it. Although with rising fuel costs maybe it would be cheaper to rebuild after 75,000miles instead of 150,000miles?

5/20 has a low viscosity at low temps which is why I love it!

 

[HISSIN50]

Mike, I am afraid to ask where you live.

 

[PonyBoy90]

is it ok to just use the 10w next time even though it has had the 5w for quite some time now? what about the oil for high mileage engines? the ones that say 75,000 +. i dont think i will be seeing any cold winters any time soon.

I guess you missed my post, or maybe I wasn't clear in the details. I've been using the Valvoline Max Life 10w-30 in my engine. This stuff is the "higher milage" stuff. Good stuff, it's a synthetic & conventional motor-oil blend. Quaker State also has a higher milage engine oil also. It's just moderately cheaper by like $0.20 a quart. I don't know why I chose the Valvoline stuff but like it and see no reason to switch unless the store I go to runs out of the Valvoline.

 

[legalize420]

I guess you missed my post, or maybe I wasn't clear in the details. I've been using the Valvoline Max Life 10w-30 in my engine. This stuff is the "higher milage" stuff. Good stuff, it's a synthetic & conventional motor-oil blend. Quaker State also has a higher milage engine oil also. It's just moderately cheaper by like $0.20 a quart. I don't know why I chose the Valvoline stuff but like it and see no reason to switch unless the store I go to runs out of the Valvoline.

thanks, i was in a rush and i guess i was only paying attention to the first paragraph about the 5w and cold winters.

 

[crazypete]

Cant believe nobody has posted the famous link yet

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/

Hours of fun reading on oils, additives and lubrication

He is some sort of Schaeffers rep so ignore his comments on Schaeffers as they are biased obviously.

 

[DMAN302]

I just got done changing the oil in all of my vehicles today and the FRAM comments are right. I used to use motorcraft on my 93 5.0 and my wifes 03 4.6 and granted the 5.0 has alot of miles, I don't drive it that much, and the oil at 3 months is still got some golden color to it and my wifes car at 3k mikes still looks like new. I changed to fram and both of the oil came out looking like unrefined crude . I bought Motorcraft all the way around and I know it works . I don't know why I even switched?

That's great proof for me..a simple but effective test IMO.

 

[nazstang]

i can second that Big Blue. i ran out of fl-1's (i usually have 5-6 at home) and had to use a fram lying around. normally my cobra's oil is spotless, i could eat off of the internals. but with just 1800 miles on the fram, my oil was brown. i swapped it out and used the FL-1 and after 2K+, the oils back to golden.

i use quaker state high horsepower by the way. great oil, no leaking(often in syn's) and it runs mint.

 

[maverick0716]

K&N filters are good also, but at $14 a filter

That's what I was thinking....but then I thought, how often do I change my oil that an extra 10 bucks would be a big deal.....Therefore I now use K&N oil filters

 

[BLADDER92FOX]

I did my oil change today,and wow was my oil black,lol. Cause i changed it about 4 and a half months ago and it was 400 miles under 3k miles. But it has never been that dark before,i was amazed.From now on i'm changing it every 3 to 3 and half months topps. This was actually the first time i did it myself,it was pretty easy. Good thing that i don't take my car far alot,that way my engine will last longer.