i have seen numerous commercials urging me to switch to synthetic oil in my daily driver, which is a 305 carbed 86 camaro. it has 57,700 original miles. is it worth it like the commercials say? i was thinking of going royal purple or castrol syntec. i usually use valvoline conventional oil. do i need a different filter if i go synthetic? next pay check i will be doing an oil change, so please help me.

 

Mobil 1 and royal purple are the best brands as determined by partisan and non-partisan reviews.

The actual process of converting your vehicle can be expensive and time-consuming, but well worth it, as I have seen guys try doing just a straight change-over come back with a seized engine from the oil types separating like water and oil, leaving metal-metal and wearing down camshafts, et cetera.

making a couple assumptions... 6-quart oil system.
Go buy yourself a piece of crap fram oil filter, and a WIX oil filter and 10 quarts of mobil 1 full synthetic.
drain your oil completely, put on the fram and pour in 4 quarts of mobil 1.
start the engine, let it run for about 1 minute.
drain your oil completely, put in the wix and fill her up.

done.

 

ok i see how to do it, thanks

 

I've switched back and forth more than once in several vehicles with no problems. If the oil types seperated there would be no conventional/synth blends.

Run synth if you want extended change intervals. Run conventional if you are going to change every ~3k miles. My wife's 01 Gran Am GT had 160k miles mostly with conventional and I know people with trucks that have more miles and all they have ever ran is conventional.

Which is "best" is debatable. I won't run Mobil 1 because my car uses oil like mad when I run it. Try bobistheoilguy.com and come to your own conclusions about what you want to run.

 

i think i'll just stick to conventional

 

I'm not arguing whether or not it should be done...
there are plenty of people who have run av-gas in a vehicle occasionally with a catalytic converter and o2 sensors and never had them completely fail for example.
The separation does not occur in a blend .

People who run a synthetic blend and then change it every 6-10,000 miles are dumb. There are plenty of studies out there, including some I have been personally involved in that show that if you use synthetic in 2 or 4 stroke engines regardless of number of cylinders or use, the lifespan increases at 75% average above using conventional motor oil. Border Construction did the switch and over 2 years collected the data and found that they literally doubled the life of all their internal combustion run equipment by switching to mobil 1 synthetic and changing the oil at regular intervals just as they were before.

 

You might get like 3 hp.... and extended oil change intervals, if you're worried about that. I change my oil every 3 mo. regardless so I'll never get to 7.5k or whatever the recommended interval is for synthetic. BTW the rating #'s for oil are for viscosity, not weight. Any separation effect would be reversed as soon as the engine is started, anyway.

If I were you I'd just save the money and stick with conventional oil. Following regular scheduled service intervals is far more important than whether or not synthetic is in there. The more power an engine makes and the harder it gets pushed, the more important synthetics become. Sometimes synthetics are recommended in newer cars as well, sometimes because many newer engines use low tension piston rings, which can have a tendency to get stuck if regular oil is used for extended periods...

 

Anyone using Amsoil 2000 series 0w-30 Synthetic?

 

The oils do not "separate".... that's ridiculous.

 

ok, you describe.. using lamens terms, what happens when for example, you take 5W30, and mix it with 80 weight gear oil, and drip it in between two metal-to-metal mating surfaces and they wear.

 

Someone gets called a DUMB *** for using 80 weight gear oil in their engine.

Or do you mean besides that?

Those are two different types of oil designed for 2 different purposes. You might as well try mixing 30w and transfluid. It is still like materials and will mix (Likes mix is a basic rule of Chemistry), but even then it'll cause problems in your engine. Is this because they seperated? No, its because its the wrong stuff for your engine. Try mixing 10w30 conventional and synth 10w30. What do you get? A synthetic blend.

 

not according to the last two guys I spoke with who work for exxon. Thus I repeat it because it comes from a reliable source.

If you can disprove that with actual facts instead of a blanket statement, then you'll be doing better than mine and thus we will all grow a little smarter.

The technique I mentioned above for changing to synthetic was the process given to me by the very same guys because they had equipment fail (engines siezed) within 1,000 miles of just a quick swap.

 

It seems that every car I have ever bought in my life, was running a conventional oil. I switch to synthetic in one fail swoop. Drain out the old, in with the new. My camaro has done another 10k miles since the switch. My Grand Prix does a little over 500 a week, with LOTS of traffic every day, again just a plain switch over somewhere in the neighborhood of 10k miles also. Ive done nothing special to any car Ive ever owned and Ive never had so much as a hickup over it.

 

What actual facts do you have? That someone put gear and motor oil in an engine and it froze up? No joke? The 80 weight would be too thick to go through the passages like it should so ya it would freeze up! That isn't because it seperated.

Where is your proof of anything??? All you know is what these guys told you. So what if they work for Exxon, my dad retired from Shell. I guess he knows all now. I minored in chemistry. Have those guys ever taken even 1 semester of organic chemistry??? I've taken 2 and one semester a lot of time was spent in the lab playing with crude in different ways. Oil will mix and NOT seperate unless you use some physical means to do so. You ever mix gas and oil? I have. It loses viscosity but it sure doesn't seperate except for evaporation. In my line of work, I have seen drums of oil and other petrolium based solvents mixed and they do not seperate. Yes, the heavy particulate will fall out, but that still isn't because the chemicals are seperating.

Also, seeing how I have switch back and forth on my wife's Grand Am several times and it now has 160k miles. I've also done the same on my SS that is cammed etc that has 80k miles and it is still running. I also did that on some other cars we owned and they never froze up. Ya I don't believe that switching oil will cause it to freeze up unless you're stupid and run gear oil in your engine.

 

OK... I worked for Exxon for 7 years in their NJ Research & Engineering center. I think the guys you talked to must have worked in an Exxon gas station cleaning the rest rooms.

Go the the Mobil website (or any other reputable manufacturer of synthetic motor oils) and read their FAQ. Synthetic and conventional motor oils are totally compatible and interchangeable. Drain one, pour in the new one. Contaminating synthetic with large amounts of conventional oil will reduce the long range degradation resistance of the synthetic, but they don't "separate" and they don't harm the engine in any way.

Might also want to read the reference on my website regarding high performance automotive fuels and fluids, by Jeff Hartman:

http://members.aol.com/InjuneerZZ/Read.htm

http://www.mobiloil.com/USA-English/...AQs.aspx#FAQs5
Read "Myth #4" on this page:

http://www.synthetic-motor-oil-chang...ynthetic-oils/

http://minimopar.knizefamily.net/oil.html
http://www.valvoline.com/pages/produ...asp?product=19