$ello I have a 2001 100,000 mile ls1 and I've been using sythedtic the last couple oil changes and I noticed that I leak a little oil as apposed to the conventional stuff.. I was wondering if I could ise a 10w40 in synthetic to avoid this problem..i am asking because I'm worried that it might be to heavy for our engines? thanks in advance

 

You need to ditch the synthetic, it does nothing that regular oil won't do. You need to be using 20w50. Thats right....50.

You have a regular ole' V8 engine, its nothing special or exotic.

All I use on my engines (LS1 and LS6 included) is regular Castrol GTX 20w50. They love it.

 

Do you have some kind of interest / motive in getting people off synthetic? You seem to be INFATUATED in getting people to not use synthetic.

For the most part, I agree with you - regular oil is just as good as synthetic. But the fact that synthetic doesn't break down like regular oil is just that - a fact.

It is also true that using synthetic oil in a brand new engine or a high-mileage engine can cause leaks. To each his own, but I say:

Use synthetic only because you can go longer knowing the oil is still good. I let my car sit over the winter, and I change it right before I put it away. Acids build up over time, but with synthetic, it takes longer for that to happen than with any convenional oil.

You need to ask yourself: how am I planning on using the engine?

 

coome on guys search button is a piece of ****

 

Did you not read my post above?

You have an old *** engine with alot of miles. You're leaking oil propbably because your rings are worn. You will leak MORE oil if you use synthetic at that weight. If you use 20w50 you will have better oil pressure and the leak will be decreased if not eliminated.

Synthetic oil is not helping your engine in the least.

 

We cannot diagnose your leaks from here. Synthetic can cause weepage & seepage, but we can't see it so how could we know. Your best bet would be to go back to conventional oil to see if that makes it go away. Alternately, you could use an oil for high milage engines that contains seal and gasket conditioners and see if that helps. Then go back to synthetic for another try if you like.

Synthetic oil has its good points over conventional oils, but if you're not using it in such a way as to take advantage of those good points you would be wasting your money. Learn the differences, seek out the information, and make your own informed decision.

You could go up to a 10w-40, but that's your choice. Any 50w would be way overkill in a stock engine, and not recommended by anyone but LS6427. High oil pressure may look good, but it's a lot like "if 2 nails is good, then 50 nails must be better..." It depends on the application.

Ultimately, you should learn enough about the subject to make your own decision. Otherwise you'll forever be at the mercy of others.

 

Wrong again, no surpirise though.

https://ls1tech.com/forums/generatio...ick-10w30.html


50 weight is the only oil he should be using in his high mileage, oil burning engine. If he wants to take bad recommendations and use synthetic or a lighter weight oil, FOR HIS ENGINE, its all up to him.

 

LS6427, what part of STOCK are you not getting? What part of "I noticed that I leak a little oil..." did you think sounded like "oil burning?"

Congrats on your stroker, I'm sure everyone knows by now that you have it and that you use 50w or whatever, but what's good for you is not the first pick for everybody that posts in this forum.

Address your fetish on your own time. One oil does not fit all.

 

50 weight oil is better for a high mileage engine....that is burning oil.

Do you disagree with that?


.

 

He didn't say he was burning oil. He said he was leaking oil. If he says burning, now that's a different story...but still not ready for "50w! STAT!!"

Stock (repeat, Stock...even LS1s) engines will run with 20w, 50w, and anything in between. They will run for a long time under relatively normal conditions with just about any oil in them that is filtered and changed at reasonable intervals. I don't think I'll get any quibbling about that. What's left is what's BEST, and that depends solely on precisely what you're looking for...mileage, cold start, hard and hot running, the production of oil pressure, or what. Then, weights and types of oils can be greatly narrowed down to suit a specific application.

It's easy to throw a heavier oil at a variety of problems and see what happens. And I suppose the heaviest oil covers up the most symptoms. But I think it's better to understand what's going on and be more precise in the fix action.

In this particular case, yes, immediately running 50w oil would probably slow down or stop his leak. Of course, he'll lose mpgs, have a sluggish engine at any temp other than hot, and have reduced oil flowat low temperatures. The possibility exists that the increase in oil pressure just MIGHT increase leakage depending on exactly where the leak is coming from.

Alternately, since he ONLY has 100k miles on his LS1, he has a range of options. He has some leakage. He didn't even say where it leaks from, how much of a leak there is, or even if it's only weepage. He might be able to get away with some High Mileage (HM) oil with some seal and gasket conditioners in it. That might fix it right up. He could use a 5w-30 or a 10w-30 flavor of it and that would be just fine. He could go back to conventional 5w-30 or 10w-30 and see if that would return the engine to normal status. In either of those choices he would not be outside of normal parameters for the LS1, would not lose cold start flow, would not have to worry about how strong his oil filter or its gasket is, and would not have to worry at night as he seems to do with just running a 10w-40.

 

You think his engine will be "sluggish" until it gets hot? Com'on. 10w40 and 20w50 is not a difference like water and pancake syrup.

Its hardly noticable. I have zero difference in any operation, cold or hot, when using 40 or 50 weight oil.

They make engine honey to make oil thicker for a reason. High mileage engines. 100K+ is high mileage.

Like I said, he can do what he wants, there's thousands of people who use 50wt in their stock engines as well as their modded engines. Same outcome. Better oil pressure and better lubrication at high temps because it takes longer to kill viscosity of a heavier weight oil.

And its not like my modded 427 or any other built engine around here thats built for a daily driver car is a whole lot fdifferent than a stock LS1. Its not like these engines are exotic engines. Little bit different internal clearances doesn't make them special. Bore tham and stroke them and BAM, more power, not a real big deal.

 

I felt a noticable difference between 5w-30 and 15w-40 Truck & SUV M1. The engine felt sluggish on the 40w. If using 50w is desireable to you, then it is only logical that you would overlook some sluggishness.

Like I said earlier, any engine CAN run on ANYTHING. The question is, what is optimal for a desired purpose. There will always be a disagreement between the two oil weight camps...I'm not trying to make you see things my way. Nor will you convince me that 50w is desireable more often than not.

We can agree to disagree.

 

im sorry guys for the short thread for some reason this thread did not post on m user cp till now so its my first time looking at it, the reason why i asked is because i get a small leak when using synthetic as apposed to converntional oil, its noticably thiner so i leak a LITTLE not a lot but i can see a few drops in my driveway...when i had the car sitting before when it had 50000 miles on it sat for a month it happpened as well, my questions was if it would be ok to run like a 10w40 and be ok, im scared primarily about too much wear on the oil pump thats all...yes you guys are right i need to read up more on the subject and that was the whole reason for this thread to get various point of views on the subject and make an educated desicion... my pressure with synthetic is much higher with conventional, as far as keeping it in their for a long time its not a big deal i change my oil about every 2500 miles or so..... thanks again for all your kind responses would like to hear more opinions

 

yes, thicker oil in an engine is only PREVENTING a problem and making it worse at the same time, when it comes back )which it will since you are adding increased wear now) it will be way worse

 

It will not hurt your car to run 10w-40. My only desire is that you know the what's & why's of it when you do it.

There is much to learn about oils and the best places to do it are at BITOG (BobIsTheOilGuy.com) and everywhere else on the web. Google a variety of topics and go from there. Take your time and real a lot.

Motor oil
Engine oil
Synthetic oil
oil weight
oil pressure
Individual weights (5w-30, 10w-40, etc.)


Have fun. Good luck.

 

Fix your leaks and run full syn man!

 

Vavoline Maxlife 10w30, try that, but first REPLACE your PCV valve !!, if that clog up your engine cant breath, it will push it out gasket.

 

be very careful what you read on bitog and from which forums. there's a lot of commercial bias (i think anyways) over there now with their sponsors pushing their products like autorx and lube control/fuel power.

can anybody define what a synthetic oil is? What makes an oil synthetic?

Tom Glenn of Lubes&greases did a nice article on synthetic blends and how there is no requirement as to how an oil blender actually makes and markets a synthetic blend- there can be 2% "synthetic" oil in it and it can be a synthetic blend and be priced the same amount as other blends that may be 50% synthetic.
Also note the date, 2002 :
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums...rue#Post258935

and here's another, where after they got group III base oils qualified as "synthetic" now they tried pushing for lower quality base oils also so they can package an oil at lesser cost but still call it synthetic and charge the synthetic shelf price of over $4/qt.
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums...rue#Post259011

if one were to buy a real synthetic, which is generally composed by a majority of PAO or ester type base oils, they do give some benefits over conventional mineral based oils. primarily real synthetics can flow easier in cold weather, and the commercials never give you those temperature numbers, unless you're starting your engine at under -10F you're not gaining anything by using a synthetic over a regular 5w30. The other benefit is ability to handle higher temperatures, or not oxidize as fast, which again is usually irrelevant because a normal running engine maintains an operating temperature of 210F, and if oil temps aren't routinely going over 250F then you're not gaining anything by using synthetic. After those two things, synthetic oil is affected the same as any other oil from (a) moisture, (b) blowby contamination, and (c) wear particles which are the driving factors that neccesitate an oil change. Fact- the base oil in any motor oil whether it be synthetic or conventional, does not wear out. One negative about real synthetic motor oil, which are largely PAO based, is that PAO causes seals to shrink which in turn causes leaks! Don't take this the wrong way, the motor oil is formulated with additives and other base oils to counteract the seal shrinkage but, a real synthetic oil is certainly not going to help seal leakage problem because of (1) the PAO oil if it actually contains it and (2) the general tendency of synthetics to have a lower viscosity. The worst is you're paying double the price for synthetic only to have it leak out.

TV & magazine ads have everyone brainwashed and deceived (except for maybe one person) into thinking synthetic oil is always superior than conventional oil. It is only under certain conditions, 99% of the time those conditions are never seen.

for an engine with 100k miles and an oil leak, and if you change the oil every 3000-5000 miles and it doesn't see severe operating conditions, you're best choice is a no-name brand oil that is API-rated, like supertech, autozone brand, whatever. Buying mobil-1, castrol, pennzoil, isn't going to gain you anything. For viscosity, the best all around which is also the most economical is 15w-40, a gallon container of mobil delvac, chevron delo, supertech, or napa. And that's if you're operating in temperatures 40F and above. You're location isn't posted, if you're in the southwest or see temps always > 80F then definitely run a 20w50 oil, anything lighter in viscosity is only going to leak quicker.
And the biggest thing of course is knowing where the leak is, which you didn't say.
And while a heavier viscosity oil technically will cause a sluggish engine at cold temps and reduce miles per gallon, consider that viewpoint on the opposite side- where they have pushed the viscosity lower from 10w30, to 5w-30, to 5w-20, all mandated by CAFE for fuel economy, which nets 0.01% or something of gain in economy. The individual driver does not notice that! The rationale is with 1 million cars on the road that fraction of a percentage turns into thousands of gallons gasoline saved. The same goes for using a higher viscosity oil, you lose a fraction of a percent at best in economy but if you did the math you'd probably make it up in not having to add that quart of $6 synthetic every 1000 miles. And another way to look at it is compare the viscosity curves. A 20w50 oil at 100F temperature I would guess has the same viscosity as a 5w30 at 60F, so if you want to say a 20w50 oil is sluggish then so is the 5w30 you're using, at that given temperature. http://www.truckersoilforum.com/vicalc/VI.htm
http://www.rohmax.com/rohmax/en/cust...iscosityindex/


and using a heavier oil isn't going to hurt the oil pump. why would you think that?
what will hurt the pump is (a) no oil and (b) when the oil gets too hot where viscosity is so low the oil can't protect moving parts, then the oil pump rotor will wear... but at that point you will have scored and spun main bearings. There is a pressure relief spring on the oil pump which relieves pressure from the pump housing at 70-80psi, which is well below the limit of what the pump can handle. There is no oil you can buy and use that is too heavy where it'll hurt the oil pump, you'll hurt other things long before you ever hurt the pump.

 

another point of view: A long read...

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/faq...=haas_articles

Quoted from above:

When I was at the auto parts stores today, the name brand conventional oils were SL rated and the top name synthetics were SM rated.

 

im in tampa florida now and my cars sees no miles except for my car meets. i racked up all those miles when i lived in california, i have daily driver now and i think i put no more than 8000 in 2 years of which i did 1000 going to atlanta last week, i am going to address my leaks soon i just need to save up for some goodies while the motor is appart