ninety9ta

iTrader: (2)

whats up, brand new to the forum, and just bought a 99 silver T/A. (Replaced v6 firebird that my friend wrecked). Just got the car yesterday, and want to take EXTREMELY good care of it. So the first thing i wanna do is put synthetic oil in, but right now its using regular. Anything i should know before i go on with this process.

ZeeQuick

iTrader: (2)

What I was told a long time ago was that it all depends on how many miles were on the car when the switch was made. Supposedly if the car has been fed regular oil its entire life, and has over 60,000 miles on the clock, then it is not a good idea to switch. Something about oil leaks sprouting up. This is what I was told by my high school shop teacher, I'm not totally sure he knew what he was talking about though. This is the same guy who "helped" put a hypertech chip in my Z24 and then wondered why it was idling at 4 grand. Yeah, cause he "helped" put it in backwards


Anyways, I bought my car with about 40,000 on it and immediately switched to Mobil One 10W-30 Full Synthetic and have had no problems with it. Got almost 100K on the clock right now, it sees 5000rpm at least a few times a day. I'm sure you'll get plenty of responses to this post though, its always the posts about oil that tend to end up being about 5 pages long

Congratulations on your new car BTW. I hope your friend is okay....in the end he probably did you a favor, quite an upgrade from a V6 bird to an LS1.

Just keep your friend in the passenger seat where he belongs

99FormulaM6

iTrader: (21)

i just switched too. im at 39,5xx miles. at first i wasnt going to switch, but when i was buying new oil, i just said **** it and bought synthetic

99FormulaM6

iTrader: (21)

oh, and in you sig....it shouldnt say !FRA...it should just be FRA...the ! means delete, or got rid of...so unless you had FRA and got rid of it...

12stones

iTrader: (2)

nothing needed, just swap them out. i'd look up german castrol 0w30. do a search if you have any questions, i run that oil and it rocks! -Jim

ninety9ta

iTrader: (2)

The car has 51,700 miles on it

Fbody Man

u can also use royal purple or amsoil they're very good oils

The old man

iTrader: (1)

Sorry but I take a little different out look on things.... Bought my 98 Z with 58,000 on it.... Had no Idea what oil had been used before... I went with Castrol GTX 10W30 for the first oil change.... Have run the **** out of the car with no oil usage at all... So in my opinion synthetic oil may be great. But it is not worth the difference in price... Knowing I will get slammed for saying that!!! LOL

FelixIlka

Second day I had my car, I picked up a PF44 ( Now PF46 ) AC Delco Oil Filter, a 5 quart jug of Mobil 1 5w30 ( 19.83 at walmart ) and another quart, and switched em out. I'm now waiting on delivery of my
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...tem=7970572294

That way if I ever sell it ( which I never plan to do ) the next owner will KNOW what's in it. I recomend it and it's cheap too ( cheaper than year one! )

OneMeanZ

iTrader: (2)

I just bought my T/A and it has 59,400 miles on it. No clue what oil was used previously, can I just jump right in with GC 0w30 syn??

Schantin

iTrader: (6)

I'm not sure I'd go with a 0W30 oil personally. I'm running 10W30 Mobile-1 in my 02 Z. The "oil cap" may say 5W30, but I was getting some piston slap which shut up once switching to 10W30.

As for mileage, switcing from conventional oil to synthetic after 20-30K miles is a gamble. Synthetic oil has a smaller molecular consistency. What does that mean? That you might develop oil leaks you didn't have before the switch.

Just my $0.02

Schantin
2002 Camaro Z28 M6

RedZoutlaw

I have almost 26,000 miles on my 00 Z and switched to full syn for the first time the other day. The only difference Ive noticed so far is less piston slap. So hopefully I wont spring any leaks.

Mr Incredible

Go ahead and switch to synthetic. 5w-30 or 10w-30 are adequate and are shown in the owners manual. Mobil1 is easy to get. Change oil and filter at 5000 unless you decide to be **** and change it every other week or two like some folks.

If you have no oil leaks now, chance are you won't have oil leaks with synthetic. However, as with many things in life, keep checking to see what happens. Regular oil develops deposits in the engine, and sythetic oil will clean a lot of it away. Deposits that may have been keeping a bad seal closed may be cleaned away. On the other hand, I've never seen that happen nor has anybody I've talked to directly had it happen.

Use a good filter. K&N, Mobil1, Wix are good names. Use your favorite search engine and research for yourself. You'll be more confident of your choices.

Synthetic Oil Research

Z28 Extended Oil Drain Study

Oil Filter Study

ninety9ta

iTrader: (2)

Thanks for all the info guys.

Weezzer

Yes you can, my oil analysis have gotten much better since I started using the GC over the Mobil 1.

Mr Incredible

"whats up, brand new to the forum, and just bought a 99 silver T/A. (Replaced v6 firebird that my friend wrecked)."

You might want to consider not letting your friends drive your hot new car!!!

jehovasfitness

I'd go with Mobil 1.

synthetic oil will not create leaks that weren't there before. It may however make an existing one worse, but it's not going to all of a sudden develop a leak.

SmokeySS

iTrader: (7)

Royal Purple claims to be such a good performance oil that it actually adds a couple hp - does anybody know if there is some truth to this? Has anyone used it and been extremely pleased with it compared to a different brand?

RedZoutlaw

I doubt oil can add hp since all it does is lubricate.

Mr Incredible

I recall from my hotrod magazines that dyno tests have shown hp gains from using thinner oil. There's less drag on the reciprocating components.

Also, synthetics will reduce friction better than conventional oils of the same weight.

Car Craft Article on Synthetic Oils