They did actually list 5W40 Andy. BUT FOR USE in very cold climates. So it was available, just not recommended. The current Commodore 6 is a recently designed engine. They recommend 10W40 synthetic oil. So there is still a reason to use slightly heavier oil what ever the reason is.
Which FSM lists synthetic 5W-40? I cannot see 5W-40 or synthetic oil mentioned in 1996 USA FSM or the 1991 USA owners manual. Have you read this article? http://tinyurl.com/d3o3t7o
5W-30 is listed in the 1991 USA owners manual and the 1996 USA FSM. No mention that I can see of 5W-40 or synthetics. Did you read the Motor Oil 101 article? Most of the article is about this subject.
I used the one Rob did, think it was 300V Andy, No I havent read it, But I can only relay my experience with using 5W and 0W oils supplied to me by customers for their engines. Lots of them developed leaks afterwards they didnt have before
Oils... In the old days I used to go nuts about the oil I should run. Used to run AMSOIL, then Motul, but they were always difficult to find. These days I settle for anything that is full synthetic and a 10w something.... Since having the TT, I've been using Castrol Edge Titanium 10w60. No complaints. Seriously, just use a good oil and you'll be fine. The important thing is regular oil changes (every 5000kms) rather than the brand of oil. I dropped my "oh dear I have to use the most expensive and crazy oil I can find" attitude years ago. Any of the major full synths and even semi synths at the correct viscosity will be fine.
"Oils aint Oils" - soul ! I think blackbeast was pretty much on track all the way with his comments - except that I would've added 15W as well as an extra option even though 20W sounds good as well with those K's on the clock So I think there is nothing wrong with your final choice 15W - 40 in the end. Regardless of whether full synth / semi synth or mineral is used the oil changes remain at 5,000klm intervals - the synths have better additives like suspension agents / anti sludge additives but they still are changed at 5,000 klms regardless, so yes a semi or mineral oil is still fine. The 5,000 klms can be reduced in very dusty conditions - ideally your oil should be a light brown or clear on change and not black (ideally with a motor in good condition) There is nothing wrong with Penrite in this regard - most oils will generally be fine under this rule. (Theres a lot of contraversy in oil types based on the colour of the bottle - lol - without getting into any shear/ knock testing etc) As stated within Japan is very very cold, hence why the low winter rating - it simply doesnt apply here or anywhere else unless you live in Canberra / Canada in Winter. As quoted within - the ideal oil would remain the same temp and viscosity if it were possible, some people can also use different oils for different seasons such as summer / winter in order to keep the oil closer to the viscosity required Remember up to 60% of the wear in an engine occurs in the first few minutes of starting the car each time - this is an important point on driving characteristics that are peculiar to your own personal usage - if you do quick stop starts continously all the time, then you would require a lower Winter viscosity to penetrate the cold internals, than what you would if you did lets say a long freeway drive once a week which incurs very little wear overall. Ideally unburnt vapors in the crankcase should not be allowed to buildup which means that car should ideally be driven for at least 5 minutes after the motor has warmed up (as a minimum usage time) As such there is no universal rating for all oils even with the same motor and same temperatures - what applies for one just doesnt apply to another. You need to make your own decision as to what works best. This can somewhat be determined by some indicators that can assist in knowing if your using the correct oil for the conditions (with exception to the stop start driving style / occasional long drive style which you need to factor in) 1. When the car is warmed up it should give off no smoke 2. When you accelerate quickly you should see a slight smoke being given off in the exhaust 3. You will get the best oil flow numbers possible on your oil pressure gauge both when starting and when it is warmed up than previous oils. So your decision was logical and good in the end I think, but the rest is up to you now, to adjust further if you need too, to suit your specific style of driving, temp, wear and conditions etc etc. Happy motoring!
Totally agree with you there Yep - when it comes to knock/ pin /shear/ wear testing AMSOIL is the best in the world - the proof is in the testing - and yes its bloody hard to find - I think there are only 2 distributors in oz off hand - so if your racing cars then AMSOIL is the go Yes - I agree totally - changing oil / filters regularly is more important that the type of oil given most cars are not being competitively raced
Why would you recommend an oil that is thicker when cold but the same viscosity at running temperature for an older engine? If the engine has oil pressure issues at operating temp then you need to bump the operating temp viscosity not the cold cranking viscosity. The guide on COZ describes a 20W oil as only usable if the temperature does not drop below 10°C. This is because 20W is getting too thick to pump at 10°C. A 20W-50 oil is around 5 times thicker at 40°C than it is at 100°C). A high oil pressure reading on the gauge when the engine is cold indicates that most of the oil is on bypass instead of lubricating the engine. This is one of the major reasons why most engine wear occurs at start up. Once the oil warms up and thins out to the operating temperature viscosity the oil pressure will drop back to normal operating pressure. At this point the nW rating is irrelevant. Motor Oil 101 explains the subject in detail.
What the guy states is in most part correct. Particularly dealing with how to interpret how a multi-grade oil behaves and what happens to mg oils as their temps vary. I made this same comment in very basic terms well up the post. The "most engine wear occurrs directly on startup" claim is a pretty valid one but to simplify this to the point and imply that this is a direct result of not enough oil getting to the important parts and nothing else is just a bit rich. The oil galleries drilled into engines are not tiny 1mm holes. High tech engines are not precision bits of technology. they are built to ordinary engineering standards as far as clearances, pressures required to actually support a bearing surface and gallery flow is concerned. Variables are the number and nature of gallery intersections and direction changes. They are almost universally in excess of 3mm and even grease, when pumped at 60/80/100psi will travel remarkably quickly thru such an orifice up to a couple of hundred mm long. And THAT is assuming that the oil has completely drained out of the said galleries which is never the case. The residual lubricating properties of engine oils are well up to the task of separating moving parts with a film of oil for a surprising length of time. Well in excess of the time those moving parts will take to completely dry out and begin spalling/scuffing. What he fails to note is the serious and inevitable wear events taking place resulting from acids produced as a normal result of combustion and water condensation inside an engine that are not immediately burnt/washed/evaporated away by prolonged elevated oil temps. These acids are highly corrosive to metal parts and collect and circulate around with normal lubricating oil literally eroding away the fine machined surfaces of the engines moving parts. This kind of acidic corrosion/wear happening is an inevitable by-product of cold starting and will happen almost universally on initial cold startup and if the remains are not evaporated/burned out by prolonged hot running then the wear rate increases as oil becomes more contaminated. This will often explain why taxis and trucks, which usually operate at eleveated running temps for very long periods between cold starts will easily outlast grannies shopping trolley which drives a K or two to the shops once or twice a week in terms of kilometers v's wear. Some shopping trolleys dont make it to 100k K's are are completely knackered despite being babied along all their lives yet a taxi or a truck cn be raped incessantly and achieve in excess of half a million K's without so much as a head job! Further to this, the notion of regular oil changes at *blah* K's. manufacturers will state this based on their own interpretation of "ordinary" driving conditions. Importantly, changing oil in lesser intervals never hurts. It mostly does not help either and worst case it its just a WOFTAM!!! Like changing tyres after.. say less than 50% wear left. Sure, wont hurt anything but is seriously unecomical. A very neat way of determining oil changes without resorting to oil analisys is to determine the change interval based on cold starts against kilometers travelled/time. The more the number of cold starts against how long the car goes, the closer the drain intervals. I used to have some documentation around somewhere which worked as a calculator for this but.....meh! Newhoo, know this, your engine will operate quite happily on a couple of hundred dollars worth of Amsoil as it will just as happily operate on multigrade from the supermarket so long as it complies whith whatever compliances met or exceed whatever Nissan specifies and THAT is easily done with 8 bucks of recycled!!!!!! /rant E
Hey guys - my comments were not literal - only generalised Hey Andy I was'nt being literal, just generalising. Re: Why would you recommend an oil that is thicker when cold but the same viscosity at running temperature for an older engine? If the engine has oil pressure issues at operating temp then you need to bump the operating temp viscosity not the cold cranking viscosity. The comment was merely based on possibly a worn motor that could burn off excess carbon during startup, (given he may have carbon issues with 350,000klms) The guide on COZ describes a 20W oil as only usable if the temperature does not drop below 10°C. This is because 20W is getting too thick to pump at 10°C. A 20W-50 oil is around 5 times thicker at 40°C than it is at 100°C). Remembering that the startup temperature does not take log to achieve at all (although granted this is where most of the wear occurs). The problem with oils as everyone knows, is not the operating temperature viscosity per se but the startup temperature viscosity vs intermittent continous cold starts/ long drives. As implied, only the actual operator will know his factors and 10W / 15W / 20W was not an implied winter rating, but rather a selection of options based on the operators assessment factors. A high oil pressure reading on the gauge when the engine is cold indicates that most of the oil is on bypass instead of lubricating the engine. This is one of the major reasons why most engine wear occurs at start up. Once the oil warms up and thins out to the operating temperature viscosity the oil pressure will drop back to normal operating pressure. At this point the nW rating is irrelevant Conversely it could be stated that a low oil reading at startup means the oil has low pressure, is a worn motor or the oil is too thin. The readings on a oil pressure gauge are there to give a generalised reading of the pressure, even if the normal operating temperature is the preferred time to acknowledge such readings. Your absolutely correct in everything you stated but my comments were not being stated literally and were only generalised as I stated and implied. I would not purport (and I would'nt think anyone would purport) to know the exact requirements for a specific oil for a specific motor when I do not know its condition or its temperature ranges and its variable driving factors involved I did look at the motor oil 101 guide you spoke of....and its a good but extensive guide but I also noted "Now here is the partial truth I spoke of earlier" as one of the many statements in the guide. This is because,as I suggested, like my previous statements, its only a guide. When it comes to oil - nothing is absolute and the author acknowledges this many times in the guide, because simply put, there are so many other factors involved that can affect each value. Hey Tassuperkart, Great write up - totally agree with everything you said and it actually helps keep the context in a lot of the overall posts so far especially the $8 recycled oil - lol (as I stated before, he is not racing) I did however mention "Ideally unburnt vapors in the crankcase should not be allowed to buildup which means that car should ideally be driven for at least 5 minutes after the motor has warmed up (as a minimum usage time)" i.e. - Unburnt vapors are contaminates/acids etc ( I was raving too much as well at the time and didnt want to go into what you decided to cover for me - had to give you something to rave about - lol) The oil interval was again - only a generalised statement! Some may even need to change shorter if in really dusty conditions - athough a oil assessment is a pretty good idea, so is looking at your dipstick and seeing how much metal has collected on your magnetic filters/ magnetic sumpbolt and previous oil change requirements. I dont reccommend that many should go above the 5,000klms as a rule, but again this is not absolute! Anyway - bloody good rave tass - was well written in both clarification and context! Once again my comments are/were only in general, I cannot and do not propose to reccommend any oil for any individual motor without knowing all the factors - it will always come back to the operator to ultimately decide the right specifications using the manufacturers guide (see previous pic) and his individual conditions. Cheers....to all :zlove:
Nulon Oils? what are your thoughts on Nulon? Nulon seems to be the flagship brand at the store I'm working at, and its selling anywhere from 1.5 times + what penrite does. they also seem to have a lot of variants for if you want high k's mineral or semi synthetics, and they have a good range of full synthetics. i'm still learning about oil's, but if the book say's 10w then 23 years on you'd want to be running 15w in a mineral, but wouldnt that mean you could still get away with 10w in a synthetic? most modern cars are running 5w or even 0w in comparrison. 50 sounds too high for the type of engine the VG30DETT is though, so I'm thinking stick to around a 40? seems like the best Oil might be around the 10w 30 in a full synthetic, or 15w 40 in a semi or mineral if you still wanted to run mineral? is anyone running Nulon to comment on how that holds up in the VG30?
I use Nulon in my diff at the moment.... Seems to be okay so far, but I've only just switched to it..... time will tell. I threw some in and ran about 5-600kms before 'dumping and refilling' (flush)...... ask me again in another 9000kms
Nulon make good oil but I'm worried about the sales guy who tells me I should consider different weights depending on synthetic/semi synthetic/mineral oil
This is not true. A multi grade mineral oil is achieved by way of thickening additives. Over time these degrade. A synthetic oil does not contain any such additives and while the detergents etc may deteriorate over time the oil molecules will not and the oil will not degrade. You do not need to change synthetics every 5000kms.
I use Nulon 10W40 full synthetic and my oil change intervals where 10,000 klms on the z32. No cam gear noise and the oil was pretty clean coming out after a change. I took the cam covers off when I had to reseal them and the inside of the engine was spotless/PERFECT, very very clean. Have been using full synthetic oils in all my cars for the last 10 years. Clincher was a mate who bought a VZ ute at the same time I bought my VZ crewman ute. HE always took it back to the holden dealer for service. The stock interval is 15,000klms. I know the dealers use mineral oil. His car developed a timing chain rattle at 130,000 k's, my crewman has done 128,000klms and is fine. His timing chain and valve gear where coked with black crap causing the timing chain noise issue. My car under the cam covers is spotless. I do 10,000 klms oil change intervals and use synthetic oil. As far as I am concerned. The jury's in. Synthetic oil and common sense oil change intervals are a win for engine life. 5000klms changes using synthetic oil are pretty silly unless you do lots of flat out track days. Maybe then you should dump it at 5000 klms intervals. BTW I used to dump the oil in the Z32 road car after each track day and refil.
Cheers SuperZ. Exactly. Further to the synthetic debate. There is no denying the longevity of full synthetics. However, in some cases, such as Valvoline oils, the full synthetic oil actually performs WORSE in several tests of the ability of a lubricant to actually lubricate!!!!! More later. However, what cannot be disputed is the severe operating conditions imposed on oils in heavy duty, high powered and large displacement diesel truck engines!. Extreme loads at elevated running temps for (in comparison) colossal lengths of time in comparison to a road car such as ours which may see the occasional flick up to max load a couple of times a drive! Volvo, Iveco and several others specify full synthetic oils and large, heavy duty filters as a condition of warranty. Ivecos warranty is virtually unconditional up to 1,000,000k's. In Volvos case, the ordinary oil change interval is 100,000 K's and Iveco (with the Cursor engine is 80,000K's) using specified synthetics. With race cars, the oil is not particularly/unduly stressed in any way really.. ot6her than often run at too low temps. Remember, you can only produce so much torque from a given setup and so in order to elevate horsepower further, you end up having to increase RPM. Horsepower is just a mathematical equasion of torque and frequency (rpm) (FYI Ryzan) so at the end of the day, the bearing loads are often not that much higher, particularly when speaking atmo where torque increases are often minimal at best and almost pure RPM is where the power come from!!!!!!! The possibility of exceeding the shear strength of the oil at very low oil temps and extreme RPM is certainly real but at correct running temps which should be in the vicinity of 100Deg.C as an optimum, there wouldnt be an engine here that would extend the capabilities of anything available at the supermarket. Dropping oil after every use is certainly NOT going to hurt nor help! Its often just a personal "placebo" to make one feel better about things!!!!!! If it feels good...DO IT, its your money!!!! FWI, I use Valvoline Duroblend (semi-synthetic) 15-50 in everything I own. I use the semi-sythetic in preferrence to the full synthetic for 2 reasons. Pure and simply, its cheaper than most all full synthetics and it actually outperforms its supposedly better credentialled full synthetic stable mate!!!! I KNOW I dont actually NEED the added protection, but like the previously mentioned placebo, it makes me FEEL better!!!!! The race car gets an oil change twice a year and all else i run out to around 10,000K's or 6 months in the case of the bikes as most of my driving is hot highway miles since I live in the sticks! E
