What would be a good synthetic for me to run in my car.

I have a 93 Taurus SHO, unknown mileage on the engine, supposedly around 115k but I don't know for sure. I run the car pretty hard, and even take it to the strip now and then. It does see high RPM's. It is my daily driver and I have about a 5 mile one way commute daily. My engine uses solid lifters with a flat tappet design.

I've heard a lot about SM rated oils not being proper for my setup. Most synthetics you come across are SM.... the last synthetic I ran was Valvoline 5-30. For some reason i am partial to the valvoline brand, am I making a wise decision as far as camshaft wear or engine wear in general?

soon i will be putting a cleansing agent in my engine, and running some generic oil, then I will give it a lower viscosity synthetic oil for the winter time. The specified oil for my engine is 5-30

most of my knowledge about oils and what they do comes from the companies themselves.... and they aren't always true to their words..... I know you guys will set me straight here

thanks for any suggestions

You really do not need a thinner oil than a 5w-30 and why are you running a cleaner? Isn't your engine an over head cam?

The SHO is a twin cam engine. M1 5-30 would work well in your SHO.

I would use redline 5w-30 or Rotella 5w-40 or mobil 1 5w-30 EP/HM or Castrol Syntec 0w-30 (The german stuff) or amsoil or pennzoil premium etc...

I thought it had an high output OHC setup it which means that the spring pressure isn't really that high. Where a high zinc oil is needed is on a pushrod engine with high pressure valve springs.

the SHO v-6 isnt a rololer cam motor and concenus among SHO owners is that zinc is needed

yes, so I guess my main question is this

what type of synthetics currently available have the most zinc content?

The point being made was that it was OHC though, which means it has substantially lower spring pressure than a comparable pushrod engine.

Yeah, what he said. Any of the above would be fine choices.

hmmm, maybe I will try the Rotella... others have been using that in SHO's

The highest "walmart" oil would be mobil 1 15w-50 with around 1300/1200 ppm Zn/P then would come Rotella 5w-40 with around 1100 (?) then the mobil 1 EP/HM oils with around 900-100 then pennzoil premium etc...

Mobil 1 0w-40 may be a good choice also also maybe the Dino Rotella 15w-40 in the warmer months.

The high end oils like redline and amsoil contain lots of zddp also but are harder to come by.

how about syntec 0-30 isn't that a SL rated oil?

hows that stack up to the m1 15-50

The german castrol? Good stout base stock with around 900 ppm zddp. If I were in your shoes I would probably use that year round or the mobil 1 5w30 EP. Autozone is having the special on 5 quarts with a K&N filter for $27 I believe.

thanks for all your help lipadj

Amsoil Series 3000 Synthetic 5W-30 Heavy-Duty Diesel Oil (HDD); note, it's recommended for gasoline engines too.

This is one of the many oils Amsoil recommends for flat tappet camshafts which has lots of Zinc.

Maybe one of the Amsoil dealers here can post the newer Amsoil Flat Tappet TSB.