Should I switch to fancy-pants oil?

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Originally Posted by Trav
There was no 70's Corvair early or otherwise. Yours must have been a late 60's


You're right. Lived in Atlanta from '72-76. This was probably in 1973-- car was the second generation Corvair, probably about six or seven years old-- a very long six or seven years. Car was a POS.
 
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That car was so far ahead of time its unbelievable. A rear engine turbo flat 6 option years before Porsche even thought about a flat 6 never mind the 930.
More suspension development, a water boxer and it could easily have been Americas answer to the 911. In typical GM fashion they discarded it and moved on to the next real poo pile, the Vega in 71.
 
Originally Posted by Indydriver
Is there any question that synthetics are demonstrably superior oils? At the very least, you'll save some labor with the doubled or better OCIs.


Yes.
 
Originally Posted by Trav
That car was so far ahead of time its unbelievable. A rear engine turbo flat 6 option years before Porsche even thought about a flat 6 never mind the 930.
More suspension development, a water boxer and it could easily have been Americas answer to the 911. In typical GM fashion they discarded it and moved on to the next real poo pile, the Vega in 71.

Great ideas, awful execution.
 
When the VW dune buggy fad was in full bloom A friends dad had a Turbo Corvair engined dune buggy. But way back them he had a blower motor hydro . The guy was a hard core gear head . I remember the Hydro rides !
 
Originally Posted by jimbrewer
A series of UOAs and observations of others' UOAs tells me:

I get roughly 1.7 ppm iron per thousand miles, using Motorcraft oil. If I switch to quality synthetic, I can get that down to 1 ppm iron per thousand miles.

My question: Does the difference matter? That is, does getting it down to 1ppm iron translate into another 25K or so in miles before the engine winks out?


Huh?
Why would you think a synthetic oil will give you better wear results with less Iron?

Nothing could be further from the truth. For some reason many people in this forum think synthetic oils give better wear numbers then conventional.
True there will be a SMALL percentage that MIGHT but there are many conventionals that will beat synthetic oils when it comes to wear.
You got to stop listening to all that marketing crap.

Its a crap shoot if one oil of the same API syn or conventional gives better wear numbers.

Also as one other posted in here, using the correct API oil (doesnt matter if conv or syn) the darn engine WILL outlast the car and if it doesnt, its NOT the oils fault its the manufacturers fault and NO oil will stop that.
 
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Originally Posted by jimbrewer
A series of UOAs and observations of others' UOAs tells me:

I get roughly 1.7 ppm iron per thousand miles, using Motorcraft oil. If I switch to quality synthetic, I can get that down to 1 ppm iron per thousand miles.

My question: Does the difference matter? That is, does getting it down to 1ppm iron translate into another 25K or so in miles before the engine winks out?


Synthetic oil does not necessarily lubricate or prevent wear better than conventional oil -- it depends on the additive package more than the base oil.
The big differences are:
Synthetic oil flows better at cold temperatures than does conventional.
Synthetic oil resists shearing and thermal breakdown better than conventional.
And generally, synthetic oils are better at cleaning and preventing new deposits inside the engine.
 
Originally Posted by jimbrewer
A series of UOAs and observations of others' UOAs tells me:

I get roughly 1.7 ppm iron per thousand miles, using Motorcraft oil. If I switch to quality synthetic, I can get that down to 1 ppm iron per thousand miles.

My question: Does the difference matter? That is, does getting it down to 1ppm iron translate into another 25K or so in miles before the engine winks out?


With your research showing that there is 170% of the wear using MC oil vs synthetic, IMO that is enough indication to use synthetic. Yes we are only talking ppm, but at a level approaching twice the wear your engine will be done earlier using MC. Wear is wear, whether it is measured in ppm, microns of metal wear in the engine,or some other metric.

That said, other engines may behave differently than your engine...so a series of UOAs for your engine on different oils will be more accurate than a series of UOAs on other engines.
 
Question: could synthetic oil cleaning up sludge in older engines show higher iron in the uoa that could have been stuck in the sludge from a previous oil use? Im not sure iron content in drained oil is a be all end all in all cases
 
Originally Posted by Kage860
Question: could synthetic oil cleaning up sludge in older engines show higher iron in the uoa that could have been stuck in the sludge from a previous oil use? Im not sure iron content in drained oil is a be all end all in all cases



Yes....there have been several UOAs posted of older cars that were sitting for years; first few showed high iron that reduced rapidly as the rust was removed during operation.
 
Originally Posted by jimbrewer

My question: Does the difference matter?

Only if you want to be one of the cool kids then you gotta go fancy pants
lol.gif
 
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