As far as I know there are no "gaskets" under oil presure in an engine - all oil galleries are metal to metal. However too thick an oil and the pump works really hard and the oil filter seal can BLOW out if the pressure gets too high.

Mineral oil I think breaks down also. Synlube doesn't break down and produce sludge because it doesn't have the sulfur compounds in it like convential oils and it also relies on the solids Moly and PTFE to lubricate and the liquid part to carry the solids through the engine. It also seals the cylinder to ring area to reduce blowby and has graphite to absorb moisture when the lube and engine is cool and then releases the moisture from the graphite when the engine gets hot enough and vents the steam back through the PCV valve. The better filter they provide has does a much better job of filtering the oil along with Neo Magnets to remove trace metal particles.

I don't think Synlube's cost justifies the expense in my case. $32 a quart for four quarts plus $25 for the oil filter. My vehicle uses 1 pint of oil every 3000 miles at a cost of $16 a pint. I drive 25000 miles in a year so I will need to add 4 quarts of oil total.

(32 x 8) + 25 = $281 (not including shipping and handling)

Current do it myself oil changes are $12 (Walmart oil and purolator pure one oil filter) done every 5000 miles = $60

Total savings is $221. That will buy 94.444 gallons of gas at the current price of $2.339 at the local Sam's Club. Even if I were to get 8% better fuel economy, I still wouldn't make up the expense. Plus with a baby on the way, I need that money for diapers! LOL

You didnt put in synthetic while your engine is still breaking in did you?

Ive been watching this thread from the start.

My turn. :)

If you have a old oil burner. Thicker oil my well help with FE. Vavle guide seals and piston rings might seal a bit better. Not to mention a better oil film for the crank, rod and cam bearings thus reducing some enegry loss from ocilation from rotating parts in a babit style bearing.

If you have a engine thats in good shape and not a oil burner. (By a oil burner I mean a mosquite killer.) Using thicker oil than what it was broken in on and has ran on could hurt mpg. And could also set you up for a major failure. I know afew of the members here have ripped open afew engines in there day. In my days of engine repairs and rebuilds. I often found the oil pressure by pass part blocked or hung open or close. With a blockage or crud holding it shut the thicker oil will ruin bearings due to the increased oil pressure when rev's come up. This can also draw oil passage ways and so on.

Basicly oil weight can be the enemy if your engines tolrances dont go with the oil. Lets say you build a 327 chevy. You want it to rap up. Have the cam, carbs that dump gas like a garden hose. How do you handel the lube system. If you go with a tight 30W build. Dont put 50W in it. Or you go with a high flow/psi oil pump. If your going high psi/flow you have nore than likely had your cyclender bores setup a bit on the loose side and running rods, mains and cam bearing tad looser. You have the weight of the oil and the flow to handel the shock and such with the 50w. Put 30W in that engine and its as good as shelled.

As for Synlube. From what i can tell this stuff is alot like some turbine oil I got years ago. It was a full syn that cost about $50 a qt. I got it heap cheap because the container spec. didnt meet some end users spec. This lube was white of all colors. There wasnt a petro part in it. It was a 20W lube. It was no change sort of stuff. I never bought into it and ended up reseliing what I had bought for a handsome profit. :)

I for one run M1 5-w20 with M1 or PureOne oil filters in our Civic and Accord. Change it every 7.5k to 10k miles. Call it good and move on.

psy

jamescartagena : If you have a lot of miles on the engine then I would say not to bother with Synlube but it does improve the ring seal of a worn engine and reduce the oil consumption and since your car probably will not last long enough to justify the oil savings then definately do not bother with Synlube. I would recommend using a bit higher weight oil on the second number since you are loosing so much.

F2 : It is recommended by Synlube to break in the engine with the factory oil for 3600 miles or so and then drain it completely and install the Synlube. This will give the 300,000 mile warrenty from Synlube for a new engine. As far as break in goes, it will continue getting better for maybe 20,000 miles the way I drive but the major part of the breaking in has been done and with the Synlube the wear will be reduced from this point on and thus the engine should outlast the vehicle. Of course all my engines have outlasted my vehicles anyway.

Switched form 10w3 - 5w30 when I got my oil changed. Big difference on my gaslog. Definitely makes a difference.

Antares

Isn't the oil in a constant stream? Are you saying it ebbs & flows like the tide?

i Run the Delo 400 in my M882 and it works great, 15w40

the best way to tell if you have to thin of oil is if your oil presure drops, as alot of the bearings are relying on the oil presure to matain a film of oil between the moving parts, the presure drops and metal touches metal, to thick of oil and your oil presure stays higher because it's not flowing out of the small spaces as fast, when we rebuilt our old tractor we put 5w 30 oil in it to help with braking in the new rings, and it keeps great oil presure, so we've kept thiner oil in it.
of course it's hard to watch your oil presure without a gauge.

Be cautious of PTFE and SOLIDS, these products have been proven harmfull over prolonged use.https://www.skepdic.com/slick50.html

If your piston rings are worn enough to lower the compression ratio, thick oil could boost FE. But if the enine has good compression, thick oil has to hurt FE.

I run the delo 400 15w40 and my compression ratio is about 10.5 to 1 in the new rebuild

Check out the postings by budman on his 50k run with Synlube.. He went from overboard advocate to "what was I thinking"....

https://theoildrop.server101.com/foru...fpart=all&vc=1

Extremely interesting. Thank you Mentalic for this link.:thumbup:

The entire motor oil industry is up to thier elbows in hype...at SynLube, they appear to be up to thier necks.
Sorry JanGeo, but from where I'm standing trying SynLube is akin to joining a cult...you can't really join without becoming a believer.:(

Consider the advantages of heavier oil in a motor with hydraulic lifters.

Any chance the upside could outweigh the downside, given reasonable windage control?

One thing to consider is the testing done by Lou. Mostly at a steady speed 50 mph,with a fully warmed up vehicle.
I have no doubt you can get the same results with the same kind of testing, however most of us have to start cold, and there is no question that thinner oils will give you better FE during warmup, esp. in winter.
But I think this is a individual thing, your results will vary depending on the condition of your engine and the number of cold starts per tank.

around here our winters are usualyl around 15*F(avg) and it oh so nicely works out that late october/nov that i need to have an oil change so i usually switch over to 5w-30 in my truck and in the late spring to 10w30. my truck uses NO oil between changes so why mess with that works? it was designed to run on dino oil so its gonna be ran on dino oil...

haha. very interesting i might add.;)

This was my thought exactly, this should be very easy to check though. Check compression before and after switching to a thicker oil.

In fact try a couple, something like 5W30 dino, 5W30 syn, 10W40, 20W50 and then back to 5W30. Check compression with each oil after 100-500-1000 miles or something.

I 'seems' to me that thicker oil would help with blowby and restore compression, but no oil pressure can stand up to an ignition event, so I'm not so sure.

It just needs to be tested really.

My BS meter is sounding loud here....one big reason SLUDGE is produced when combustion blow by (exhaust) contaminates the oil, so regardless of oil brand and type, sludge can happen.

Also, you pointed out that SynLube stays cleaner longer....keeps it's color longer....more BS because if a detergent oil is doing it's job, it is keeping the contamination off the internal engine parts, and ON THE OIL it's self, so that when you drain the oil, most of the contaminants are removed too.

When oil "gets dirty" this is a good thing....,when it stays "clean" this is a bad thing.

By the way, where is the scientific data supporting your claims, and please don't refer to your milage log...where are the controls? Can you say "Scientific Method"? Have you opened up your engine to examine the parts?

I'm not saying that SynLube is not the way to go; rather, I am saying that the data you provide as "proof" is not conclusive, to be sure.

So I finally read that lubedev.com article. I found it very well written with hardly any pizzaz or boisteresness (or whatever). From the posts here I figured it would all be sermon and no actual proof, but the article is written as fact, not raving really. I expected something like motoman's site (https://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm) which is very much raving or sermon preaching.

I have to say though that a lot of the stuff on lubedev seemed well written and thought out, in a take or leave it approach, anyone sermonizing would be trying to convince you and force their idea on you (with little research). After reading that site I plan on trying some of the things. Some of the things are well proven, like Warm air intake and increased tire pressures as well as common sense things like taller tires to reduce final gear ratio.

Also he did not say use a thicker oil or ANY thicker oil, he specifically mentioned 3 oils that have higher lubricity than normal. I have no idea why 20W50 from walmart would increase MPG but I could believe that some specialized product from a 50 year old company (with multiple racing teams) might have additives that could have increased lubricity.

Anyway I just ordered some Torco MPZ 15W40 Super Diesel, since this was almost the same as my 'normally' used 10W40 Mobil (My father and I have always used 10W40, not sure why, I think because most of our vehicles have 100-200k miles and we figure sacrificing some HP for higher viscosity is fine if it gives us some insurance with higher viscosity in our old engines). I also bought the two additives he mentioned, EAL and Magnets someting something.

I'm driving to build some baseline tanks now but I'm due for an oil change in a couple weeks anyway, I'll switch to the 15W40 and after a tank or two of just that I'll add the additives. I'm honestly not worried about it hurting my engine it sounds like a quality product and they're meant to go together https://www.torcousa.com/ .

I guess we'll find out. The main things that scare me or I find counter intuitive is that he says the oil can be changed every 6-8k miles but that the filter should be done every 2-3k. Huh? Maybe you're just supposed to try swapping very quickly with a cold engine? Or turn the car on it's side with a rotisserie? I'm not sure.

And the suggestion to put a quart of synthetic MOTOR OIL in my Automatic TRANSMISSION kind of freaks me out... but who knows... I guess.

So I've finally changed my oil. Filled it up with Torco 15W-40 diesel dino oil (one of his suggested oils). This tank may not count as I've had some idling while tinkering and just took a short trip solely to warm up the engine before changing the oil, but I plan to do one more tank before changing anything else to see the affects.

After that tank I'm going to add the MPZ Magnetic Friction reducer and Engine Assemly Lube to the oil (overfilling it a bit) as suggested and see what that adds if anything.

I'm not using the suggested oil filters, which shouldn't matter. I'm using Fram High Milage, it too is supposed to have some kind of slow release viscosity increaser. I don't see how they could react or fight with one another but I hope they don't.

The previous oil I just took out was Quaker State 10W30 (or 10W40 I don't recall) and I'm quite sure it was regular dino. Filtered through a Fram High Milage (so if the filter adds any milage I would have it in the previous tanks).

We'll see what happens. Initial results, doesn't feel any different really, a bit smoother but it always is with fresh oil.

How will you determine whether the change helps or hurts?

There's no way to isolate any change in fuel consumption you may see from uncontrollable variables like temperature, wind, traffic patterns...

I didn't know he had any tests. I've run Mobil dino 10w40 through winters in my truck, that's kind of my standard, lighter oil in the winter does make a lot of sense, but with a closed thermostat and the insulation/grill block most people hear add the engines should warm up pretty quickly anyway (I realize most wear is the first 10 secs from cold).

Anyway we'll get to see a good cold flow test (well it's summer and 70F now but...) my commute is only 15 mins, so I have a lot of starts per tank. I don't give my truck time to warm up either, just start and go, probably doesn't warm up fully and open the tstat until 3-5 mins into the trip usually.

True it will really only indicate something if it's a very large change and over the average. Whether has been pretty all over here for the last 3 tanks and the tanks have varied by 1MPG or so. I think this would have to consistently stay above 21 for me to believe in it.

Mostly I'm just looking to increase my average FE and as we head toward end of summer more likely it's colder and windier, so we'll see. As for traffic patterns, you're right, just today I had some retard pull out in front of me and go 30mph in a 40 zone (I was slowly drifting done from 45 in a coast and was quite pissed). Yesterday I had someone constantly brake for about .2-.3 miles as we come off a hill and into and off ramp, even in the truck I can take this at 55 but had to slow down to 40 for this person and lose all my momentum from the hill). So traffic patterns do hurt, but should wash in an average, though how many tanks over how long I'll have to average I'm not sure. I hated statisics, but I could scrounge through my Psych docs and find the formula for determining statistical relevance.

But yes this isn't an empirical test or anything, just a guy that thought, hey I usually run 10W40 so 15W40 isn't much more, even better 15W is the baseline which means it only has 2.5X multipliers instead of 3X and will hold the viscosity increasers longer and have a higher baseline even after they shear (so basicaly, sounds like good oil, can't hurt) and at the cost for a 5 gallon pail it worked out to about the same per quart as any medium good oil.

I still don't understand why lou lapoint is so against synthetics, I love them as much as everyone else, I'm just trying something different. I've been meaning to try Rotella 5W-40 full syn in the truck as that's what I run in my motorcycle and it's good stuff (though it's not really synthetic it's POA3), so after I run through this stuff in a year or so I'll try that and see if there's a change maybe.

Finally filled my tank and it was my best ever, but as was stated, the weather was very fall like this week and I'm continouing with acetone. The change is still within my MPG calculations margin of error +/- 1MPG, so it means nothing to me. This tank should mean more and the tank after when I add the viscosity enhancers.

I have noticed though that the car does not coast as well when in gear, slows down quite a bit quicker. This makes sense with heavier oil, at idle I'm pushing about 40psi oil pressure instead of the 20 I used to push. It runs the same as my other old Chevy from the 80's used to, between 40-60psi on 10W40. I suppose the coasting issue could be more rolling resistance from cooler temps and tires?

I'm in no way endorsing this, just updating results of my use of the oil.