Anyone Using 5W-30 Oil? Tell Me your Opinion/Thoughts

[ShadowsPapa]

Excessive zinc also causes sludge.

There’s a movement to zinc free AW packages in larger hydraulic systems for that very reason.

Not saying it’s going to happen to you, or that you don’t benefit from a higher zinc content.. just something to think about.

People definitely should not be adding “this magic ZDPP bottle” to their oil fills. Use the factory package. More than sufficient with a quality oil.

OMG - that "we need more zinc" crap. That's so 1980s - it's been shown by university tests as well as others, more is not better, more can actually cause wear, zinc stops building on things and starts causing damage if too much is used, and today's oils have chemistry that negates the need for high zinc.
Zinc can also actually cause damage to the castings in engines.
If you use a quality oil - zinc is of no concern.

I have Comp Xtreme cams in both of my cars, had one in my 70 390, and I used off-the-shelf oil, good oil, no additives at all. I've never lost a cam in any engine I've built. Heck, my 4.0 with the Comp Xtreme energy cam is running stiffer valve springs, higher compression and so on - put it in the car, started it, drove it - all with the same oil I'm running in it now years later. Nothing special.

With modern oils, it's not even necessary in the older stuff. But people are still freaking out over the failures from the 1990s or so when there was that transition period and yeah, there were more failures back then.

Sponsored

 

[Jrgunn5150]

I just wiped a solid lifter cam on modern oil 4 months ago lol, during break in.

I won't buy another cam that's not a roller, period, no matter what voodoo they claim to put in the oil.

 

[Stan H]

Exponentially. Wow. So how many orders of magnitude are you talking?

10³ x 50

 

[Stan H]

No issues with the starters - that's well documented.
Oil pressure builds almost as fast as the engine fires - there's little time for oil to drain out of the galleries, the filter holds the oil, lash adjusters won't have bled down, and there's still oil film on things. These crank/rod bearings are not like anything people are used to.

There's really no worries about oil with ESS.

These starters are made with different bearings, different commutators and brushes - it's a technology that dates back into the last century. It's been around in Jeeps for a decade and other companies even longer. It's not like this is new stuff and they are figuring out how to make things last. One tech (retired) who is here now and then said that he'd only replaced a couple of starters - and those were internal fuse issues, not wear.
A hot start with the PCM knowing exactly where everything stopped, if the crank bounced back or did not, when each cylinder fired and more - means that it's no real load at all on the starter. It barely spins, so there's little "wind-down" and a warm engine is much easier to turn over than a cold one..
Someone doing a lot of short drives will likely impart more wear to their starter than someone like me - few cold starts, allowing ESS to function.

I have actually went to stop and ESS kicked in and then realized I had the go light let back off and it like did a light restart like it had fully shut down. It will do that also.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I have actually went to stop and ESS kicked in and then realized I had the go light let back off and it like did a light restart like it had fully shut down. It will do that also.

I've had mine restart without the starter engaging.
On a normal ESS stop, mine is running before my foot presses down on the gas (and I'm not slow at reaction time either). It's really quite fast.
If you watch the oil pressure, it's built up before you can move.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I just wiped a solid lifter cam on modern oil 4 months ago lol, during break in.

I won't buy another cam that's not a roller, period, no matter what voodoo they claim to put in the oil.

Watch for roller failures - been a lot of those talked about lately. the needly bearings go - some some have switched to a bronze bearing, skipping the needles that get hammered to death

I didn't even do the "30 minute break-in" with my last couple.
I've always wondered - why 30 minutes, and why do they say to start the clock and process all over again if you shut it down for any reason? Is there a magic number that has to be done in a continuous way? So if it's run for 15 minutes, and you see a leak, say a fuel line, you shut it down for 2 minutes, resolve the leak, you have to start all over again according to the "instructions" - why - why not just go the rest of the time?
There's a lot of people running good modern oils and not doing the voodoo from the last century, and coming out fine.

 

[Spur]

These take 0W-20 not 5W-20

Not mine. It takes 5-30

 

[cb4017]

Got to love a good oil thread.

A few years ago before I bought my 3rd Gen Colorado ZR2 I did a fair bit of research on the 2.7L TurboMax. That included watching a few interviews with one of the GM engine design engineers on that project. Here are some comments he made during one of the interviews. "We architected the engine to run on 0w-20", "We recommend 5w-30 but the engine was actually architected for 0w-20". And, "Provides more resistance/capability for the bearings". I thought that was very interesting.

In the big scheme of things there is not a heck of a lot of difference between a 20 or 30 weight oil. I doubt anyone is going to hurt the engine with either.

 

[Jrgunn5150]

Watch for roller failures - been a lot of those talked about lately.

I didn't even do the "30 minute break-in" with my last couple.
I've always wondered - why 30 minutes, and why do they say to start the clock and process all over again if you shut it down for any reason? Is there a magic number that has to be done in a continuous way? So if it's run for 15 minutes, and you see a leak, say a fuel line, you shut it down for 2 minutes, resolve the leak, you have to start all over again according to the "instructions" - why - why not just go the rest of the time?
There's a lot of people running good modern oils and not doing the voodoo from the last century, and coming out fine.

I've never been all that strict about it.

I just run it until it's hot and change the oil.

But in the past 5 years, I've lost 4 cams. Done with flat tappets period.

Rev stock roller lifters to 7500 rpm without failures.

 

[Jrgunn5150]

Got to love a good oil thread.


In the big scheme of things there is not a heck of a lot of difference between a 20 or 30 weight oil. I doubt anyone is going to hurt the engine with either.

Definitely not.

There is not, and will not be, ever, a single documented case of failure with the root cause being, if only he had listened to random strangers on the internet and used some other than recommended oil.

 

[montechie]

and that could be due to the change in the oil chemistry, not viscosity.
If you buy a 0w20 and a 5w30 from the same company, there will be variations that alone can account for analysis changes - as well as your own engine age, driving, loads, temps and so on.

so far, there's no data that is able to show that a change in viscosity alone does anything - because people also change either brands, or even if the same brand, the chemistry will be different.
So at this point - it's literally impossible to test for the change in viscosity alone

You can find at least two people in the Wrangler areas who had cam failures - and ran heavier oil. Their conclusion was a shrug - oh, well, guess it wasn't that.

Definitely agree with brand change possibly having a bigger effect, I should've included that. If I see a particulate uptick with the next 0w-20 (Penzoil Platinum) then testing a 0w-20 Napa (brand used for 5w-30) next would be an interesting data point. After seeing that Napa was matching protection in tests vs the common high-end brands, I wanted to try it. Personally I suspect the test results are just a downward to stabilizing trend since the repair, residuals getting worked out. I very much do have evidence for my application, but not enough for any conclusions at this point which is why I said "no opinion" earlier. Well, one conclusion, I don't have to try to argue for another repair or offload my beloved fun-machine to a dealership.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I've never been all that strict about it.

I just run it until it's hot and change the oil.

That does make sense.

 

[bgott]

No issues with the starters - that's well documented.
Oil pressure builds almost as fast as the engine fires - there's little time for oil to drain out of the galleries, the filter holds the oil, lash adjusters won't have bled down, and there's still oil film on things. These crank/rod bearings are not like anything people are used to.

There's really no worries about oil with ESS.

These starters are made with different bearings, different commutators and brushes - it's a technology that dates back into the last century. It's been around in Jeeps for a decade and other companies even longer. It's not like this is new stuff and they are figuring out how to make things last. One tech (retired) who is here now and then said that he'd only replaced a couple of starters - and those were internal fuse issues, not wear.
A hot start with the PCM knowing exactly where everything stopped, if the crank bounced back or did not, when each cylinder fired and more - means that it's no real load at all on the starter. It barely spins, so there's little "wind-down" and a warm engine is much easier to turn over than a cold one..
Someone doing a lot of short drives will likely impart more wear to their starter than someone like me - few cold starts, allowing ESS to function.

“Oil pressure builds almost as fast as the engine fires”… that ain’t no shit. Light one off with a stacked oil filter seal!

 

[ShadowsPapa]

These oil pumps are chain drive off the crankshaft.
They default to high volume mode.
That means they are pumping oil fast - probably close to double the volume that's pumped in normal driving below 3,000 RPM

I'd bet they can move more oil faster than gear type pumps of the past that were driven at half crankshaft speed by the camshaft.

These are the oil pump workings of a 400 cid V8 Chevy - and running half of crankshaft speed.
That's oiling a full V8 at 6,000 RPM while only spinning 3,000 RPM (and yet it can shoot massive amounts of oil over the fender at idle - ask anyone who has adjusted the lifters on a SBC engine)

And the Jeep 3.6 oil pump -

 

[ericw.]

Same for me - with 0w20

So the point is? Maybe there is no point LOL

Exactly. lol I'm not expert but I think there is no point. I think both oils are fine but I can buy 5w30 Mobil 1 at Costco and it seems to run smooth, no adverse effects so it'll be fine.

I came back and this thread blew up to 5 pages. lol

Sponsored