HUGO
New Member
I have a 95 sho with 104500 miles and wanted to know what would be the best motor oil to use. I call FORD and I was told to use 20-50.
PLs. help
PLs. help
OIL TYPE
- Thread starter HUGO
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shojuan
New Member
20W/50? That Ford dude is wrong. Use 10W/30 now. In winter time change to 5W/30 if you live in a part of California that gets really cold. If you live in a part with mild winters then stick with 10W/30 in winter too.
The general oil recommendation is to use Castrol GTX. A very knowledgable person on this forum, Scott Patterson (sdpatt), swears by it and he has something like 265,000 miles on his SHO. He also has serviced *many* other forum member's SHOs and he's seen some not too good results with other oils. When he's not working on working on SHOs and helping people out on this forum he's busy working as a nuclear engineer, FWIW.
With regard to synthetic oils in SHOs: The jury is still out on this one. The best that's somewhat easy to find is Redline (Motul synthetic is another good one, but not so easy to find). These are about $8 a quart. Of the consumer grade synthetics (the stuff you can buy at Walmart and Autozone) Mobil 1 is arguably the favorite. There has been a long standing debate about synthetic oils in SHOs causing premature cam lobe wear. Scott Patterson tends to agree that synthetic oil should *not* be used in SHOs and has seen premature cam lobe wear in engines that have used it. I myself am tending to think that if there is a problem it could be do to dirt slipping past the filter media of conventional filters. IMHO the solution would be to run a finer oil filter, currently the finest is the Mobil 1 filter. I'm going to run a little experiment on my SHO for the next 60,000 miles. I'm going to run Redline 10W/30 oil with a Mobil 1 MP-301 filter. I already have a little cam lobe wear on my SHO which has run nothing but conventional, albeit with several heavily neglected oil changes. I'll be keeping my eye open for some new cams to pop in after 60,000 miles (that will be 210,000 miles on my engine). I'll let the forum know if my cams look any worse for wear at this time running the Redline 10W/30 and a Mobil 1 MP-301. I intend to drive the car hard when my wife's not using it.
So in summary, nobody on this forum would fault you for using Castrol GTX 10W/30 in your SHO. If you want to use synthetic, you're a risk taker (and there are a few on this forum ) and you do so at your *own* risk!
Hope this helps
Rick
The general oil recommendation is to use Castrol GTX. A very knowledgable person on this forum, Scott Patterson (sdpatt), swears by it and he has something like 265,000 miles on his SHO. He also has serviced *many* other forum member's SHOs and he's seen some not too good results with other oils. When he's not working on working on SHOs and helping people out on this forum he's busy working as a nuclear engineer, FWIW.
With regard to synthetic oils in SHOs: The jury is still out on this one. The best that's somewhat easy to find is Redline (Motul synthetic is another good one, but not so easy to find). These are about $8 a quart. Of the consumer grade synthetics (the stuff you can buy at Walmart and Autozone) Mobil 1 is arguably the favorite. There has been a long standing debate about synthetic oils in SHOs causing premature cam lobe wear. Scott Patterson tends to agree that synthetic oil should *not* be used in SHOs and has seen premature cam lobe wear in engines that have used it. I myself am tending to think that if there is a problem it could be do to dirt slipping past the filter media of conventional filters. IMHO the solution would be to run a finer oil filter, currently the finest is the Mobil 1 filter. I'm going to run a little experiment on my SHO for the next 60,000 miles. I'm going to run Redline 10W/30 oil with a Mobil 1 MP-301 filter. I already have a little cam lobe wear on my SHO which has run nothing but conventional, albeit with several heavily neglected oil changes. I'll be keeping my eye open for some new cams to pop in after 60,000 miles (that will be 210,000 miles on my engine). I'll let the forum know if my cams look any worse for wear at this time running the Redline 10W/30 and a Mobil 1 MP-301.
I intend to drive the car hard when my wife's not using it. So in summary, nobody on this forum would fault you for using Castrol GTX 10W/30 in your SHO. If you want to use synthetic, you're a risk taker (and there are a few on this forum
) and you do so at your *own* risk!Hope this helps
Rick
sdpatt
Sr. SHO Engr.
Welcome to the Forum. Use the search feature at the top right of the page to search in this topic for the several discussion threads that have happened recently on the subject of oil in the SHO engine. I have posted several photos of the results of the lesser grade oils (Pennzoil) and the early cam lobe wear from synthetics (Mobil 1).
I do not work for Castrol, but they should pay me for my promotion of their excellent product. My engine is still cruising after 265,200 miles of using Castrol GTX 10W-30 and Motordraft FL-400S filters. I switched at the last oil change to the Castrol High Mileage formula. I say that my engine is officially on Geritol now.
My engine has had no internal replacements. The only service on the engine has been the regular preventative services (valve gapping, timing belt, plugs) and the corrective maintenance (sensors, seals, water pump and plug wire replacements). All of these services have been performed by myself. The engine is healthy enough to put out 236 hp and 223 lb-ft of torque on a chassis dyno at 255,800 miles this February. The oil must be doing something right.
Nowhere in the owner's manual does it say to use 20W-50. For a new engine, the 5W-30 is good from as cold as you can get to 100F. The 10W-30 is probably a better choice for most and is good down to 0F and over 100F. The manual says, "If you regularly drive in temperatures that are above 100F, use SAE 10W-30." Since none of our engiens are new any longer and the clearances have increased, I would say that the 10W-30 provides a greater amount of protection than the thinner 5W-30.
That guy you talked to from Ford was from the very old school where large engine clearances that did not let the engines last beyond 100,000 miles without a rebuild. The clearances in the SHO are tight enough that the heavy base 20W oil will limit lubrication at the critical startup time.
It is during this same time that the synthetics reveal their Achilles heel. I have heard very unsettling metal-to-metal noises at startup from more than a few SHO engines that were filled with synthetic oils. Even mine. It is not a good sound and makes me cringe to hear it. Stick with the proven thing: high quality petroleum-based oil (Castrol GTX, Valvoline, Motorcraft, Mobil) changed at 3,000 mile intervals along with a quality oil filter (not Fram).
<small>[ September 07, 2002, 10:23 PM: Message edited by: sdpatt ]</small>
I do not work for Castrol, but they should pay me for my promotion of their excellent product. My engine is still cruising after 265,200 miles of using Castrol GTX 10W-30 and Motordraft FL-400S filters. I switched at the last oil change to the Castrol High Mileage formula. I say that my engine is officially on Geritol now.
My engine has had no internal replacements. The only service on the engine has been the regular preventative services (valve gapping, timing belt, plugs) and the corrective maintenance (sensors, seals, water pump and plug wire replacements). All of these services have been performed by myself. The engine is healthy enough to put out 236 hp and 223 lb-ft of torque on a chassis dyno at 255,800 miles this February. The oil must be doing something right.
Nowhere in the owner's manual does it say to use 20W-50. For a new engine, the 5W-30 is good from as cold as you can get to 100F. The 10W-30 is probably a better choice for most and is good down to 0F and over 100F. The manual says, "If you regularly drive in temperatures that are above 100F, use SAE 10W-30." Since none of our engiens are new any longer and the clearances have increased, I would say that the 10W-30 provides a greater amount of protection than the thinner 5W-30.
That guy you talked to from Ford was from the very old school where large engine clearances that did not let the engines last beyond 100,000 miles without a rebuild. The clearances in the SHO are tight enough that the heavy base 20W oil will limit lubrication at the critical startup time.
It is during this same time that the synthetics reveal their Achilles heel. I have heard very unsettling metal-to-metal noises at startup from more than a few SHO engines that were filled with synthetic oils. Even mine. It is not a good sound and makes me cringe to hear it. Stick with the proven thing: high quality petroleum-based oil (Castrol GTX, Valvoline, Motorcraft, Mobil) changed at 3,000 mile intervals along with a quality oil filter (not Fram).
<small>[ September 07, 2002, 10:23 PM: Message edited by: sdpatt ]</small>
SHO5
ADDICTED
I sure think amsoil is the best. I can order it through my own buisness name. I made one so i can buy it pretty cool. Anyway amsoil is the best oil out there and i use 0w-30 i live in wisconsin works really good in the winter
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