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[quote=”JGlenn” post=173740]I have 1980 Pontiac Trans Am Firebird 4.9 Liter. The previously owner that owned the car, he re-worked the whole engine blocked, piston heads, piston rings. Anyways, I want to change the engine oil should i do Conventionally or Full Synthetic?[/quote]
personally I would use Conventionally not really any need for Full Synthetic, unless the manual says so… but a 80 I really dout it…With a vehicle that old.
Changing over to full synthetic oil may cause more trouble than good.
Considering the age of all the seals and gaskets, you may provoke oil leaks where you hand none before due to the way full synthetic flows.
A good quality conventional oil and the proper weight and grade along with regular changes will do fine.I understand the engine has been re worked, but I am of the opinion that you put in what the manufacturer called for.
Karl
I usually run synthetic oil, mostly because my kids don’t track how many miles are on the oil, so it may only get changed once a year.
As Erick mentioned there are full and partial synthetic oils, and the oil base stock are created in different ways. I don’t have the specifics in front of me, but some (majority) base stocks (Groups 1, 2, and 3) are refined from regular crude oil, I think some Group 3 are marketed as synthetic?
Group 4 and 5 base stock oils are considered pure synthetics. There is a ton of info on the differences when you search the web.
In addition to the quality of the base stock is the “additive” package(s), and they all seem to vary in the amounts of additives added.I saw an old technical paper where the cheap Wal-Mart oil had a “good” (in quantity) of chemicals in the additive package, but it did not mention the grade of the base oil, but it was recommended as a good value?
If you have a diesel, you will have noticed that the cost of diesel (CJ-4) oil has really went up compared to the older CI-4 oil. Because of emission requirements, the diesel oils changed their service rating, and no longer have as much “additives”, but to get the required service life, they use a higher quality base oil stock (as I have been told.)Oil ahh, a lubrication issue. No seriously tho, a high mileage conventional oil will do the dirty deed to keep her healthy and hard. Blends are so inexpensive these days, there’s almost no reason not to use them out of the gate if you bought a new Camry, for eg, instead of wasting money on full synthetic or risking a 100% conventional oil that will never hurt your engine anyway and… Sarcasm is playing a part here. If your engine isn’t restricted to full synthetic by the book, you’re open to experiment.
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