i know the topic has probley been talk about over and over again so sorry but iv been thinking of switching m camaros oil to royal purple synthetic but iv herd alot of people say u need to flush the engine when u switch to synthetic but then iv herd people talk bad about flushing the engine so i was just wondering 1st do u even need to flush when switching to royal purple 2nd is it good to use a engine flush. also the car has about 288,xxx miles on it and i was wondering what kind of additives should i use (zmax,restore ect..) or if i should use eny

just tryin to get some clear anwers.thanks

 

mmk.. first of all synthetic is just as its name states its oil.. just not mineral based.. the theory (as i know of) behind flushing is that when you use mineral base oil for a long time and also knowing you never really can drain every oz. of oil from an engine is that mixing base stock and synthetic causes foaming.... YES BACK ABOUT 10-15 YEARS AGO WHEN SYNTHETIC FIRST CAME OUT.. nowadays synthetic is better formulated i go from vr1 racing 20w50 (mineral base) for 3 months to q force horsepower 10w40 (full synthetic) for 3 months then back again (dont ask why i dont exactly know i think i have ocd) with no problems.. and if you think it may be a problem try 1 or two changes with a synthetic blend oil to get your motor used to it then go full synthetic.... as for additives most everything out there CRAP never ever use anything with teflon its a sham to lure in idiots that dont know how teflon works and in the end may end up harming an engine.. the only thing i put in my engine is lucas oil its 100% petrolium and its a STABILIZER not some wonder addative... as for a flush your looking at 288k miles thats alot like alot alot putting detergants (flushes) into your engine with that kind of mileage will clean it just liek they say but some things clean too good and you could run the risk of plogging your oil pump or oil galleries resulting in much pain for your wallet and your car

 

If you got 288,xxx miles I wouldn't change a thing...

 

If you're that close to 300K miles, you probably have gunk oil deposits stopping up potential leaks in your gaskets, rings, etc. If you switch to synthetic, you might just find a bunch of new leaks. If I were you, I'd just keep on doing what you're doing and save the synthetic for after the rebuild.

 

that gunk deposit was exactly where i was going with the flush thing.. but what does switching to synthetic have to do with it? its just a non petrolium based oil with the same addatives as mineral based oil.. the non mineral base supposedly can last longer as its man made.. but as for its sealing capability and detergents/addatives inside the oil itself is for the most part the same as other brands with some (very few) being much better than others.. like q force and royal purple for example

 

I would not change oils now. I have seen older engines that when switched over to synthetic started burning and leaking oil like qrazy. A buddy of mine has been doing some dyno testing on GM round track crate engines and has seen better power from shell rotella that high dollar racing oil. 6 to 8 hp on average.

 

Whew, almost everything you say here contains some sort of error, how to sort through it all?
Use the words "lubricant" and "petroleum", and you'll be a lot closer to technically correct. A true synthetic is synthesized from chemical base stocks, rather than refined like petroleum and Group 3 "synthetics".
Completely wrong. The reason for "flushing" is to clean out the deposits left by the petroleum-based products degradation. Mixing petroleum based and synthetic based lubricants never caused "foaming". The only issue with mixing is diluting the properties and benefits of the synthetic with the petroleum.

There were some graphite type lubricants that were not compatible with conventional petroleum-based lubes, but I haven't seen any of them for years. Today, any product you see on the shelf, whether petroleum, Group 3, or Group 4, will be compatible with the others.
You lost me completely here. AMSOIL came out in 1971, which was, what, about 37 years ago? I've been using it since 1983. Mobil 1 came out in 1975. Where did you come up with 10-15 years, and what does it have to do with anything?

BTW, Q-Force is a cheap Group 3 "synthetic", kind of like "genuine diamels".
You don't have to get the motor "used" to synthetic. What you need to do is clean it out.
Please include Lucas in that "CRAP" classification. And, they do have a synthetic stabilizer (do you know what "stabilizer" really means?).

There isn't a single oil manufacturer that recommends using an oil additive with their product, and for good reason.
Nothing cleans "too good". You might loosen too much at one time, but if that's the case, the engine can't be considered to be mechanically sound, anyway. And, you loosen stuff up every time you change the oil, even with petroleum-based lubes.

If you have questions about whether or not to convert to synthetic because of high mileage deposits, pull your valve covers and see what they look like. If there are heavy deposits from petroleum-based lube break-down, your choices are to continue using petroleum-based products and run it with regular changes until the engine finally wears out, or clean out the crud. If you chose to clean out the crud, I'd recommend pulling the intake and oil pan as well and scraping everything clean. Then run a quality flush product after you put it back together, and if the engine really does have low enough wear to consider synthetic, go ahead and use it.

 

thanks for the help everone and as far as not switching the oil because it has 288,000 miles im not to worrid about it causing problems because up until my sister got the car a few years ago from our grandpa its had synthetic for most of it life (probley y its lasted so long) but for some reson my sister got it change to conventional and i just thought id switch it back

 

well i do stand corrected ... everything i said came from my notes from class (preventative maintanance 3 semesters ago) so i figured what i had learned may help.. apparently i was wrong but at least ive learned some things... and i had no idea lucas made a synthetic honestly ive only seen their usual "oil" their power steering stop leak and their transmission stop leak. i apologize for anything i have said that was misleading i was just goin by what the head tech says lol...

 

wow you need to go to a new school... at my school (Texas State Technical College) we were taught besicaly everything that five7kid said.... yeah if you have alot of miles on an engine and you switch to a synthetic it will likely break loos alot of gunk that might have been helping to seal there for creating alot of leaks...and if u are gonna switch to a synthetic dont wast your time on Royal Purple its not that good dont be a sheep and just follow the herd... go for MOBIL 1 full synthetic, it passes alot more industry tests then Royal Crap.... keep up the schoolin five7

 

Just to make a point Royal Triton (a full synthetic) (now called ROYAL PURPLE) came out in the 1940's.

When people were saying: Mobil what!

 

I use plan old 10-40 in my 91 rs camaro. It has over 500,000 miles on it now.

 

yeah but MOBIL 1 passes industry tests in some of the most powerful production motors out there, it takes one hell of a beating and still does its job,,,best oil by far...trust me we spent 4 hrs discussing what makes an oil good and rating and comparing different brands all in all the top 3 were mobil 1, castrol full synthetic, and valvoline full synthetic, royal purple was somewhere in the middle right along side castrol gtx, not bad oil but far from the best.... just gets pluged alot by performance shows doesnt mean its good.....