it is time for my opil change ahd i have been reading up on proper maintanance on Z's.....A lot of ppl say that synthetic motor oil is bad for the engine but i have used it on all my previous cars and it has actually made the car run a little smoother. I would just like to know the pros and cons of using a synthetic motor oil on the VQ30de. I am a little past due on the oil change because i get different replies. Please help !!!

 

id like to know this too, cause thats what we run in all our cars at home

 

Synthetic should be good for your engine actually. I use castrol syntec synthetic blend and love it!

 

ive always used mobil 1 synthetic. have you ever tried that?

 

well i wanted to get a few more experienced Z owners inputs so i can make my final decision. I wouldn't want to risk weakening the life of the engine due to my ill knowledged choices. Anyone against synthetic here ???

 

from what i have read in magazines, synthetic is better in every single way

 

i concur......but wanted to be sure. I also do own a S14 and i been using synthetic on my KA for as long as i owned the thing and it runs great. Im pretty new to the Z community and would like to have the proper knowledge.

 

Also what weight and what kind is most common with Z owners ???

 

Well it depends on what u have done to your car. If your car is stock, then just use the delear suggested one( I think its castrol syntec) If you have mods then try Q from quaker state, mobil 1, or motul 8100. If you are gonna track your car then u should step up to a full race oil such as the Motul 300W. My 2cents. BTW I use the 300W cuz it makes the car run really smooth and I track it every now and then. But its awesome on the street.

 

Nissan told me to wait until I had 10,000mi. on the car before I started using synthetic. They said that the piston rings had to seat properly. After that you'll be fine. It is a far superior protectant then conventional oil, hence the fact that it won't even allow enough friction to let the rings seat properly. I used Mobil 1 on my last car with no probs.

 

what weight?

 

5W-30 Mobil 1 Full Synthetic is recommended

 

thanks, i have 5 quarts at home for my old car

 

They are hoping to get you back for one or two regular oil changes before they lose you to synthetic. We're not talking about engines built back in the 1970s- today's engines are manufactured to much tighter specs. I ran the OEM oil for 1500 miles and then switched to a syn blend for 1000 more. By 2500, I was full Amsoil synthetic and any initial wear that was swallowed up by the first two fills had been drained and was gone. I put 6-8000 miles per season on my Z (stored winters) and when I change oil before storage, it looks just like when I filled it.
BTW- Mobil 1 is a fine choice for readily available syn oil, but Amsoil, Redline or Royal Purple have better specs overall. Of course, there are others, Motul, etc. that are more difficult to find.

 

There are more than 500 "best oil" posts. Sorry but I have nothing new to add.

 

I waited until 12k and then switched to Mobil 1. I noticed that things felt a bit smoother once I did.

 

i've used redline, royal purple, mobil 1, motul 300, and castrol syntec....they all work the same

 

I did a search on this a while ago, and I read many of posts with people saying that the synthetic seemed to just disappear out of the engine. No leaks no noticeable burning. It's going somewhere but there were enough of these posts to make it semi-credible. Do a search and see what I’m talking about.

 

synthetic is much better for your car than fossil fuel based oil. It doesn't oxidize over time, which prevents the oil from attaching to your internal parts.

 

I'm sure you can use google and find plenty of helpful information regarding synthetic vs regular(fossil based) oils. But synthetics really are better. They are designed from the start to be the best possible lubricate, and as such, they have higher heat tolerances than reg oil. Additionally, and this is a big one, the molecule sizes for synthetic oils are all the same, where as in regular oil, there are different sized molecules. To help you visualize what that means, think of all the molecules of oil as marbles between 2 flat surfaces. If you have all the same size marble, then you dont get hot spots, and you have more even wear on the surface of the parts. Where as if you had different size marbles, the surfaces would be a bit more wobbly, more heat on the larger molecules, etc.

Also, my dad has some pictures from inside the garage at Indy 500, and they had Mobil 1 bottles all over the place, so that's what I always use.