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5w30 too low viscosity?

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Renthorin

Lone Wolf
Joined
May 24, 2001
Messages
3,031
I just realized that when I changed the oil last Saturday I put in 5W30 instead of 10w40 like I usually do. DOH!

I put 20 miles on the car since then so I can always pull that oil out and put into my truck I suppose.

Is 5W30 too light for these cars? Engine has 41k on it.

Thanks,

Will
 
I think so, even thought it was the recommended weight from the factory for colder temps.
But that was really an EPA thing, not an SAE thing.
I like 10-40, 15-40, 20-50 myself depending on the season.
 
I run 5W30 all year long in all of my cars. Not an issue IMO. Mobil 1 in the turbo cars. Mobil dino in the NA motors.
 
That 5w-30 has the same viscosity as a 10w-30 once it's warmed up. The only difference is that it starts out thinner than the 10w-30 when cold so there is less cold start up wear. Do your engine a favor and leave it in there. james
 
I still have this owners manual for the GN that shows a graph, showing oil weights and temperatures and whats recommended for whatever climate. In california climate, a straight 30 weight covers anywhere from 50 degree weather to 110 degrees.
But thats relevant to the hypereutectic pistons they used from the factory which dont require thermal expansion to fill up the piston to wall clearance...since those pistons dont expand at all, you can hone the bores to .001" clearance, and have a really clean burning, non oil consuming motor. But so many people out there go with forged pistons which require more clearance since they expand so much. So at warm up temps, cold climates, and cold running engines (160 thermostats), you still have all this piston to wall clearance that hasnt been taken up by thermal expansion....and the pistons rock, the skirts crush and scuff, you have alot of blowby, the rings never properly seat, etc. Good machinists will always reference main/rod clearances by the book, so thats not an issue, and they arent as affected by operating temps. But when people go with forged pistons, theres new problems to deal with. You run an oil weight thats good for the tight rod and main clearances (TR clearances need to be tight from high cylinder pressures at low rpm), but is now wrong for a big piston to wall clearance, which shouldnt be there had the cylinders been honed to a size with operating temperature in mind. So if you run forged pistons, have the machinist run a tighter clearance on the cylinders....like .0025 to .003 and never higher, if you plan on running a 160 thermostat. Then you'll have a happy motor, when running the factory recommended weight. The manufacturers of the forged pistons want to make sure that whether you run at 160, or all the way up to 230 degrees, your pistons wont expand so much that they lock up or severely scuff....so they give this big margin of error to cover their butts. If you have your cooling system up to par, run tight clearances and you'll have a happy motor that burns clean, breaks the rings in properly and has little leakdown. I saw most forged piston manufacturers recommending up to a .005-.006" clearance on a 4" bore, yet I NEVER ran that much clearance when I honed the bores out. I usually kept it .002-.003 if they ran a cool thermostat....and I never had 1 block ever come back to me with problems. My old bosses race boat had a 427, and he had .008" clearance with his forged pistons, and the motor had terrible blowby and didnt run nearly as strong as the other boats, and when I did a quick re-ring and hone job on that block, his cylinders were out of round by .008"...!...which I couldnt fix cause he was cheap and wouldnt get the right pistons to fit a bigger bore. The cylinders were out of round because the pistons were rocking from excessive clearance, and the skirts were wearing the cylinders into an oval...and he was running a cold thermostat.......
You really need to know your piston to wall clearance to know for sure what weight to run, but in any normal climate, a 10-30 will do. With hypers and a tight p/w clearance, you could run a 5w-20, but that doesnt have the sheer strength to handle the rod and main pressures with the high combustion pressures from boost....so find a nice middle ground. If you hear a knock at all in the motor, down low inside, up the weight.
 
Vader, I'm not entirely sure where all of that came from but the question was will a 5w-30 oil hurt my engine. I only reiterate that to avoid confusion. The answer to the original question is no, it won't. A 0w-30, 5w-30, 10w-30, and straight 30w all have the same viscosity at operating temperature. The only real difference is their viscosity while cold. (the "W" portion of the grade) This number represents the base oil used. All the above oils have the same viscosity when at operating temperatures (around 10 cs if memory serves) and all of them are thicker than that when cold. The higher the first number the thicker the oil is at startup. ALL of them are too thick to work properly during cold start. The ones with the lower base number just aren't as thick at startup. HTH. james
 
Thanks for the info guys.

Point of clarification...I was not asking about 5w30 compared to 10w30.....but compared to 10w 40.....fortyyyyyy... :-)

it is a question of 30 vs 40...or even 50 but I don't run 50.


Seems like I should just leave the 30 weight in there. I did add the DDP or whatever that stuff is called too. It is Mobil 1 syn.

Will
 
I wouldn't run multi-weight conventional oil in a turbo car unless it were in the winter and you park outside. The additive that makes the oil multi-weight is the same stuff that cokes turbo bearings. That's something to think about in the coming warm weather. I use SAE 30. This is suggested in the book Maximum Boost by Corky Bell.
 
Point of clarification...I was not asking about 5w30 compared to 10w30.....but compared to 10w 40.....fortyyyyyy... :-)

it is a question of 30 vs 40...or even 50 but I don't run 50.


Will

My bad!:o I would leave the thirty in if it gives you good oil pressure. My personal philosophy is to run the lightest oil that gives me the pressure I want warm. Actually, I should say that's the philosophy I subscribe to as it was someone much smarter than myself that came up with it. ;) This ensures maximum volume across the bearings and therefore maximum cooling while maintaining adequate pressure.
 
I was giving the whole picture instead of 1 simple answer, because there is no, one simple answer. If you have forged pistons where the machinist honed the cylinders out to the "recommended" clearance, say .005-.006", and throw in a 0W-20, you wont have enough sheer strength to protect the pistons, rings and bores. Its too thin....its ability to build up and thicken enough to take up large clearances isnt there. And running a 160 degree thermostat is going to be somewhat like running a cold engine all the time, where nothing has expanded enough to fill the "gaps". If you're running a large P/W clearance, I always suggest a thicker oil and a higher temp thermostat, at least a 180, so the pistons expand. Recommended oil weights are based on thermal expansion, a direct result of the actual running temperature of the motor. When the engine is cold, the oil is cold. Is the weight of the cold oil, thick enough to build up enough layers of oil molecules for bonding or adhesion to other oil molecules? It meeds to be thick enough to "build up" thick enough, to take up the "gap", and maintain the gap under pressure. A thin oil wont do that if the clearances or "gaps" are too large.
So once again, your clearances dictate the weight. Theres no "lets play around with different oils and see what happens". You run too thin of an oil for your clearances, you will damage the motor. Too thick, and it will accumulate to the top of the motor, limiting drainback and emptying the oil pan (you dont want that at 5000rpm), for one example, and another is that if you run tight clearances (mains and rods on turbo buick motors), the bonded molecules are too large to pass through the "gaps"....believe it or not (thats why synthetics are better...all molecules are small and all the same size where conventional oil has a bunch of randomly sized molecules...the large molecules build up at leading edges and can actually "block" in a way, the smaller ones from passing properly into a given gap.) Flow through those points is limited....but that thicker oil is exactly what you need if you're running too much P/W clearance. Thats why I say machining is the dictate for what you run in terms of oil weight. If the clearances are wrong, run any oil you want and your engine wont last no matter what you run. Theres no simple answer. Has your engine been rebuilt? What does it have and does the machinist have a log of all clearances your motor has, like he should have? What temp do you run your motor at? There are many good reasons to run a straight weight oil.
By the way, Ive never seen an oil get thicker when it's hotter...or anything. It gets thinner. The oil needs to be thick at startup (not thin so it pumps faster!) to take up the large clearances you have when the motor is cold. It needs to be thin enough when the motors hot, to fill the gaps as they get smaller. Alot of people have the weight thing backward.
 
By the way, Ive never seen an oil get thicker when it's hotter...or anything. It gets thinner. The oil needs to be thick at startup (not thin so it pumps faster!) to take up the large clearances you have when the motor is cold. It needs to be thin enough when the motors hot, to fill the gaps as they get smaller. Alot of people have the weight thing backward.

I've never seen (or heard) of an oil getting thicker as it gets hotter either. :wink: That said a 0w-30 is thicker when cold than a straight 30w is when hot. Both a straight 30w AND a straight 0w would be too thick to work properly in an engine while cold. The reason they came up with multi weight oil in the first place is so the oil would flow better when cold but still have the correct viscosity when hot. So, in summation, a 0w-30 oil is still VERY thick when cold, but when it gets hot instead of thinning out to water it has the same viscosity that a 30w oil would at that temp. This helps with cold start wear while still providing the desired oil characteristics at operating temperature. FWIW if they could make car oil that maintained the desired viscosity from cold to hot they would. They can't, which is why they keep using lighter base oils in multi weights. It's better than nothing.
 
Lol so much misinformation in this thread. Scary that people own high performance vehicles when they don't understand how oil works.
 
Renthorin, no worries, you will be fine.

Do you still have the factory oil cooler??

Engine oil temperature is a big factor in what weight oil you can run and I'd bet that your coolant temps are never over 180 and your engine oil temps are never over 200 if you have the stock cooler.
 
I run Penzoil SAE 5W-40 European Full Synthetic. No problems. Low visc. at low temps and high visc. at high temps. This product is designed for turbo charged European cars like Porshe and Ferrari. I also add Kirbans ZDDP plus as well. My 2 cents. Good luck. Brad
 
Hey Dr. (I have an itch) just kidding...no really I do have an itch...

Yeah, the motor is stock except for cold air kit and breathers. Oil cooler is right where it should be :-)

My coolant temps never rise above 180 even idling in the sun during the summer.

I guess I will keep it in there and keep an eye on the oil psi like I do anyway.

Thanks for the input guys.
 
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