question on going from conventional oil to synthetic on smaller engines

[MRTOES]

JJeff brought up some painful memories about switching oils in small engines that had only used non-detergent oil for years. In my experience....more than once you will suddenly get lots of smoke and oil usage. It appears to be from valve guides which are of a porous bronze material being "cleaned out" with the new oil and suddenly permitting much more passage into the combustion chamber. Have had it happen after switching on engines with new rings and valve seals and several hours of use on regular oil as well on other engines.

 

[Bentrim]

Here are the oil recommendations from the manufacturers. Note some are semi synthetic and some are full synthetic, yet others are regular oil.

Best to follow the recommendations of the the manufacturer, some of the newer and the big blocks require synthetics. Some even give the choice of regular or synthetic. Be aware most small engine manufacturers recommend an oil with added zinc. Zinc is especially more important for the valve lifters, it was reduced in automotive oils because of emissions, so automotive manufacturers went to roller lifters to reduce cam/lifter failures.

https://resources.kohler.com/power/kohler/enginesUS/pdf/Oil_Sellsheet.pdf

What type and how much oil for my lawn mower? | Briggs & Stratton

Let Briggs & Stratton help you find how much and what type of oil to use for your lawn mower. Choose the best oil for your engine with the Oil finder tool.

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Kawasaki Oil Change Reference Chart

Kawasaki KTECH™ 4-Cycle Engine Oil | Kawasaki Engines USA

Designed to keep today’s high-performance, low-emission engines operating at peak efficiency, KTECH 4-Cycle Engine Oil also contains zinc additives that help prevent excess wear on engine parts.

kawasakienginesusa.com

 

[Elviscaretaker]

DMW, this quote below is from a retired FORD mechanic of 38 yrs after seeing 1000's & 1000's of EcoBoost [EB] Direct Inject [DI] engines and noting the types of synthetic oil that was used. I asked him what Synthetic oil I should be using:


"Let me put it this way, IF I had an EB engine, there's only one oil I would put in it= Pennzoil Ultra 5w-30. It has the lowest NOACK of all of the oils including the high dollar boutique oils. It's not a cheap date and finding it is another issue. If you cannot find it, Quaker State is right there. For any DI engine, it's imperative to use an oil that yields fewer particulates to the PCV system as it ends up in the intake with no means of removal. Ultra yields the lowest. Here's a list of how the oils stack up.


Pennzoil Ultra 6.6%
Mobil One 10.1%
PLatinum 9.3
SynPower 11.6
Super Tech 11.1
Royal Purple 10.9
Quaker State Ultimate 8.8
Lucas Synthetic 14.9 (almost out of spec at 15%)
Kendall GT W/Titanium 10.9
Formula Shell 9.7
Castrol Edge 11.1
Amsoil OE 10.9
MotorCraft Blend 14.3"

End of quote.

Maybe I do not go with QS for the farm stuff, but it's been great for my F-150 and is readily available.

If you are running a EB engine I'd highly recommend putting a catch can on it. Some of the newer versions have put in fuel washes for the intake which help, but not that much.

 

[5030]

I run it in my compressor pump also.

I don't. In the Quincy QP reciprocating compressor, I run Rarus compressor oil and in the Sullaire screw compressor, I run their oil.

 

[jjeff]

I don't. In the Quincy QP reciprocating compressor, I run Rarus compressor oil and in the Sullaire screw compressor, I run their oil.

If I had a higher end compressor I'd probably run those oils also or ams compressor oil at minimum.

 

[Grumpycat]

The "5" is the thin. The "40" is the thick.
10w30 or maybe 20w40.

The W number only indicates how cold it can be for the oil to still flow. It doesn't say anything about viscosity between the cold temperature ant 100°C other than it must not have an inflection point. The oil must progress to thinner viscosity as temperature rises, but this curve is not defined.

The W is not rated at 0°C as many wrongly claim. 5W is an oil which is rated to flow at -30°C. 10W is only good to -25°C.

SAE J300 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

5W means the oil flows at the same cold temperature as what was originally considered a straight 5 weight oil. W indicates "winter" not weight.

The 2nd number indicates oil viscosity at 100°C, considered nominal operating temperature. It is assigned to indicate similar viscosity as a straight weight oil at 100°C.

 

[Grumpycat]

Here are the oil recommendations from the manufacturers. Note some are semi synthetic and some are full synthetic, yet others are regular oil.

Best to follow the recommendations of the the manufacturer, some of the newer and the big blocks require synthetics.

Some manufactures "say" that but there is no industry performance test for which a "synthetic" motor oil must pass to be sold as synthetic. Prove me wrong.

"Everybody knows" synthetic is better! But there is no legal or regulatory performance standard requiring synthetic to be "better". The only criteria in the USA was when Mobil-1 sued Castrol over Syntec being a hyper-refined oil not an assembled synthetic motor oil. The case was held in an independent court of binding arbitration (the judges were not government). The ruling found Syntec was significantly different from refined motor oil and therefore qualifies to wear the marketing label of "synthetic".

There is no doubt synthetic manufacturing processes can produce a superior motor oil. Is just that there is no industry standard holding the manufacturer's feet to the fire to make a superior product.

There are industry standards for which no refined motor oil has passed (possibly just not submitted to the test) but there are no reputable industry standards which require synthetic manufacturing as part of the spec.

 

[AnotherBueller]

The "5" is the thin. The "40" is the thick.
10w30 or maybe 20w40.

5W30 means it's the same as 5 viscosity when it's cold and the 30 means it's the same viscosity (thickness) as 30 when it gets hot.
Jet engines can ONLY run synthetic as the normal oil operating temp is around 500 F.

 

[AnotherBueller]

Wow so many answers. Let me give you the bad news, your oil sucks. Now the good news, you switch from conventional to synthetic and back and forth and mix them it won’t hurt anything. Now for the sales pitch. Save your money changing oil so often and get the best oil you can buy, amsoil. Use it once a year or every 25k in your truck and once a season for off road equipment. Oh and use their two stroke in all your smokers at 100:1 and make all your stuff last longer.

See post #11

 

[Grumpycat]

The "5" is the thin. The "40" is the thick.
10w30 or maybe 20w40.

Actually the opposite.

At the rating temperatures the "5" is molasses while the "40" is pretty darn thin.

The 5 is assigned based on the lowest temperature they think a reasonably designed engine could pump oil to bearings. 5W is -30°C.