deposits buildup and why I'm switching to synthetic

gnuman · Post by **gnuman** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 9:42 pm

For a while now I have heard this loud tapping at low RPMs and I was worried that I had the infamous "Tick of Death". Then I read (either here or USMB) where someone had the ball valve on the bottom of one of the lash adjusters stuck in place with deposits. My engine has 160;000 miles on it now, and I'm sure that there is lots of buildup of this kind of stuff in my engine. Or at least there was. I know you all say that you should never use SeaFoam on the oil, but I did, and drove it that way for a full tank of gas (about 300 mi), driving normally, which means not being real timid on the accelerator. . . I did this to move as much of the SeaFoam around to as many places as possable, and it worked. That ticking is gone now, and the engine runs nice and smooth. Next up is two oil changes in close order: One to flush out the Seafoam (and capture any that is left over), and the next will be my switch to synthetic (Plan on using Mobil 1, as I have heard a lot of good things about it). I will be driving extensively this summer, so I need the best oil I can get into my engine, and I need it to go everywhere in the engine as well. What the Seafoam started (as far as getting rid of the deposits) the synthetic will finish up over time. You may all now feel free to lambast me for taking such an extreme measure to clean out my engine, or offer advice on better synthetic oils out there.

Post by **Legacy777** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 12:12 am

who's told you not to use seafoam in the oil?

BAC5.2 · Post by **BAC5.2** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 12:15 am

You may want to consider replacing as many seals as you can reach with the engine in the car before switching to synthetic. More a "while your in there" maintainence.

gnuman · Post by **gnuman** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 4:31 am

Josh, most of the screaming about not putting SeaFoam in the oil has been on USMB (you know how they are sometimes).

BAC5.2, I will replace the seals as they fail. I do not have the cash to replace a whole bunch of stuff at once. . . I actually plan on getting an engine from PickNPull to tear down and keep as a spare in case this one starts to fail. when the swap happens, I will tear down this one and replace all worn parts on it as well. . .

legacymax · Post by **legacymax** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 7:08 am

won't switching to synthetic this late in the engine's life make oil start leaking from everywhere? I don't see the need to switch from regular oil.
-max

BAC5.2 · Post by **BAC5.2** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 7:53 am

legacymax wrote:won't switching to synthetic this late in the engine's life make oil start leaking from everywhere? I don't see the need to switch from regular oil.
-max

Supposedly it removes the varnish that's been built up over the years, and this exposes seals that have not seen fresh oil in a lot of miles.

Some people don't have this problem (likely due to how they drive) and some people do.

free5ty1e · Post by **free5ty1e** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 11:16 am

<--using mobil 1 synthetic since the first oil change I had control over, still have 4 out of 5 of my oil quarts each 5000km oil change. (Don't you love mixing the english and metric systems in a single sentence?)

My rear main seal was even good, when I checked behind the flywheel last weekend. I was impressed.

entirelyturbo · Post by **entirelyturbo** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 3:35 pm

It's rare for Subies to leak from the rear mains. All my Subies are bone-dry back there, and I believe Josh said his was dry at 180k when he was doing his 5MT swap, although he changed it anyway.

Cam, crank, valve covers, and the like aren't seals you have to worry about when switching to synthetic. Valve guides are. They might leak when you switch to synthetic, then you'll be burning oil, and those seals aren't as easy to replace as the others.

free5ty1e · Post by **free5ty1e** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 4:17 pm

Werd.

Still haven't seen under my valve covers yet. That's a project for another day.

dzx · Post by **dzx** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 8:21 pm

Your going to get a lot more blowby with synthetic oil. Also your seals will leak if they are in bad condition. I tried royal purple a year or so ago. The car wasn't leaking oil before but when i put it in there damn...front main seal was leaking pretty damn good, I noticed it when there was the clicking lifters and had to put oil in it every once in a while until i could replace the seal. I tried synthetic again recently with my newer engine which has all good seals but got tons of blowby and a great deal of oil in the intercooler...so good luck, you'll probably need it.

skid542 · Post by **skid542** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 9:25 pm

I used the seafoam in the intake and put it in the oil and drove it for 500 miles before doing an oil change. The seafoam helped the overall health of my engine considerably and I didn't experience any troubles with oil leaking. However a few changes later when I went to synthetic I started getting leaks. It took it a little before the leaks started but since I've switched back to dino the leaks have slowed some. They still leak, pretty sure it's the valve covers, or at least most of it, but I do contribute my sudden leaking to switching to synthetic after 190k miles. Just my experiences.

hackish · Post by **hackish** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 6:44 pm

Personally I think a lot of this "switching to synthetic" arguing is from internet parrots. I often hear these comments from people who couldn't change their own sparkplugs with a "for idiots manual"

I've switched many high mileage engines to synthetic with absolutely 0 problems. I think this myth comes from old engines that used organic seals. There are numerous articles about this and the majority of synthetic oil producers agree. (Obviously they want you to use their product)

-Michael

tris91ricer · Post by **tris91ricer** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 7:06 pm

hackish wrote:Personally I think a lot of this "switching to synthetic" arguing is from internet parrots. I often hear these comments from people who couldn't change their own sparkplugs with a "for idiots manual"

..and that's how you get on the LCO shitlist.

hackish · Post by **hackish** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:33 pm

91legacy_sleeper wrote:
hackish wrote:Personally I think a lot of this "switching to synthetic" arguing is from internet parrots. I often hear these comments from people who couldn't change their own sparkplugs with a "for idiots manual"

..and that's how you get on the LCO shitlist.

Whether you choose to accept it or not, most of the times this topic comes up on the internet you have people citing the same facts they heard from somewhere or read somewhere on the internet.

These same people who are claiming that all your oil seals have dried out over time don't even know what an oil seal looks like or which oil seals these may be.

If you have a problem with deposits built up in your seals then that really means you weren't changing your oil often enough in the first place. Furthermore the FMS and cam seals should be replaced with your timing belt. RMS is often done with the clutch so this phantom deposit buildup shouldn't be occurring in these places. What are these deposits made out of anyway?

If switching to synthetic really caused your engine to start pissing oil everywhere then these are the areas where I would expect them to leak. There are always exceptions but these are the facts of the matter. If the argument were really based on some facts then I'd like to hear more than just "oh it's going to start leaking".

So where does this advice come from and what is it really based on? That's what my internet parrot comments are about.

-Michael

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:50 pm

I don't think people know why their engines start leaking, just that they do and the removed deposits claim is merely conjecture. From my personal experience, I feel the reason was the less surface tension of the synth making a small problem much larger (you should've seen it with the 0W Mobil 1 I tried briefly).

For whatever reason you want to give, my 1983 GL had very real very major leakage after switching at 100k and 13 years from valve covers, and front and rear mains. Previously the car had minimal leakage. I think I know a thing or three about what an oil seal is.

Steve

IronMonkeyL255 · Post by **IronMonkeyL255** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:55 pm

I don't know jack, so I won't say anything useful.

I, too, have heard that switching to synth after many miles would cause leakage. I haven't done it, though, so I won't vouch for the accuracy of this statement.

Project_Legacy · Post by **Project_Legacy** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 12:01 am

ive done it at 195k miles. everything looks the same to me. im due for another oil change in a few days now...

FreddexTurbo2Go · Post by **FreddexTurbo2Go** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 12:33 am

I never heard about Synthetic oil causing oil leaks until it was too late. I agree with dzx. My car didn't even have high mileage. The low 100,000 km's when I switched. Engine was always dry which I was proud of. Decided to switch as I heard it's better for the turbo. After my first synthetic oil change I noticed an obvious leak around one of my valve covers aswell as the oil spout. I know it's not a coincedence that this leak started when it did. I still used it for about a year but have since switched back to the regular stuff.

I say don't waste your money on expensive oil that may/will make your car can start leaking oil!!! My 2 cents.

dzx · Post by **dzx** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 3:09 am

Yeh, I didnt hear this from somebody, i found this out myself. I spent about 40 dollars on royal purple synthetic oil and a couple hundred miles down the road it was all gone, having leaked out and the lifters were clicking.

As for these "phatom" deposits, its called carbon. The leaking isn't cause by just the front and rear main seals, more of it gets around the piston rings and causes larger amounts of blowby.

hackish · Post by **hackish** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 6:51 am

First of all switching to a 0 weight oil is going to be a major change for the engine. 0 weight has a totally different cold viscosity than a 5w or 10w oil. So I would have to say that your oil leak being caused by synthetic oil is not necessarily a clear relationship.

Now oil getting past the rings will be oil burned out the tailpipe not dripped from your engine. If you consumed all your oil in a few hundred miles then there must have been a very serious problem. My little sister over-revved our honda shifting from 5th to 2nd gear and wrapping it past 9,000 RPM. I presume this was the cause of a broken ring. We drove the car to California and back blowing out ozone depleting clouds of blue honda exhaust. It consumed about 1l per 500km and was very noticeable. I can't imagine what 5l in a few hundred miles would have been like.

The oil producers and the carmakers have repeatedly published that there is no problem with using either type of oil. I would think that if switching to synthetic at 100,000 miles would result in your engine starting to burn oil or piss it all over the ground then there would be a TSB about it.

I have a 1992 Legacy Turbo. It has 300,000 on the engine and as soon as I get it running I'll be switching it to Mobil One 5W30 or 5W50 so I'll have to see if one more makes any differnce for me.

Finally I've dug up a few articles about myths surrounding synthetics.
http://www.lube4u.com/tenmythsaboutsynt ... cation.htm
http://list.miata.net/miata/1995-09/465.html

Finally this book goes in depth and technical about how oils are produced and what chemical and mechanical characteristics each has.
http://www.trustmymechanic.com/motor-oil-bible.pdf

-Michael

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 5:53 pm

I switched to 10W and went to 0W about a year later just to check it out. The car started major leakage with the 10W.

Steve

dzx · Post by **dzx** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 2:06 am

The oil getting around the rings gets into the causes more blowby which deposits the oil into the intercooler...if you have one. Also speaking to the performance subaru tecs here and they agree that its not the best to run on a high mile engine thats seen mostly fossil fuels. I never used 0W oil in my car. I noticed the same problem in my blue legacy when i switched to synthetic in it. Maybe some cars can handle it better than others, but neither of mine have been able to and a lot of other people i know have experienced the same thing.

Post by **Legacy777** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 3:42 am

You need to run what the manufacturer specifies. Newer cars have tighter tolerences, and therefore can run 5w30 and 0w30 oils.

Our cars, they're really not meant to. The owner's manual even says "SAE 5W-30 is not recommended for sustained high-speed driving."

scan

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 5:20 am

0W wasn't even around until 15 years after my old car was built so I called Mobil 1 and they said there would be no problem as far as oil pressure or lubrication. For whatever that's worth. Stuff pours like water.

Steve

free5ty1e · Post by **free5ty1e** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 12:53 pm

10W30 is good, mmkay?

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deposits buildup and why I'm switching to synthetic

deposits buildup and why I'm switching to synthetic