I have an 86gt with 137k miles on it. It has always ran on regular old oil. Is it a good idea to switch to synthetic now? What weight should I use?

I also have a hose that attaches to my oil pan where the oil plug was. The fitting seems to be welded on and you just screw the hose on. It getsreally bad flow out of this hose. Is the hose a stock component and if not does anybody know what I am talking about and where I can find some documentation on the hose

The hose sounds like the quick drains we have on our commercial welders & generators. Does it look like a black tube you turn and then pull out? Might say Donaldson on it.

They're fine, but somewhat useless on a car. I'd just slap a normal plug back in (magnetic if you can find one).

As for oil - with THAT many miles on it, I'd stick with "dino" oil vs. synth. Might start to wash crud out of places you want it to stay (ring lands, etc).
If you rebuild, then use it after ~1000 miles of run in.

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87/88 V6 5spd "FormulaGT" Turbo, 88 Formula
My page:
http://www.fierohut.com

If you switch to synthetic it could be good or bad. Some of the synthetics would cause oil leaks because they didn't have the properties that swelled the old seals, not really an issue anymore. MobilOne has a pretty aggressive detergent package and will clean a bunch of carbonized crud out of the rings/lifters etc... good and bad. If the sludge buildup is what is sealing your engine, you may find yourself having a nice purple cloud of burning oil following you around and your oil consumption goes up. I've had customers that burned oil visibly after switching to 0W-20 for clattering lifter issues due to extended oil drain intervals... and then burned a couple of quarts in 3K miles. Did another oil change, burned a quart. One more and the smoke was gone and the oil consumption stopped completely. Concluded that the Mobil1 synthetic finally cleaned all the crap out of the rings and basically let them reseat correctly. The use of 0w/20 was to act as a flush for the sludged up noisy lifters, took about 20 minutes of running to shut them up and they were fine after that. Next oil change it looked like the oil came out of a diesel and we went back to normal viscosity Mobile One.

quote Does it look like a black tube you turn and then pull out?

The hose is orange and the fitting screws on. Someone told me it was K&N but I can't find anything about it on their site and there isn't any just pulling it off. The male adapter looks like it is welded on so if I want it off I'll have to replace the oilpan.


Thanks for the info on the oil guys. It was just what I was looking for.

[This message has been edited by muert0 (edited 08-20-2006).]