Synthetic Oil

So I'm thinking of starting to do my own oil changes and was contemplating switching to synthetic oil....but I have heard different stories. Some say it helps older motors over 100k miles and some people say it hurts older motors. Not sure who to listen to.
My other question is....is the oil pan removable or is there a filter in there? If I do switch to synthetic I want to make sure there isn't a lot of sludge or build up sitting in the bottom of the pan.
Trying to get the car ready for Vegas and hoping this might get a gain in mpg's. I figure on a long trip like that every little bit will help save money in the long run.

from what i understand and have been told, there's no real reason to switch over to synthetic unless you have a heavily modified vehicle. You're supposedly able to go 6k or 6 months in between oil changes with synthetic and 3k or 3 months with reg. oil. While the lesser frequent oil changes required from synthetic may seem more appealing, it is better to do more frequent oil changes bottom line. Considering that you drive a honda, and hondas are generally internally built to just about their max potential stock, i doubt that switchin over to synthetic will yield any significant gains in mpg.

Some people just like the idea of using the "best" stuff for their cars maybe for more than just a piece of mind. While others figure that today's conventional oils are more than sufficient.

synthetic oil is good oil basically what synthetic oil is its engineered oil it moves more free agienst
itself and that is why it doesn't build up as much sludge and carbon believe it or not there is synthetic high mileage oil out there i have 150,000 on my d16z6 and i notice a big diffrance in my performance and gas mileage i use mobile 1 530 every 3000 miles and have never had a problem with my car to this day besides my clutch so i would say if you love your car go with better oil but just make sure you get a good oil filter too mobil 1 ,wix,k&n ,purolator anything micron really

look it up on castrol site or mobil 1

I changed to it when I bought the Sol when it had 136K on it and haven't had an oil related problem with it yet.

It's going to protect and help your engine perform better whether you realize it or not. Plus, if you're doing the changes yourself the cost ends up being a wash, so why not?

I think I am going to switch. At Wal Mart you can get a 5 quart jug of just about any brand synthetic oil for right around $20.00 and a few bucks for a filter. That puts me around the same price as conventional oil if I go to Jiffy Lube (which usually ends up around $30)
So how about the oil pan?....does it come off for cleaning/is there a filter in there or don't mess with it? Maybe just run a motor flush through before switching?

You can clean your pan out if you want to go the extra mile, but the dino sludge will eventually work its way out with continual changes with synthetic. I didn't clean my pan out and when I had to drop it to replace the gasket after 30K of synthetic it was as clean as if I'd done it myself.

Oh, and don't buy the Wal-Mart filters (Fram) they're about as bad as you can get. Buy a Napa Gold, Purolator, Mobil 1 or K&N... or hell, even a Honda OEM filter is better than Fram.

i switched to synthetic blend oil about 2-3 years ago, now i just changed my oil and swithed to the red bottle at wal-mart which is valvoline max life, for engines over 75k miles, which is also synthetic blend oil, plus i also switched my oil filter to, k and n perfomance gold oil filter(bought at auto zone), and that only needs to be changed every other oil change, plus it filters your oil a lot better. i feel my car running a lot better now, i can feel the difference. ecspecially because my car is at 184k miles.

you dont have to clean the oil pan, just run your car alittle just to get the oil warmed up for a easier drain, it helps with less oil being left behind.

any questions just pm me, my brother is a mechanic hes rebuilt quite a few engines, and ive always changed my oil, its no biggie.


oh as for jiffy lube, they change oil fine, although they are pricey, just make sure everything is in your car that you had in there, there is a lot of jiffy lubes, that the people like to take things while doing the extra clean car thing, or just an anual oil change, be care full if you ever get it done there.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ April 03, 2008 02:01 PM: Message edited by: babygrl83 ]</font>

O.K.....
I changed the oil earlier this afternoon and went with Castrol synthetic and a K&N filter. It was a pain getting the filter tightened because I had bought one of those tools that cup the bottom of the filter attached to a ratchet and it wouldn't fit over the K&N. It has a 1" nut on the bottom for tightening but the only adjustable(crescent) wrench I had was slightly too long to turn. The axles are right in the way but I managed to get it tightened.
So far I'm impressed but it might just be a placebo effect. We'll see how it drives in the morning when it's from a cold start. But I swear it seemed to drive a whole lot smoother.
Is it best to undo the drain plug....let it drain and THEN loosen the filter or do the filter first and then hit the drain plug? I ask because it has been so long since I've done my own oil and filter was in a different spot. I had let it all drain out of the plug and then loosened the filter and a ton of oil drained onto my arm when I loosened it. [img]graemlins/grrr.gif[/img]
I'm definately skoochin' over underneath the transmission side from now on to loosen the filter.

when changing the oil you undo the drain plug and let it drain then while its draining you take the cap off the top where you would poor the oil in, then after it stops draining you take the oil filter off, of course there will be oil still in the filter thats why if you do it carefully you wont get a arm full of oil, like i use to. lol its a very simple thing to do =P oh and btw you only need to put the oil filter back on hand tight, you dont want it to tight.=P

Typical filter tightening rule is gasket contact + 1/4 turn. You don't want to reef on it because you will need that filter wrench to get it off otherwise.

Be sure to coat the new filter's gasket with a light coating of oil too. It'll assist with removal next change and won't leave the gasket attached to the block.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ April 14, 2008 02:57 PM: Message edited by: Mitchness ]</font>

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Originally posted by Mitchness:
Typical filter tightening rule is gasket contact + 1/4 turn. You don't want to reef on it because you will need that filter wrench to get it off otherwise.

Be sure to coat the new filter's gasket with a light coating of oil too. It'll assist with removal next change and won't leave the gasket attached to the block.

<font color="#a62a2a"><font size="1">[ April 14, 2008 02:57 PM: Message edited by: Mitchness ]</font></font>

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">wise words. Double gasketing isn't any fun and will turn out to waste the $$$ you just spent on your oil change.

The whole ordeal on what to loosen first doesn't actually matter. I start with poppin the hood and undoing the valve cover cap and make sure that all of my other fluids are topped off while i'm up there. Then the car is raised and usually go for the drain plug first before the filter but again, this doesn't matter. Take a little old oil and put a thin clean coat on the gasket on the new oil filter and hand tighten it back on till it stops.

Replace the drain plug's crush washer EVERYTIME and use about a 1/8 of a turn to tighten and "crush" the crush washer into place. Honda oil pans are very weak in this area so be careful with the ammount of pressure you add. I cant stress the ammount of stripped oil pans i've seen in my time as a quick luber at renton honda.

Oh yeah, if memory serves me correctly, nonvtec single cams take 3.5qts and vtec single cams take 3.75 qts.