Can I use Mobil 1 5W-50 SuperSync oil (100% synthyhetic) in Mercruiser GM
V-8 350CID (5.7 L) in 15 year old marine engine? The manual specifies
detergent 20W-40 or 20W-50 oils. What effect could have the 5W-50 viscosity
range (5W vis 20W)? The vessel is not used often, is stored on hard stand,
the winter temperatures are hardly below 10 degrees C and the engine is run
at least once every month for about 10-15 minutes.

Appeciate your thoughts
Mark Zak

Mark,

I love synthetic oil, and have been using it for years, but one of the
problems with it has to do with switching over to it on high hour, or
milage, engines. Synthetic oil has the tendency to strip away gunk
deposits within the engine. You will note that the oil looks like hell
when you change it for the first few times, that's the gunk being
removed. Now on a fresh engine it's not a problem, but on an older
engine it often results in the engine leaking oil around the seals and
gaskets, you start using oil. And this does happen, I've seen it.

The other issue, and it's not as big, marine oil has more rust
inhibiters in it because of the wet enviornment marine engines operate
in. So you can get some rust inside the block if you use synthetic. But
I will say that the last marine engine that I tore down had been run
with synthetic oil since after break in, and it had no signs of rust
inside, so I'm skeptical of the rust argument.

The 5 weight oil may be too low, you could get some knocking at start
up if you don't have lots of oil pressure (a good rule of thumb is a
350 needs a minimum of 10 pounds of pressure for every 1000 RPM's), not
a good thing. I would go with a minimum of a 20 weight oil.

John

"Capt John" wrote in message
ups.com...
Mark,

I love synthetic oil, and have been using it for years, but one of the
problems with it has to do with switching over to it on high hour, or
milage, engines. Synthetic oil has the tendency to strip away gunk
deposits within the engine. You will note that the oil looks like hell
when you change it for the first few times, that's the gunk being
removed. Now on a fresh engine it's not a problem, but on an older
engine it often results in the engine leaking oil around the seals and
gaskets, you start using oil. And this does happen, I've seen it.

Actually, it's much more likely that the older engine already has leaking
seals or gaskets before you start using the synth oil. In a sense, it would
be a good thing that it would show you the leak. In any case, the leaks are
very minor. I would much rather know there's a problem than have it masked
by something.

The other issue, and it's not as big, marine oil has more rust
inhibiters in it because of the wet enviornment marine engines operate
in. So you can get some rust inside the block if you use synthetic. But
I will say that the last marine engine that I tore down had been run
with synthetic oil since after break in, and it had no signs of rust
inside, so I'm skeptical of the rust argument.

The 5 weight oil may be too low, you could get some knocking at start
up if you don't have lots of oil pressure (a good rule of thumb is a
350 needs a minimum of 10 pounds of pressure for every 1000 RPM's), not
a good thing. I would go with a minimum of a 20 weight oil.

I have no data about this, so I'll take it as accurate.

"Mark Zak" wrote in
:

Can I use Mobil 1 5W-50 SuperSync oil (100% synthyhetic) in Mercruiser
GM V-8 350CID (5.7 L) in 15 year old marine engine?

Wow! At $3-5 a quart, the ol' GM 350 oughta damn near last
forever!....yeah, right.

The manual
specifies detergent 20W-40 or 20W-50 oils. What effect could have the
5W-50 viscosity range (5W vis 20W)?

Too thin when it's cold? 5 weight oil is like a sewing machine oil.
Wonder how well it keeps those cold rings away from those fragile, cheap GM
cylinder walls?? 20 weight is more than thin enough. We're being
conditioned so "they" can make $$$AU

The vessel is not used often, is
stored on hard stand, the winter temperatures are hardly below 10
degrees C and the engine is run at least once every month for about
10-15 minutes.

Hmm...I'd dump it if I didn't use it before it becomes worthless from the
awful boat depreciation. Oil pales in comparison to what its book value
drops.

I'm unfamiliar with Australian oil ratings as I'm on the other side of the
planet. Here, what concerns me is our oil (both dino and home made) has
been quietly devalued because it cannot pass the new SAE tests for 2-stroke
and 4-stroke diesels, once these were separated tests. So, you look on the
fancy can with the checkered flags and pictures of NASCAR race drivers and
in the SAE rating circle it says SJ or SK or whatever S rating the gas
engine manufacturers are using now....but NOT D-2 or D-4 for diesel use.
What have they left out? Diesel oils all have detergent in them because of
all the nasty carbon blowby that turns them black. Have they quietly
stopped adding detergent to keep the engines (gas and diesels) clean? Who
made that stupid decision....car manufacturers trying to wear out the cars?

I'm not fascinated with home made oils. I used Mobil 1 synthetic oil in my
Honda EU3000i electronic power plant a couple of times when it was new.
Synthetic oil was rated for air-cooled engines, not water cooled cars. It
was EXPENSIVE. I didn't care, it doesn't use much. When I sucked the
synthetic oil out and looked at it after 100 hours, I was scared I'd ruined
the Honda. It looked like it was BURNED!...it was BROWN! That ended that.
I started using the same Rotella-T (Shell) or Chevron's Velo 400 4-stroke-
rated DIESEL oils that American Truckers driving like hell down the
interstate with amazingly heavy loads on their engines run for millions of
miles between overhauls. What professional trucking companies use to
maximize their engine life speaks VOLUMES more as to what is the right oil
to use in any engine.....than the marketing department's motive of any oil
company trying to squeeze $5/quart out of some home made oil in the
checkered flag can. The genset seems ok at a thousand hours and Velo or
Rotella DON'T come out BROWN!...(c;

On Fri, 27 May 2005 14:40:34 GMT, "Mark Zak"
wrote:

Can I use Mobil 1 5W-50 SuperSync oil (100% synthyhetic) in Mercruiser GM
V-8 350CID (5.7 L) in 15 year old marine engine? The manual specifies
detergent 20W-40 or 20W-50 oils. What effect could have the 5W-50 viscosity
range (5W vis 20W)? The vessel is not used often, is stored on hard stand,
the winter temperatures are hardly below 10 degrees C and the engine is run
at least once every month for about 10-15 minutes.

Appeciate your thoughts
Mark Zak


Synthetic can be searching on older engines, so watch the oil filter
for a while, and look out for case leaks

Brian Whatcott Altus, OK

Gentlemen,

I appreciate and thank you for your responses, most informative and I have
learned a lot.
Once again, many thanks and regards
Mark Zak


"Mark Zak" wrote in message
...
Can I use Mobil 1 5W-50 SuperSync oil (100% synthyhetic) in Mercruiser GM
V-8 350CID (5.7 L) in 15 year old marine engine? The manual specifies
detergent 20W-40 or 20W-50 oils. What effect could have the 5W-50
viscosity range (5W vis 20W)? The vessel is not used often, is stored on
hard stand, the winter temperatures are hardly below 10 degrees C and the
engine is run at least once every month for about 10-15 minutes.

Appeciate your thoughts
Mark Zak

On Sun, 29 May 2005 23:42:50 GMT, Gene Kearns
wrote:


First of all, any "viscosity" with a "W" suffix is *not* a viscosity,
but an (arbitrary) measure of how easy it is to "shear" the oil at low
temperatures.///

As I recall, the W prefix is a viscosity determination at a set [low]
temperature ...

Brian W

Gene Kearns wrote in
:

http://www.performanceoiltechnology....toildoiuse.htm

Getting oil information from Amsoil is something like getting prescription
drug information from a snake oil salesman......

Too funny.....

Everybody should ask a Merck salesman what brand of drugs to buy, right?

Here's another wonderful product line from Amsoil at the SAME location....
http://organic-fertilizer-tech.com/gardening-guide.htm

Now, just for fun, let's see where their address leads us to, there by the
OIL REFINERY and FERTILIZER FACTORY...

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp...Newport+Ct+&ci
ty=Wolverine+Lake&state=MI&zipcode=48390

Hmm....Looks like Mapquest musta made a mistake! This map looks like it's
in some waterfront community on Lake Wolverine! You reckon the nice people
of Michigan are gonna let them put an OIL REFINERY and FERTILIZER PLANT on
their nice lakefront? Hell, lookit dat...there's a canal goin' right up to
the plant's back yard!

I tried to go direct to the html from http://gosynthetic.com/ to:
http://www.amsoil.com/company.htm
to take a look at the amsoil refinery/chemical factory/fertilizer
plant....but that link goes nowhere in errors. To get to it, you go to:
http://www.gosynthetic.com/
then click on "About Amsoil, Inc." in the upper left corner, another one of
Performance Oil Technologies, LLC shell companies.

When you finally get to look at their "about Amsoil" webpage, look closely
at the building......Building??!!...Where the hell is the huge chemical
factories necessary to MAKE fertilizers and synthetic oils? This "plant"
is located in Superior, Wisconsin....not where Amsoil says its office is in
Lake Wolverine, Michigan, a bedroom community of Detroit. Wonder why??

Hmm...let's look down at the pictures "About Amsoil".....

There's an old picture of a Lt Col in the Air Force that has nothing to do
with the oil business. Big Al was a fighter pilot for 25 years...nothing
to do with oil refining, organic chemistry or the like. This guy invented
synthetic oil???? Bull****! He's a FIGHTER PILOT!

Man, look at the neat OFFICE BUILDING! There's no big cracking towers,
massive chemical maze of pipes, monsterous power house, yards full of
machinery. How can they make OIL and FERTILIZER in this OFFICE BUILDING?!

Under the office building picture, I see some guy in a smart-looking,
impressively-clean set of coveralls dispensing oil from that little tube
into impressively-clean Amsoil drums on an impressively-clean pallet riding
down an impressively-clean set of rollers. Aha! That little pipe goes out
into the impressively-clean, massive OIL AND FERTILIZER REFINERY AND
CHEMICAL PLANT out in the office building parking lot! Now I see!

Under that, there's a little chemical lab of some sort, again,
impressively-clean with smart white labcoats that don't have a single oil
spot on them. Look at those counters. Are they NEW? Ever try to get
motor oil off anything and make it look completely new like that, ever
again? By its very nature, motor oil (and probably fertilizer chemicals
which EAT a Lawn-O-Green truck in a year) sticks like glue to anything it
touches. Boy, those guys in the lab coats must be AWFUL CAREFUL not to get
motor oil on ANYTHING in that picture!

Well, if I were gonna show off my oil refinery, I'd sure let 'em see plenty
of pictures of massive chemical plumbing to show off my technology,
wouldn't you?

This place looks like a.....er, ah......well, ah......BOTTLING PLANT
sucking liquid product (oil or fertilizer, I suppose) out of a tank truck
and putting it into bottles and cans and drums with checkered flags and
fancy labels on them....like the picture displaying all of them above.

WHERE'S THE BIG CHEMICAL FACTORY?? IS there one or are we bottling up
Chevron oil into our bottles like Yamalube TC-W3 is?

Oh, these guys are real oil viscosity experts......

I wanna be a DEALER!

Why not post this in alt.amsoil. I am sure you will get a response.


"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
Gene Kearns wrote in
:

http://www.performanceoiltechnology....toildoiuse.htm

Getting oil information from Amsoil is something like getting prescription
drug information from a snake oil salesman......

Too funny.....

Everybody should ask a Merck salesman what brand of drugs to buy, right?

Here's another wonderful product line from Amsoil at the SAME location....
http://organic-fertilizer-tech.com/gardening-guide.htm

Now, just for fun, let's see where their address leads us to, there by the
OIL REFINERY and FERTILIZER FACTORY...

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp...Newport+Ct+&ci
ty=Wolverine+Lake&state=MI&zipcode=48390

Hmm....Looks like Mapquest musta made a mistake! This map looks like it's
in some waterfront community on Lake Wolverine! You reckon the nice
people
of Michigan are gonna let them put an OIL REFINERY and FERTILIZER PLANT on
their nice lakefront? Hell, lookit dat...there's a canal goin' right up
to
the plant's back yard!

I tried to go direct to the html from http://gosynthetic.com/ to:
http://www.amsoil.com/company.htm
to take a look at the amsoil refinery/chemical factory/fertilizer
plant....but that link goes nowhere in errors. To get to it, you go to:
http://www.gosynthetic.com/
then click on "About Amsoil, Inc." in the upper left corner, another one
of
Performance Oil Technologies, LLC shell companies.

When you finally get to look at their "about Amsoil" webpage, look closely
at the building......Building??!!...Where the hell is the huge chemical
factories necessary to MAKE fertilizers and synthetic oils? This "plant"
is located in Superior, Wisconsin....not where Amsoil says its office is
in
Lake Wolverine, Michigan, a bedroom community of Detroit. Wonder why??

Hmm...let's look down at the pictures "About Amsoil".....

There's an old picture of a Lt Col in the Air Force that has nothing to do
with the oil business. Big Al was a fighter pilot for 25 years...nothing
to do with oil refining, organic chemistry or the like. This guy invented
synthetic oil???? Bull****! He's a FIGHTER PILOT!

Man, look at the neat OFFICE BUILDING! There's no big cracking towers,
massive chemical maze of pipes, monsterous power house, yards full of
machinery. How can they make OIL and FERTILIZER in this OFFICE BUILDING?!

Under the office building picture, I see some guy in a smart-looking,
impressively-clean set of coveralls dispensing oil from that little tube
into impressively-clean Amsoil drums on an impressively-clean pallet
riding
down an impressively-clean set of rollers. Aha! That little pipe goes
out
into the impressively-clean, massive OIL AND FERTILIZER REFINERY AND
CHEMICAL PLANT out in the office building parking lot! Now I see!

Under that, there's a little chemical lab of some sort, again,
impressively-clean with smart white labcoats that don't have a single oil
spot on them. Look at those counters. Are they NEW? Ever try to get
motor oil off anything and make it look completely new like that, ever
again? By its very nature, motor oil (and probably fertilizer chemicals
which EAT a Lawn-O-Green truck in a year) sticks like glue to anything it
touches. Boy, those guys in the lab coats must be AWFUL CAREFUL not to
get
motor oil on ANYTHING in that picture!

Well, if I were gonna show off my oil refinery, I'd sure let 'em see
plenty
of pictures of massive chemical plumbing to show off my technology,
wouldn't you?

This place looks like a.....er, ah......well, ah......BOTTLING PLANT
sucking liquid product (oil or fertilizer, I suppose) out of a tank truck
and putting it into bottles and cans and drums with checkered flags and
fancy labels on them....like the picture displaying all of them above.

WHERE'S THE BIG CHEMICAL FACTORY?? IS there one or are we bottling up
Chevron oil into our bottles like Yamalube TC-W3 is?

Oh, these guys are real oil viscosity experts......

I wanna be a DEALER!

On Sun, 29 May 2005 23:19:23 -0400, Larry W4CSC
wrote:

Gene Kearns wrote in
:

http://www.performanceoiltechnology....toildoiuse.htm

Getting oil information from Amsoil is something like getting prescription
drug information from a snake oil salesman......

Too funny.....

Everybody should ask a Merck salesman what brand of drugs to buy, right?

Here's another wonderful product line from Amsoil at the SAME location....
http://organic-fertilizer-tech.com/gardening-guide.htm

But wait, there's more!

Visit http://www.oilsandlube.com/ajsig.htm to see they also have line
of products to alleviate any "male problems" you may have...

Honestly, how can anybody take Amsoil seriously?