Conventional to synthetic oil question

[cbrunick57]

Have a 96' Mercury 60 HP 2-stroke. It's currently running Quicksilver oil, but I was interested in switching to synthetic. Is there any procedures I should go through? I planned on running the reservoir down quite aways then filling it up with the synthetic. Anything else I should know about or take into consideration? Planned on trying Amsoil, but am open to any input or opinions. Thanks!

[20lbSloughShark]

I would not run the oil out, as if you accidentally forget, you have some problems. Just start adding synthetic oil, no need to be picky. Oil is oil, no matter the quality.

[Ufatz]

There are people who would disagree with that final statement.

[20lbSloughShark]

Amsoil, Penzoil, Motul, Motorcraft, it doesn't matter, their all oil, they all lubricate. I am simply stating that some people go overboard. There is no reason to "be careful" when switching to synthetic, and it is also fine to mix them.

[Capt. H (Ret.)]

I can't comment on Amsoil but I have to wonder why you would change the type of oil you are using if everything is running good. You may have a good reason but I've always felt why change up things just for the heck of it. Synthetic oil isn't cheap so what do you see as a benefit????

Mike

[jmd1]

Ill give you some info on synthetic study that i did for the police dept. We took 7 new crown vics, drained oil out of them. Filled one with our base oil, one with quakerstate syn, mobil one, amsoil, penzoil syn,final one was castrol syn. All ran the oem filter.

Unit would come in at 3000 miles, samples pulled and identified with unit number, mileage, and person sampling.

Safety inspections were completed but no oil was changed.

At 6000 miles units came in, same thing, but oil was changed and sample pulled. All safety items repaired.

This test continued like this for 1 solid year. At the end of it we found that the amsoil was out preforming all others by far numbers.

We started using only amsoil in the cruisers and actually were able to run 9000 miles on each change, however we opted to use amsoil filter and swap it at the 6000 mile intervel. I syn in my van no issues. Heck MBenz uses Mobil one for break in oil and does not want it dumped until you have 10 k on the oil.

We went as to converting all staff units to 15k miles or 6 months on oil change. good luck lots of studies out there

[cbrunick57]

Just looking to cut down on the smoke/stink. Really don't mind the smell, but being a tiller boat, trolling for a couple hours it can get a little old! Thanks for the input!

[boatfixer]

jmd1,

Did you send the oil samples in for testing? Just wondering how it outperformed.

[Kyhl]

I was wondering that myself. Would need to know the viscosity numbers after.

I'm also not sure how suggesting 4 stroke oil relates to 2 stroke.

BTW, my 11 year old ford is changed every 5k per the manufacturers re commendation.

Many new manufacturers are going to 10k. Wife 2013 Toyota included.

[hydro]

I don't think switching to synthetic in an oil injected outboard would cut down on "Smoke and Stink" very much. It might smell different but the same amount will be burned as a result of the injection system parameters.

[raymondk]

SWITCH TO AMSOIL I DID 3 YEARS AGO AND WILL NOT GO BACK.I MIX MY GAS AT 50 TO 1 I UNHOOKED THE OIL INJECTOR RUNS AND STARTS BETTER SMOKE IS A LEAST 75% LESS AND FOR COST IT MIGHT BE LESS THEN $10 FOR A GALLON WELL WORTH IT .ALL OILS IS NOT THE SAME!!!!!!!!!

[hydro]

Turn your Caps off Ray.

[jmd1]

boat fixer, yes we had each sample checked each time it was changed for each unit. We kept a spread sheet and documented all of the changes. Mind you that these were ford crown vic intercepter police cruisers. The results as i remember them was naturally the base oil (low bid ) came in last. First was Amsoil, Mobil 1, I want to say the Castrol was next. Dont remember how the rest faired. We found that the overall time frame on the oil was not broken down like the rest. It did have some positive affect on the wearing of bearings and other metals, we did not have the glycol issues like we did with the base oil.

The conversion over was kind of a pain for the whole fleet and then keeping officers from dumping in conventional oil if they were low. We made signs and hung them inside the hood so when they checked the fluids, it would swing down in their face saying this uses a special oil only available from our shop.

The change-over was expensive at first but then maintaining was simple. Everything go the same oil. We used 55 gal drums as it was the cheaper route. Also our waste was lowered with the reduced changes and where we would have a truck in to drain our holding tanks every month, now we were every 10-12 weeks.

One of the main reasons to change was the footprint we as a city were putting into the environment. The other reason was most of our newer units (fire trucks, sanitation, etc) were all running Allison World Transmissions, which required TransX, Allisons Synthetic oil. We converted the whole fleet over to transX as time went on.

We ran mostly gas units in our units up to 2 ton then diesel after that. When i retired we were starting on the diesel testing, using Delo, Base Oil, and some other brand. Also started running amsoil in rear ends on everything no test done.

Even after a unit had been changed over every engine gas or diesel had a sample pulled. as you know if you have done sampling at all, the tip is not to pull it off the bottom when the plug is still in. You have to get your hands dirty. As a tech too many guys wearing rubber gloves. I use to use transmission fluid to clean mine every friday and marine lube as hand cream.

Sorry for the long reply, i was pretty happy to be able to head this up and actually have used the example in my present job.

Wish i were in MN they are calling for 115 next week.

[jmd1]

My 2010 4.0 l Town and Country is 7500 miles. I have a hard time with that in the heat and dirt that i encounter each day. I will dump it at 5K, have the dealer do it for 24 bucks and run oem oil. I am too fat to get under that low front end to do it myself. I wont run the penzoil syn as i am not a fan at all of penz. My ram was converted in 06 to amsoil engine, trans, transfer box, and both diffs. If you own a dodge with american rearends, you have to use a special oil in them and the change interval is 15k miles. Too many times for me when i drive 100 miles a day. I would change over everything to amsoil in a minute if i could do it myself.

[jmd1]

Hydro, i dont think the whole purpose of switching is to limit emissions and odor. Switching to synthetic oil is more for the wear and limiting the deposits in the engine. The cleaner the oil burns, the less damage is done to the engine. I guess if emission is an issue one could trade up to a 4 stroke.

[raymondk]

things sure get turned around on here we were talking about a boat motor I only use amsoil in my boat just to to get rid of the smoke and it runs better but it burns the oil .lets stay on the same topic.keep the auto topics in the auto section.

[crothmeier]

If you read the back of the Amsoil jug it states to avoid mixing different types of oil.

"oil is oil no matter the quality" is preposterous statement of the day.

A full synthetic has a different base stock than a petroleum oil.

I switched our '89 100hp Evinrude VRO over the Amsoil HP Marine from whatever the previous owner ran. I let the reservoir get down to where the low oil alarm sounded, siphoned the rest out and dumped the Amsoil in.

[jeffreyd]

sorry i offended you raymond, next time i wont answer

[20lbSloughShark]

If you read the back of the Amsoil jug it states to avoid mixing different types of oil.

"oil is oil no matter the quality" is preposterous statement of the day.

A full synthetic has a different base stock than a petroleum oil.

I believe what the bottle is saying is don't mix different types of oil together. Its kind of a grey area, but IMO it is perfectly fine to mix any kind TCW-3 (basically all "marine" 2t oil) oil together no matter who makes it. It is not ok to mix a TCW-3 with a type designed for a little air cooled motor, or any other type.

[elkhornsun]

A sample of one car on a given oil is not even close to being scientific. One actually would need 50 cars on each type of oil to know if the difference was from the oil, the car, the driver, the usage. A car that is used close to town is going to be harder than one that is used out on the open highway. A car that has 5 years and 100k on the odometer is not comparable to a car that is 1 year old with 15k on the odometer.

Fleet operators who have hundreds of trucks pulling thousands of miles each month have not switched to synthetic oils and prefer to do more frequent oil and filter changes.

Synthetics are also inferior at the lower weights and I would not put a 5W-40 or anything comparable in any engine. Mercury recommends a 15W-40 for operating with air temp above 90 degrees.

What really counts are the additives which are 25% of what is in a container of oil by volume. It is the additives that protect the engine and keep it running properly and not the base stock that was used, mineral or synthetic and these days they all meet the SAE standards. The marketing hype for synthetic motor oil has been very effective and goes back to the days of STP oil treatment.