Engine Oil for 2001 986

[Gelbster]

For the IMS geeks among you who follow ED the ex-Timken guy - he is in favor of an xW-50 oil because of load/shear/heat on the IMSB. It may be that the JGDT40 additive package offers the same benefits at a lower (40) number?
But then there is the cylinder bore scoring+cold climate issue to consider.http://rennlist.com/forums/996-forum/904760-scored-cylinder-failure-for-your-996-y-or-n-tell-us-yr-996-mk1-or-mk2.html
So the best answer may be climate-specific with the hot climate owners having the easiest choices -JGDT40 or 10w-50 or 5W-50 if you take the risk of abandoning the M96-optimized additive package in JGDT40.Foaming is another issue.... it gets complicated

[Smallblock454]

Originally Posted by Gelbster

... it gets complicated

–> just another oil thread on the internet.

Has somebody proven data on oil recommendations over 50.000 / 100.000 / 200.000 miles including
- climate conditions
- driving profile (street, daily driver, garage queen, short distance, racing…)
- additives
- viscosity
- HTHS
- oil change interval incl. oil filter
- oil filter quality
- fail rate
- cause for failure

I personally don't know somebody with that data.

And…

maybe short distances means a distance of 10 miles in the US, but 1 mile or less in Germany…

maybe racing means to drive more than 55 mp/h and a racing on a parking lot course in the US, but full speed over 1 hour on a german Autobahn or 10 laps on the Nürburgring.

maybe there are a lot of causes why these engines can fail. IMS is only one. Also it depends what year the engine is, because there are some technical differences over the years.

maybe ZDDP will help your engine. But shurely any amount of ZDDP will also harm your catalytic converters. Maybe this isn't that bad in the US/Canada because you have 4 catalytic converters (800 cells per cylinder bank) but maybe it's different in Germany/ROW, where you have 2 catalytic converters (400 cells per cylinder bank) to reach emission controls.

maybe some people have an personal interest in selling some products.

So a lot of maybe –****and i'm shure there is a lot more maybe…

Personally i go with:
- yearly oil and filter change (i drive less than 2.000 miles p.a.)
- full synthetic oil
- maximum HTHS
- viscosity that fits climate and driving profile
- no ZDDP or additional additives
- warming up the engine under low load for min. 10-15 miles
- using a standard thermostat
- keeping radiators clean and having an eye on water pump, thermostat…

Personal observation: since using a 5W oil there is only a minimal amount of engine oil between engine and transmission.

And: if the engine fails it fails.

Regards, Markus

[Slate 01]

Okay, now y'all are just screwing with me, LOL!

I'm going with the Gibbs 5/40 (since it is on the way from Amazon).

My car has 43K miles and has shown no signs of metal shavings in it's earl filters. I change earl every 3K and inspect filter meticulously. So far so good, fingers crossed. I don't run around town in the vehicle and only take it out for trips to Yosemite, Lake Tahoe and the coast with wifey. So short little bursts around town never occur, so the low miles on a 2001 are not an accurate indication of how the miles have been absorbed on this vehicle (the garage queen theory of IMS worries).