Motor swap, what oil...

[NYGarageQueen]

This just popped in my head today. I have been working on the motor, has about 68 thous miles on it. Drained the oil, dropped the pan for a look, etc.

Well, my friend stopped over yesterday to drop off the motor hoist.. Put it together, start getting the car ready for the transplant. Woops, what oil to go in?

I know 5-20 is the norm, which I am fine with - my concern is if the original owner was running synthetic? After doing some research, looks like a good sum of people are using syn because it meets up to Fords standards (or something along those lines).

So crap, now what do I do? I am fine with either buying regular oil or synthetic, but since I don't know what was used prior and I realllly don't want to swap the two, what do I do?

FYI, the motor was out of a wrecked MM from Dallas (?), a guy I know who builds up Mustangs got his hands on it for a parts car for his MM, but he does not know what is used..

The only thing I can say is motor had a couple of mods done to it - underdrive pulley, electric water pump, BBK throttle body (1 hp!) so I am leaning on the edge that guy mayyyy have used synthetic.

What do you guys think?

[Blackened300a]

You'll hear many stories where you can go from regular oil to synthetic but you can't go back to regular or you'll hear that it doesn't really matter. I personally drive my car pretty hard so I only use synthetic oil.
I pulled my cam cover off recently and didnt see any brown residue on the valve train and the inside of the head was immaculate with 60K miles. I been using synthetic since I own the car.

What part of NY are you from?

[RR|Suki]

You can put whatever oil you want in it, even if it had syn. you can go back to blend or whatever else you want.

[NYGarageQueen]

You'll hear many stories where you can go from regular oil to synthetic but you can't go back to regular or you'll hear that it doesn't really matter. I personally drive my car pretty hard so I only use synthetic oil.
I pulled my cam cover off recently and didnt see any brown residue on the valve train and the inside of the head was immaculate with 60K miles. I been using synthetic since I own the car.

What part of NY are you from?


You can put whatever oil you want in it, even if it had syn. you can go back to blend or whatever else you want.

Sweet thanks for the info everyone, I will use synthetic. I am out in Long Island - what part of Queens are you in?

[Blackened300a]

Sweet thanks for the info everyone, I will use synthetic. I am out in Long Island - what part of Queens are you in?

Bayside, you should come out to some of the meets we have. We do Cunningham park on Thursdays here in Bayside and Tri-county on Tuesdays in Levittown.

[RF Overlord]

^^^what RR Suki said^^^

There are so many old wives tales and myths about oil that it's hard to separate fact from fiction. Those who tell you you have to stick with one type, or that you can't switch back after using synthetic, are wrong.

If you don't know the maintenance history of this motor, run one interval of Motorcraft 5W-20 ($11.50 for a 5qt jug at Wally's), then switch to whichever oil makes you feel warm and fuzzy. Just use the MC FL820S filter and your motor will thank you.

[babbage]

Just use a good synthetic, unless you plan to run it a few days on cheap dyno oil then change it again..

Put oil in it except for 2 quarts. Right before you go to start it dump a quart into the passenger side head via PCV, and then one more into normal drivers side oil fill.

That why you'll minimize the old dreaded dry start. Obviously you'll want a new fl820-s filter..