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Your car is quite a lot younger than the cars 99 and I used heavier oil in. This is nothing new really, heavier oil has been used to cut burning and noise while protecting worn bearings for years. Perhaps your car circulates oil better when it is thin. This is kind of a you got me as I don't really see why I would get one effect and you another just accross the Bay.

I would think that Amsoil device would be interesting in a taxicab.

Some engines have the filter upside down. It always seems to me that this would cause more wear, but it sure is easy to change the filter. Subaru's placement of the oil pump is interesting too. Many of the engines I have worked on placed it low in the pan. The oil pump was full when you pulled the engine apart. As one of many strange Subaru designs you have to say the thing must work becuse people get 300,000 miles out of 2.2s. I think VWs had it there too if I recall correctly.

There is some support for the folks who say that changing the oil quickly is better. Then you still have more oil left on the bearings. Over the years I have seen a number of devices that built up oil pressure to prevent dry starts. It would be interesting to see how much wear those prevent. There are racing devices that store pressure to prevent a total drop if starvation occurs.When I rebuild an engine I lube the bearings and prelube them, (spin the oil pump with a drill), before I start up the first time. I'm not sure that I am still in the frequent dino oil change camp as I am hearing too many sludge stories. Cars like my BMW easily attain oil temps that can break down dino, which is why high performance motors come with synthetic. A few years ago I recall a story about the introduction of a new Corvette where they had to decide between the weight of an oil cooler or synthetic. Synthetic won. I also believe that in a low performance motor like my Subaru that dino does not get challenged. In a high po WRX this might be another story.

Mr. Science it ain't, but many of the posters there know a heck of a lot more about oil than I do. I take it all with a grain of salt, but I have learned a lot there. I'm not so impressed with the four ball test myself for this application, but some of thier tests are prestty interesting. The auto manufactuers have done some great testing, but that data is not usually available untill it's so old it won't help the competition.

I think I will be lucky to break even in the end. As you say there will be a bit of effort saved and that's worth something. I do believe my engine sounding more like it should is worth quite a bit to me. The mileage change is so little that it is hard to measure. I tend to try to go to the same gas station and fill to the first click. Some of the folks on BITOG get much more scientific in thier tests. I expected my mileage to drop a bit so finding that it is about the same is a plus. I think that must mean that this oil is not very far off the Pennzoil I was using before in a warmed up state.

I would too just so I could avoid it. I used to see a lot of sludge on engine teardown many years ago. I rarely take an engine apart these days bur I may have occasion to soon. I have a 400 Pontiac that's been run on dino that I'm thinking of switching to Mobil 1 because my results have been good. I have a few 400 Pontiac blocks around and I will have to see how they look for sludge. I have the world's worst 65 GTO and at some point I have to decide which engine to use. I should have let you talk me into synthetic for the Subaru last year. I think you are right that the regular oil changes with Pennzoil will probably leave my Subie fairly clean. I'll be doing my regular weekend car check tomorrow and I will be interested to see if the oil looks dirty yet.

I had to go out and look but I have 114,196 miles on it now. I plan to do 6,000 but I will probably driain the first one at 3,000 to clean it out. Before the car was dealer serviced at 3,000 miles and got 10-30 Pennzoil if I recall correctly.

So the third tank gave me 24.75 MPG. It looks like in my everyday driving I gained maybe two tenths of a a MPG with the thicker oil. At this point it looks like the payback time would be about 200 years if I was going for MPG alone. I use the Subie for shopping and work trips in bad weather so there are a lot of short trips and starts. The only reason it gets near 25 is that my wife prefers to ride in it when she works late in SF. I pick her up then and that is 48 miles round trip. The payback from the Mobil 1 will have to be reduced sound of piston slap and extended drain interval. So far the car has not required any extra oil but the dino I used before would not have until it got older either.

at around 90,000 miles. I had the tensioners replaced, cam seals, crank seal, oil pump resealed, water pump.

There are many ways of solving problems.

is olive oil.

I hope Blitz's seal does not leak so it becomes a moot point, but somewhere down the road somebody will need to reseal something and this will come in handy. Sometime it's amazing just how many ways there are to fix a leaky seal. One time stuck in Pennsylvania I cut a piece from a Coke can and spaced it out that way.

bearing houses in Michigan. I understand they have built a few cars and trucks there. The easy way might be to send a Subaru seal to a bearing house with a nice note if there are none in your area. There are books listing size, type, and brand, and these guys do it every day. It has been 20 years since I did this stuff so it may all be on computer now. It's just like transistors and tubes after all. There are standard types the manufactuers build around.

When I go up to the mountains with my car and it gets a really cold start the slap is far worse. I have not tried it yet with the 15-50 but I don't expect a lot of difference on a cold start. Right now my slap is way down as soon as the oil circulates in 10-15 seconds. I can still hear it if I get out of the car and open the hood. It is just muffled enough to not be audible inside the car with my tired rock and roll ears. The nice part is I don't hear it at all in the later day starts. I think I am a bit confused as these do not seem to be consistant results that we get. Of course you are running a 2.2 in Denmark and I am running an old 2.5 in San Mateo. I don't quite understand why slo and I don't have similar results as he seems to be just across the Bay. My car is probably quite a bit more worn though. It seem like if you get an oil that works for you it might be good to stick with it.

I just called directory service for an address for Christie and they have moved or closed.

Over her there are large warehouse wholesale stores that stock bearings and seals for shipment all over the country. I used to bring a seal or bearing in and match it up. The last one I used was called Christie Engineering in Emeryville CA. I just searched on the web and there were several bearing houses that came up. You would need the exact dimensions of the seal if you ordered it on the web. Hopefully there is a multilip application for something that size.

but the only experience I have had with them was on bus hub surfaces and they were fairly hard to install there. I would imagine you would have to remove the cam wouldn't you, in such a limited space? I admit to screwing up a few speedy sleves duing installation. I may have created a couple of new English words on one occasion.

polish crankshafts with. If used properly in a long strip and rotated it can make a very good surface. Even if the cam seal does leak there are several options such as filling, spacing, or going to a bearing house and finding a seal with double or triple lips. Most seals and bearings are standard size items and there are often several options if you know what is available.

and it should be fine if you greased it and put it back.

this is pretty much a standard sel removal method for many types. In some cases it is also possible to buy seal removers but in limited space I am not sure they would work well. An oxy acetelene torch was often used to heat the tip of a screwdriver to bend it. They will often break if you try to bend without heating. In one case I also welded a pice of steel to the screwdriver to function as a fulcrum, but I think that would be overkill here.

a special seal removal screwdriver. I made one once for an application where I bent the tip radically for leverage and rounded and polished the back and edges so it was less likely to scratch the surface. After you make it it is handy for other things too.

These folks talking about viscosity change reminds me that the one thing my oil analasis on my BMW has consistantly showed is that the BMW semi synth was thickening to a heavier viscosity. (I believe it is Castrol). As the Blackstone lab guy said, "its common and I'm not worried about it".

The second tank of gas gave me 24.6 MPG. This tank was a lot of start and stop and short trip. last night I was caught in a traffic jam. This seems to be only a couple of tenths better than with dino oil.

an O grade to start with would be cold cranking, fuel mileage, and power. I personally feel that it is going to protect the engine from scuffing a bit less, but that is just my opinion. I have seen test results that show a small amount of HP to be gained from the lower resistance and heard that it might be benificial for fuel mileage. I suspect the difference between a 5 grade and a zero grade would be hard to measure in everyday driving. I guess you can see from the other thread that I am experimenting with 15-50 in my car and the results seem good for a worn engine. I think that these cars wear the pistons a bit causeing the slapping and I wonder if they could be prevented from slapping if they were run on a scuff resistant oil from new.