1st post Intro and questions

[cool_breeze]

Hi, been lurking around off and on for about two years and have really got obsessed with oil potection...thanks guys

So I have two rigs and treat them completely different;
'94 toyota Land Cruiser and my red-headed step-child is a '96 dodge ram 5.2 with faded paint and [censored] interior. My pride and joy is my LC which I bought from the original owner who was a doctor and maintained it meticulously, people thought it was new when i got it. It has the inline six 1fz-fe and came with 165k on the clock. Shortly after purchase, i found this site and did the autorx treatment, changed pcv, cleaned egr system, cap/rotor/plugs, o2 sensors and a whole laundry list of other PM not engine related. As of now it runs on Rotella 15w-40 dino with WIX filter. When blackstones UOA came back tested at 4k with above, they said everything looks great and to try 5-6k which i do without worry since most of my driving is for long periods: highway road trips, off-road excursions where engine runs for hours at a time, this engine sees little errand use to keep her happy. To say it purrs is an understatement, IT SINGS! Sounds like a prescicion sewing machine.

Now on the other hand is my Ram which my wife affectionately named "fire-crotch" because its red and hot.
It was given to me by family and used as my work/errand/beater truck..not the prettiest but hasn't failed me yet. It has 180k maintained "cheaply" by an extended family member since he acquired at 90k. When it was given to me i had to drain the gas tank to get it running again, had been sitting for about 9 months, replaced plugs, pcv and wires. Next I noticed oil pressure dropping to nothing. Dropped the pan and holy sludge city! Oil pickup screen was completely clogged and about 1/2in of buildup in oil pan. Replaced oil pump, cleaned pan and pickup then buttoned her up. Should have replaced the pan gasket because now she leaks about a 1 qt/300 miles ( not sure on mileage, i dont watch this NEARLY as well as my cruiser but im going to start.)

SOOO, I'm ready to do another RX treatment on the cruiser and the first on the RAM and no better time. Have you seen all the deals on oil right now, its cheaper than gas! Tonight I picked up AZ's special of 1-5qt quaker state 10w-40 and STP filter for $12.99:
http://www.autozone.com/images/MEDIA_ProductCatalog/m1300232_circular_main_pdf_slot.pdf

I tried search but "STP" does not return any results, are these filters at all decent? This selection will be used on the "fire crotch" but hows the quality?

My fingers are tired so Im going to stop, thanks for reading my rant!

 

[addyguy]

STP filters are good.

Nice rig in the LC, we had a member post a bunch of UOA's in the past with Delo 10W-30 and they were great.

 

[cool_breeze]

Good to know, the special was these or Bosch..how are they?

 

[JustinC25]

Glad to hear about the LC, those things are tanks. They run forever, and will go anywhere. Are you running the larger filter on it, or just the standard size. Toyota specs a pretty big filter on those trucks, but they also spec the smaller filter as an acceptable substitute. When I worked at the dealer, we used the Camry V6 sized filter on these trucks due to cost. But I believe that the older ford V8 filter will fit this application.
I think the motorcraft # is FL-1A.

To address your question, here are my views:

QS is a decent oil. and the price was right. SOPUS puts their oils in this order Formula Shell, QS, PYB. I've run FS, and PYB in my cars and they loved them both. My friend uses QS all the time in his cars b/c it is the cheapest name brand at WM. His cars run great on it. no problems yet, and he has been using it for over a year.
The filter is made by champ labs. And should be comparable in quality to a supertech. I believe that it is an "ecore" filter due to the larger diameter of the filter. I think this oil/filter combo will be fine for the Dodge. I would still run a WIX/NG filter on your LC though.(nothing wrong with the champ labs design, I just prefer the Wix/NG style filter) On a side note, I would change that pan gasket when you get time to try and fix that oil leak. 1 qt every 300 miles or so is a bit excessive.

 

[cool_breeze]

Yeah, 300k is commonplace if well maintained. I would love to see 400k+ but I may not live that long...haha. The filter I've been running is the wix/ng 51515 which is among the largest on the shelves of oil filters so i would venture a guess to yes, im using the larger one.

Ive been catching up with lingo(sopus?) and using the search as much as possible but just can't get what i want. Everytime I search instead of giving me one result for a thread, it gives me every reply in the thread as a result = fewer threads. And why does it require a "newer than" field? Most searches start from the beginning unless specified..weird i think.

On the ram, i know im starting to not neglect it as much now so i looked into it today. I tightend the pan bolts and noticed the drain plug was finger tight,duh. Gonna run it a few weeks like this and see what happens. Reading around here piced up on some problem spots with these motors ie. sludge monsters so a autorx treatment is definitely in the future. Also read something on "plenum gasket" problems, intake plenum? Seems to be related to my problems: It does idle fine but hesitates upon throttle input, knocks on heavy throttle and "coughs to life" when started.

 

[hr1940]

If you select advance search and type in stp oil additive you will get 4 pages. To get more information select a longer period of time.

 

[JustinC25]

That is the larger filter that I was talking about.
the smaller one is the 51348.

SOPUS=Shell Oil Products US. (Parent company of Penzoil, and QS)

The symptoms you are describing sound like an intake gasket.
You can test for this with a can of Carb cleaner, or brake cleaner (the flamable kind). With the engine running spray near the intake. If the rpms come up at all for a few seconds, you have a leaking intake gasket.

 

[cool_breeze]

NEW QUESTIONS:

Didnt want to start a new topic, too much clutter. I found a oil/lube shop going out of business liquidating its stock so im going to pick up a 5 gallon bucket of valvoline durablend 10-30 for $25 = 1.25/qt. Not too bad i think..?.?

But my question is can i use it effectively for an AutoRX treatment on my above vehicles? Its mostly dino at %70/30 syn respectively.

Alos how well is it designed for high mileage engines? I was going to run PP or another full synthetic in my toyota 4.5 but these deal I couldn't pass

 

[hpichris]

You could run arx but Frank does recommend that you keep it at 100% dino for arx to work at its best.

 

[cool_breeze]

Will do, there's all kinds of sales on right now at all the big auto parts, which would ya'll prefer?
Autozone has:
5qt QS with STP filter for $13
5 qt Castrol GTX w/ Bosch filter $15
5qt GTX high mileage w/ bosch $19

O'reilys has:
Buy 5 or more qts: PP or Valvoline syn @3.99/qt (not for Arx but want to go syn, good price?)
1 gal delvac 1300 super $13 BOGO ( Is this pretty equivalint to what i run now, Rotella 15-40?)

 

[cobos06GT]

Pep Boys has 5 quarts of GTX and a Purolator filter for $14.99, and that's before a $4 mail-in rebate.

 

[cool_breeze]

So what would be the best next step for both trucks?