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hello all.

been reading and lurking here for some time, trying to make some sort of sense of all this. who knew how murky the world of oil really was!

reason for posting in the euro forum is as follows. i'm finishing a rebuild on a 1995 volvo 850 turbo engine. i've taken pains to make it a solid base from which to run 20+ psi of boost. my plan was to break-in on castrol gtx 5w-30 and then go with syntec 5w-40 as it has all those nice vw, mb, and porsche approvals. sound like a solid plan? thoughts, alternatives? haven't seen many volvos on this board. anyway, hello!
 
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With this type of application I would look into Redline 5W-40. Syntec is one of the lower end wannabe synthetics and I would never trust it where 20+psi boost is present.
 
GTX will make a fine break-in oil, but IMO there are better 40wt synthetics out there than Syntec 5w40. Mobil 1 5w40 tdt, M1 10w40 HM, Rotella Synthetic, and the list goes on.

For something a little thinner, German Castrol & M1 10w30 HM should both work well. If price is no object, I would go with Redline.

Will the car see track use? OCI?
 
I also think GC (Castrol 0W30) or possibly BMW's High performance Synthetic (5W30) would do well. After all, BMW runs those oils in their twin turbo engine with extended drain intervals. I of course wouldn't run them to 15K miles, but to 7500 miles, no problem. I did a 5K UOA on GC from my 535i and it came out fine.

I had a 1996 850 Turbo and a 1998 S70 T5 turbo and ran M1 5W30 in both and never had an issue. If I had to do it again, I'd probably use M1 0W40 or GC.
 
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no track use but occasional hard pulls onto freeway and back road blasts. i know castrol has a low rep here but UOA's on have seemed pretty good. a lot of volvo guys seem to like thicker oils and run 40 or 50wts. seems overkill? rotella is another i've been looking at. what do you think of running the rotella 15w-40 for break-in?

as for oci, i probably wouldn't run beyond 5k. i'm a compulsive maintenance guy, gapping plugs, changing oil etc.
 
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Originally Posted By: Hoosier_Daddy
i know castrol has a low rep here but UOA's on have seemed pretty good.


Not really comparable maybe but for the 40+ UOAs that we have for the vw 2.0FSI Turbo, Syntec 5W40 shows some of the highest shear rates and all Syntec 5W40 UOAs have iron levels higher than the average. IMO any of the good oils people mentioned above will probably work better: GC, Amsoil, Redline, M1 TDT, Rotella synthetic 5W40.
 
Nice setup! What are you using for fuel management?

Personally, I recommend M1 0w40. However, if you are going to be running it REALLY hard, I would seriously consider a "boutique" oil like Red Line.
 
Upsolute tune set for 1.5bar, bosch green injectors 440cc and an AC Delco boost control solenoid. can't wait to drop the engine in and get it running!

i've read a lot about M1 shearing down while rotella seems to be more stable. i'm leaning towards the shell product now
 
just an update, going with M1 0w-40. if that shears down too much i'll probably go to the M1 TD 5w-40 or the 15w-50. i like the idea of using one oil throughout
 
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