Oil for a 87 Caprice 305

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Our '85 Caprice with the 305 lost a cam at 60K…I seem to remember a lot of them failing back then…soft batch of cams?
 
I had an 87 Monte Carlo with a 305, and I drove it until 255,000 miles. Engine never had as much as a valve cover off.

Nothing but 10w-30 Pennzoil conventional oil.

If I still had it today, I would be running Rotella T 10w-30 in it.
 
Originally Posted By: mrsilv04
I had an 87 Monte Carlo with a 305, and I drove it until 255,000 miles. Engine never had as much as a valve cover off.

Nothing but 10w-30 Pennzoil conventional oil.

If I still had it today, I would be running Rotella T 10w-30 in it.


Agree on all counts. Friends father had an 87 wagon with that engine and just got rid of it with way over 200k. Ditto for an older Monte Carlo he got rid of a few years earlier with a ton of miles.
 
You don't need to run an HDEO. Any 5W30 conventional will be fine and miles ahead of the oil offered in '87. This is a roller cam engine anyway.
 
Its a roller cam so the cam issue shouldn't affect you if it hasn't already bid cut open every oil filter though just to be sure.
Any 5w-30 should be just fine. If you live in a warmer climate a 10w-30 will be fine too.
I really like Quaker state defy. My previous hemi was loud with pp,m1 AFE and eneos however as soon as I poured in defy in the 5w-20 grade it was instantly quiet.
 
The cam wouldn't be an issue on 5W30 even if it was flat.

I drag race a solid lifter cam SBC with QSUD 5W30. NO cam/lifter wear at all.
 
I've run many of these engines out to hundreds of thousands of miles. For the examples that ate cams, the supposedly higher ZDDP oils of the day made no difference, but by 1987, yes, that issue was just about finished.

I'd be tempted to run a 10w-30 HDEO in it all year in your climate. Up here, I'd run 5w-30 Defy or any 5w-30 in it all year. That engine has been long broken in, so I wouldn't even worry.

Heck, a cam and lifter job on those is cheaper than a bunch of oil changes with fancy boutiques.
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Definitely. But in the 1987 version, there shouldn't be a problem. The earlier ones were the problems. I don't even think I opened up the 1986 Caprice. The 1981 that went 1,000,000 km was opened only once for the cam, and that thing was mighty flat. It still ran, though, just with diminished power. It wasn't exactly high powered to begin with.
 
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