What motor oil are you running in your Vortec?

[Wilecoyote]

I'm changing the oil in the new to me 98 5.7 w 118k.

 

[df2x4]

What the manual and cap call for, conventional 5W-30. I prefer Pennzoil and ACDelco filters.

 

[1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2]

Valvoline 10W-30 conventional oil and either an AC Delco or Wix filter.

 

[1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2]

Sorry to stray off topic just a bit, but I find it amazing how clean the oil stays in these old Vortec motors no matter how many miles it has!

 

[98 Nitro]

5W-30 Valvoline hi mileage with Wix filter.

 

[SuperTramp]

I'm changing the oil in the new to me 98 5.7 w 118k.

5w30, High Mileage 160k

 

[Wilecoyote]

5W-30 Valvoline hi mileage with Wix filter.

Valvoline 10W-30 conventional oil and either an AC Delco or Wix filter.

Wix 51036? the seller gave me a case of them when I bought it.

I put mobil synthetic 5w30 high milage in it after I bought it. My brother uses it in his suburbans and recommended it. The mpgs.have gone down in the last 2 months and I can smell oil in the exhaust idling, it's not smoking but it stinks. I'm thinking non synthetic 10w30 might be better as summer is gonna be here soon?
I also think the previous owners ran dino oil.

 

[Skeletal]

I use Pennzoil 5W-30 conventional with an ACDelco filter on mine

 

[1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2]

Wix 51036? the seller gave me a case of them when I bought it.

I put mobil synthetic 5w30 high milage in it after I bought it. My brother uses it in his suburbans and recommended it. The mpgs.have gone down in the last 2 months and I can smell oil in the exhaust idling, it's not smoking but it stinks. I'm thinking non synthetic 10w30 might be better as summer is gonna be here soon?
I also think the previous owners ran dino oil.

Yep, 51036 is what I use.

My dad has had several GMT400 trucks bought new and driven with no issues at all for over 200,000 miles each until they were sold to me for very cheap. I ran the snot out of them after that and never had an internal engine problem at all. Each of the trucks ran 10W30 Valvoline conventional motor oil and whichever cheap filter was available. I used the same oil, but sprung for the slightly more expensive AC filter. I never have understood why someone would buy a cheap filter to save a buck to protect an engine with a replacement cost of a couple thousand dollars, but whatever.

So I always used what had proven itself to work for us. It's been a long time since I've had any older Chevy trucks and I recently bought my '97 with a 4.3 and I scoured the internet for oil information and about 99% of what I read said to use whatever cheap dino oil you could find on sale and the engine won't care and will still run forever. Basically what I got out of it is that these engines are not picky about what we dump in them as long as it's dino oil. So I'm going to stick with conventional oil, but I'm not going to buy random cheap oil, I'll still use Valvoline as we always have.

 

[jjester6000]

I use Castrol High Mileage 20w50 in my '88.

Simply because my local AutoZone put a bunch of it on clearence for 2 bucks a quart.

I would be using 20w50 anyways though (you won't believe the amount of blow-by this thing has).