2000 Tige 2300V - Synthetic Oil Recommendations

[lcollinward]

I have a 2000 Tige 2300V Limited with 350 Mag MPI engine. I have been using the recommended 25W40 oil, but am thinking of switching to full synthetic oil. Any recommendations on what oil and weight to use?

[chpthril]

My suggestion, go to a lower first number for better cold start up flow, but stick with conventional oil,

[TeamAllen]

I would suggest SHELL ROTELLA T6 15W-40 FULL SYNTHETIC.
I personally use the conventional version T4.
There is also a synthetic blend version T5.

[freeheel4life]

There is tons of anecdotal evidence out there that Rotella/Delo 15-40 conventional performs well in all the marine SBC platforms.

Pretty sure gumby has been running T4 in his engine and from the sounds of it puts a lot of heavily weighted hours on his boat per year.

[cltTige]

I run T4 in mine with the same engine - what was recommended by the engine manufacturer/rebuilder when I put in the new one.

[BrentP]

Why are we against synthetic?


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[freeheel4life]

My reasoning is about the same as Gumbys. Additional cost of synthetic and it's benefits don't outweigh conventional in our application.

I've also heard arguments that conventional hangs around on cylinder cross hatching and bearing journals longer than synthetic in between running but have done no work to verify those claims.

[chpthril]

Why are we against synthetic?

In my almost 35 yrs working on cars, ive never rebuilt an engine because it used conventional oil. However, I did have to re-ring an engine due to the oil rings gumming up about 70K after making the switch to mobile 1 back in the early days of the syn craz.

With that said, I did run the recommended castrol Syn in our Dub Jetta that we put about 160K (had 218K whenb we traded Aug 2020) and im running the same Castrol in the new Elantra.

I have read some credible reviews that syn oil does not stay in place long enough for toys that sit for long periods aka, not daily drivers. So when an engine's most wear comes on cold start up, it makes you go hmmm.

[boatwakes]

Welcome Icollin, glad to have you in the Tige` family. There's been discussion on all weights, brands and longevity and about a decade ago I posted some heavily weighted information on Shell Rotella 15w-40 before the EPA got ahold of engine oil requirements to engine manufacturers. It is still considered the best conventional oil for many applications but if you're looking to synthetic, I suggest Amsoil 25w-40 marine oil specifically to exceed what Mercruiser's requirements were in 2000. They're the only company to conduct viable studies on cylinder wear compared to their conventional counterpart. We do not recommend Mobil 1 or any of the large manufacturer synthetics. Freeheel mentioned oil retention on the cylinder walls between engine run cycles and I can get into the details if you want but it became a concern in the last 10 years and a major investigation was undertaken about 5 years ago due to small aircraft engine failures. After the EPA required oil companies to remove most of the zinc from their product, many owners and pilots switched to synthetic. The switch was though to be beneficial in all areas especially temperature but it turned out the oil film was not retaining on the cylinder walls between cyclical use and would cause extreme wear at start up. This lead to eventual premature engine failures (usually seizures mid flight or upon take off during high load situations). As a result, testing proved the BEST oil for both lubricating protection and cylinder wall "cling" was determined to be semi-synthetic blends in whatever weight the engine manufacturer required. Mercruiser/Quicksilver has a semi-synthetic 25w-40 we use on all our customers' engines but on my personal equipment, we run Amsoil with oil bypass filtration. For us it's cost effective as we drive over 40,000 mile per year and use our boats constantly. If you don't mind the extra cost (and really its about 25% more than conventional) switch over but research before you commit.

[lcollinward]

Thank you everyone for the great information. This is helped a great deal.