First off I own a 98 civic EX that I recently purchased. Knowing that the trany oil(5spd) has probably never been change I want to know what is the best oil I can put in. Is the Honda brand that is recomended in the manual really motor oil relabeled as trany oil? It does say in the manual that motor oil is aceptable as a temporary solution. Also a friend of mine flushed his an put Red Line MTL but I think that may be to thick. Any experiences or recomendations? Thanks in advance.

Honda Transmission oil is recommended but ive heard any 10W-30 will work as long as its not synthetic.

First off I own a 98 civic EX that I recently purchased. Knowing that the trany oil(5spd) has probably never been change I want to know what is the best oil I can put in. Is the Honda brand that is recomended in the manual really motor oil relabeled as trany oil? It does say in the manual that motor oil is aceptable as a temporary solution. Also a friend of mine flushed his an put Red Line MTL but I think that may be to thick. Any experiences or recomendations? Thanks in advance.


Well I been using red line tranny synthetic for a year,and i don't see any problems.

How come not synthetic? As I understand the Red Line is synthetic.

synthetic is more "slippery" than regular oil... with a more slippery oil the synchros won't be able to spin the gears up as well so you may get a little bit of grind as the gears mesh. thats bad. Redline says their mtl or mt-90 should be ok depending on what weight the manufacturer calls for but I know for a fact that Royal Purple actually makes a special manual tranny fluid for cars that are supposed to use either ATF or engine oil

Royal Purple is somewhat harder to find than Redline but it is well worth it. The engine oil too... the shop that used to work on my race car actually showed a 1hp improvement on the dyno just from using Royal Purple oil!

note:

1hp to the wheels does not sound like a lot but in a class where engines have to be totally stock and the hp to the wheels is only 100-115 or so 1hp can make a huge difference