Oil change mess-up

[stratman440]

I just got a 90 Accord with 187,00 on it. I decide to change the oil on it and my dads intrigue. The honda sticker says 5-30 so i bought 5 quarts and 5 quarts of 20-50 for my dads car. I noticed my honda smoked a little when i reved it up, but nothing at all when driving normally. While doing the oil change, I accidently put 2 quarts of 5-30 and 2 quarts of 2-50 in the accord. I wasnt looking at the bottles when I put it in. Now my honda smokes pretty bad when I rev it up 2,500-4,000 rpm. I am thinking that this has to do with the screw up in the oil now. Anyways, I am changing it again tommorow, and a friend advised me to go to 10-30 high mileage to correct the smoking. Have any of you switched to a thicker weight to correct smoking? Will this possibly solve the problem? I was also thinking about adding Restore to the oil. Any thoughts? all help would be great, the smoking is really pissing me off!

[jeffcoslacker]

5W-30 is way too light for a motor with that mileage. I'm curious also why you'd run 20W50 in an Intrigue, that's WAY to heavy for that engine. It would make more sense the other way around, 5/30 in the Olds, 20/50 in the Honda. Yes, heavier oil will help control smoking and leakage. Blending grades never hurt anything. I think that 5W-30 is just going around your valve guides or something.

[Infinitrium]

Go and get yourself a jug of 15w40 diesel engine oil. Yes, it can be used in a gasoline engine. This will be a bit lighter than the 20w50 for better cold starts, and will actually be heavier when hot than most 20w50, as the 20w50's tend to shear down, or lose some viscosity and usually end up no thicker than a 30 weight oil after a short time.

[Infinitrium]

Oh, and about the other stuff. My brother bought an 86 Fiero about 5 years ago, and when he got it the poor ol' Iron Duke smoked like a chimney on a cold morning. He changed the oil, tossed in a can of Engine Restore and never saw any more smoke. That stuff does good on worn down engines, so if you feel like spending the extra cash, go for a can. Another thing you can try is to do a piston soak. A product known as Seafoam works very well for this, and can be found at Advance Auto stores, but other products such as B-12 Chemtool or Marvel Mystery oil can be used. Remove all spark plugs, pour 1 ounce of the stuff into each cylinder. let stand for an hour then rotate engine one turn by hand only and add more product if there's none left in the cylinders. Let it sit at least 8 hours, then reinstall your spark plugs. Divide up what you have left and pour half in the gastank and half in the oil. Fire up the engine, then take the car out and drive it hard for 15-20 minutes. During this time the engine is gonna smoke like crazy, so keep that in mind. When you get back, change your oil, and remove your spark plugs again, and clean or possibly replace them. If your oil burning is being caused by sticking oil control rings, then this piston soak will help loosen up the ring packs and break up any carbon in them and on the pistons.

[jeffcoslacker]

Originally Posted by Infinitrium

Go and get yourself a jug of 15w40 diesel engine oil. Yes, it can be used in a gasoline engine. This will be a bit lighter than the 20w50 for better cold starts, and will actually be heavier when hot than most 20w50, as the 20w50's tend to shear down, or lose some viscosity and usually end up no thicker than a 30 weight oil after a short time.

In motorcycles, we've found that Rotella 15W40 is a great oil for wet clutch bikes. The reason being while it is a stout, heavy oil that doesn't thin much with heat, it also doesn't contain certain friction modifiers that will tend to make a wet clutch slip. It is not a bad choice for a car, but you are depriving it of some protections of car-specific oil. Diesel oil is high detergent, to keep particulates in suspension also.

[AccordCodger]

5W-30 is way too light for a motor with that mileage.

Way too much of a blanket statement. Depends on the condition of the motor (and, granted, his sounds worn).

Mine does fine on 5W-30 @ 180,000 or so.

[stratman440]

Looks like im going to try some 10-30 or 30 weight today. maybe the rotella t I will do the restore, because its worth it to me. Also, i dont think my engine is very worn, it runs and starts fine, and has only started smoking now.

[Infinitrium]

Do a compression test on the engine and post the results here, it's a good way to tell if the engine is worn or not.