Best oils for the EJ22.

I am going to be doing the rear diff and engine oil here soon.

Any recommendations on which brands and weights of oil I should use. Also eventually transmission will get done soon. Any suggestions? I want good stuff. But not expensive in a sense.

Automatic Transmission

The diff will take any GL-5 gear oil. I used 80W90 in the front diff on my car. I think the front diff takes a couple drops shy of 1 qt. Not sure about the rear.

The EJ22 isn't picky with oil. I usually get the best oil that Autozone has on sale, as they have very good deals on 5 qt containers of oil for $20 with filters. Sometimes they give you 5 qts of full synthetic oil and a Bosch filter for $20! Dino oil or synthetic oil, it doesn't really matter... The EJ22 likes it all. It takes 4.2 quarts of 10W30. In the summer I try to put in 10W40, and in the winter/colder months I switch to 10W30.

The transmission takes Dexron III or Dexron IV. You might want to double check the manual on the type. Castrol Multi-vehicle Import should work too. Also, never trust the manual when it comes to transmission fluid capacity. Sometimes the fluid drains out of the torque converter and you wind up needing more. Add a couple quarts and check the fluid yourself after running the gear lever through all the gears in your driveway a few times.

You don't have to. Its just something I tried a couple summers ago to see if it would keep the engine from leaking or burning oil. There really isn't much logic behind my theory, but its worked for me. To this day I still don't leak or burn oil. You can run whatever oil you want between 5W30 and 10W40. Don't go any heavier or lighter than that.

I'd probably stick with 10W30. Especially since its going to start getting colder out.

IBTRao

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I might try that actually. I noticed that the Legacy likes 10W40 in the summer, but if I don't change it out before the weather gets cold it becomes extremely sluggish in the winter and throttle response is non-existent unless you drive for at least 10 miles to get it all warmed up. This all goes back to the consistency of the oil in cold weather.

And the whole rao thing is a long story. To sum it up, there is a thread about what oil to use in the 4th gen forum . The thread started way back when there weren't even "Generation Specific" forums, and all the different generations were organized into one giant Subaru Legacy forum. The thread was more-or-less a joke, and it turned into a huge joke about what to put in the car as engine oil. Ridiculous posts saying to use water, bleach, laundry soap, milk, and other fluids were made as well as other posts making jokes about Mobil 1. Most 4th Gen owners hate Mobil 1 by the way. Rao is probably the biggest joker on the forum and he pretty much continues the oil war in every thread that involves oil. I wouldn't be surprised if he came to this thread and made a post saying to use Pale Dry Ginger Ale as motor oil, as it improves gas mileage and adds 150 horses at the wheels.

If you said that then I would say this: 0w30 would be better for you then. I will elaborate if you want a more detailed answer.... Okay oil does two things for you car, keep it cool and lubricate the parts. In short all the oil can lubricate the engine properly so lets not even worry about that. But here is why 0w30 is better: its thinner. The biggest reason for all this is when you first start the car. About 90% of engine wear happens during startup.

When you were driving around with 10w30 and the engine is all hot the viscosity was at about 10. Thats great. When you go out to the car the next day (its a warm day) and the oil is about 75 degrees its at about 100. Yeah way thick. When oil is that thick the pressure goes up. As RPM rises oil pumps have to pump more oil faster so you want to pump as much oil as you can at the highest psi you can. Thicker oil has more resistance than thin oil and requires more psi to get the same flow rate. So using thick oil the psi will go up faster as the RPM increases. Why is this bad? Because oil pumps can only pump a certain psi before they cut it off (kinda like the radiator cap). Once your oil pump has reached its max psi it can no longer increase the pressure to push more oil. If you cant push more oil that means lower flow. Lower flow means less cooling and less lubrication.

0w20 and 0w30 is thinner and easier for your car to pump throughout the rpm range. What about when its parked all night? This is where the 0w comes in. When you go out to start your car in the morning your car will be more like 50w instead of the 100w of the 10w30. You want your car to be able to pump as much oil at a cool temp all the time right. Well then you need an oil that is easy for your oil pump to flow if it be at 8000rpm or first starting it up in the morning. The answer? Thinner oil http://legacygt.com/forums/../images/smilies/smile.gif 0w30 or even 0w20 (i use this in my s2K) for cars not driven on the track in hot weather. Higher RPM engines benifit more from the 0w20 (like my s2K) and lower ones are just fine with the 0w30 because they dont need to reach there max psi as late in the RPM range like our subies. I even use 0w30 in my 1978 Lincoln and it got me 11mpg in town (and thats great for that car trust me).

If you dont want to read that whole thing read this: 0w30 is better because its thinner.

I might try that actually. I noticed that the Legacy likes 10W40 in the summer, but if I don't change it out before the weather gets cold it becomes extremely sluggish in the winter and throttle response is non-existent unless you drive for at least 10 miles to get it all warmed up. This all goes back to the consistency of the oil in cold weather.

 

Thats because in the winter the oil gets even thicker. So the problem gets worse. The answer once again 0w30

I might try that actually. I noticed that the Legacy likes 10W40 in the summer, but if I don't change it out before the weather gets cold it becomes extremely sluggish in the winter and throttle response is non-existent unless you drive for at least 10 miles to get it all warmed up. This all goes back to the consistency of the oil in cold weather.

 

And the whole rao thing is a long story. To sum it up, there is a thread about what oil to use in the 4th gen forum . The thread started way back when there weren't even "Generation Specific" forums, and all the different generations were organized into one giant Subaru Legacy forum. The thread was more-or-less a joke, and it turned into a huge joke about what to put in the car as engine oil. Ridiculous posts saying to use water, bleach, laundry soap, milk, and other fluids were made as well as other posts making jokes about Mobil 1. Most 4th Gen owners hate Mobil 1 by the way. Rao is probably the biggest joker on the forum and he pretty much continues the oil war in every thread that involves oil. I wouldn't be surprised if he came to this thread and made a post saying to use Pale Dry Ginger Ale as motor oil, as it improves gas mileage and adds 150 horses at the wheels.

Actually that is not correct. People take a very cavalier attitude to oil and pretty much all other fluids. I am very concerned about oil and I do not think that people spend enough time thinking, I mean REALLY thinking about oil. Some people misinterpret this as sarcasm, but I can't really help that now can I?

Sick bastard you were waiting for that weren't you

Actually that is not correct. People take a very cavalier attitude to oil and pretty much all other fluids. I am very concerned about oil and I do not think that people spend enough time thinking, I mean REALLY thinking about oil. Some people misinterpret this as sarcasm, but I can't really help that now can I?

How did I know he'd find this... :lol:

any oil should do the job decently.

the only thing is if you go for whats always on sale dont be going back and forth between synthetics and dino oil.

as a engine gets used to the synthetic oil which flows a bit smoother, switching back to dino oil with bigger particles is a bit harder on it and I've seen it not recommended unless leaks occur on the synthetic