Pinto Car Club of America

Can anyone say that it's better to use or not use synthetic oil in an older car like the Pinto?  Does it really make any difference at all? 

I run synthetic in my 67 mustang however the motor only has about 10K on it since the rebuild.  I think it really depends on the condition of the motor.  If it leaks, smokes, and uses oil then it is cheaper to run regular oil in my opinion.

I'll agree with Tigger on this one. My experience has been an older engine will show more leaks with a synthetic oil. I'm also not sure of using a synthetic oil with slider followers like the 2.0 or 2.3. For the money, I'd stick with a quality conventional oil like castrol or valvoline. I put 260k on a 2.0 using castrol and had no sludge buildup period. My $0.02. JT

I have always used Castrol GTX 10w30 in my 78's 2.3. Never any issues, but I have also upgraded the followers and cam to a roller setup from a 91 'stang.

For my 73's 2.0, I haven't done any motor work to it besides a valve cover gasket change. I need to replace the valve guide seals and readjust the lifters on it still, though. For the sake to seeing if it runs okay, I have been running some quaker state 20w50 in it, with enough zinc content to keep it all in decent shape. It takes some time to warm up and get the oil thin enough to flow great though. I'm also running a bottle of engine cleaner through it to remove any sludge from it sitting forever. Once it's going good though, I plan to run some high mileage synthetic with zinc additive.