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I put THICKER oil in my engine and it quitetened my lifters QUITE a lot. 15-40 Mobil 1. The theory is that thinner oil gets in better, but thicker oil stays in better. Also the bottle recomended that weight for high performance engines. bonus

I was told that synthetic oil is good for japan engines because they have less clearance between moving parts, where as thicker/heavier wieght oils work good on N.A. engines.<BR>In your case you needed something thicker to "stick" to your moving parts. One does not need to go to a thicker/heavier oil, just add LUCAS ENGINE treatment next time you do an oil change, I swear by it.

The only problem with thick oil or lucas(oil thickener) is in cold weather it takes a lot longer for it to start flowing.<P>The lifters will be very noisy untill the oil can get to them. This also creates lots of engine wear.<P>My piece of s--- 2.8 V6 86 fiero GT used to have very low oil pressure because of exsessive clearance in the oil pump and main bearings, I put 20W50 oil in and the pressure came back up out of the red, but I didnt want to use it in the cold so I bought some synthetic oil 5W50 and guess what.... it was still out of the red zone!!! <P>so I used canadian tire 5W50 all winter long and had no problems with my oil pressure or with bad flowing oil. Even on some of the hotest days when I really beat my car the oil pressure wouldn't drop in to the red zone. <P>Dont use thick oils in the cold if you have a pressure or ticking problem use a synthetic 5W50 oil. Its designed to be the best of both worlds, and it is.

That is right about the weather but most canadian cars use block heaters so if you plug in your not likly to get as much of a problem

Dont you want your oil to shed quickly and be re-aplyed quickly for cooling

Curtklze you're a GENIUS! not only did nail it on the head, but I think you may have solved why my oil light flickers after a long hard drive.<BR>The engine was rebuilt, and is still kinda in the "break in" period, but I have fully synthetic in it right now and that could very well be why there's low oil pressure when the engine is idling, and hot.<BR>SOMETIMES THE SIMPLEST SOLUTION IS THE RIGHT ONE!

If you use genuine Mazda oil filters they are supposed to have a valve in them that stops the oil all running back into the pan while sitting. I expect that if I left it for a while it would still drain though. K&N filters are supposed to have the same thing. If you do experience the dry start problem ( I don't) whatever you do don't rev it until you get some pressure. When winter rolls back around I'll opt for thinner oil though.

Block Heaters have the wrong name.<BR>They dont really heat the block up and make it warm.<P>They warm the coolant (antifreeze). But warm is a relative term. <BR>When the outside temp is -25 and the block heater warms the coolant to -10 or -5 the coolant is then warmer than the outside air.<P> the oil is still very very thick because it is -5 degrees.<P>The ONLY purpose of the block heater is to keep the water/coolant/anti-freeze from freezing and cracking the block.<BR>