aznpooky

okay lately ive been scanning the threads lately and have been quite scared at all the problems and questions people are asking about doing the first oil change. i was originally planning on going to the dealership and having them do the oil change then i read another thread that stated that dealerships and a slight tendancy to mess around with customers cars when they drop it off. so i said screw it ill do it myself.

first of all the hardest thing about the oil change was jacking the car up. my car on my friends driveway was at a bit of an angle which made it quite hard to jack up the frontend. but nevertheless we figured it out and had the car up in like two minutes and placed on more stable jack things.

i decided not to go with some strange exotic japanese oil blended in the high mountains of Mt. Fuji by the Honda gods themselves, i decided to just use Castrol GTX which by the way is non-synthetic, which by the way is the only stuff ill put in the car. i bought 5 yes only five quarts of the stuff and a Fram filter. yeah i wished i had access to those JDM filters people are talking about but i felt like having a cheap oil change today and was in a bit of a rush. oh and i also bought a funnel because i have the tendancy to lose those damn things. well so the total from the local Kragen was like 15 dollars. saved five bucks from going to the dealership.

so back to the oil change everything is basically the same as doing a regular oil change. perhaps the main dilemma people are having is putting the oil in. the book says 5.1 quarts of oil. but come now .1? if it was .5 or maybe even .4 i would have bought another bottle but i believe that .1 stays in the engine even after you drain the oil. well so i finished the job and checked the stick, the level was after the third x from the bottom. listen the level needs to be between the two letters. i think it was f and e cant remember. but then yeah it doesnt need to be at some perfect x level. even the owners manual says pretty much anywhere between the two letters is fine.

well i hope this clears things up for people about what level the oil needs to be at and how many bottles of oil to buy

Gloffer

Sheesh, spend another $1.29 for another quart of Castrol and fill your crankcase to the F mark on the dipstick. Just don't overfill. The owner's manual is wrong, assuming the oil is fully drained, the S2000 oil capacity with a filter change is 5.6 quarts. This is documented in the FAQs. Check it out.

Oil to the F mark is better for several reasons:
1. Allows for more oil use before going to the L mark.
2. More oil in the sump means better oil cooling capacity.
3. Less chance of starving the oil pump in "spirited" driving.

Please don't use a Fram filter, spend a few extra $ for a Mobil 1 filter, a Pure One filter, or an AC Duraguard Gold filter. It's also good to pre-fill your oil filter before installing it on the car. You can put about a half quart in the filter in two pours, allowing time between the pours for the oil to "soak" into the filter media. You should be able to put the filter on the car without spilling much oil, with a half quart pre-staged in the filter.

UCrazyKid

Oh, god. Don't use Fram filters, they are crap. You dropped so much money on this car, now is not the time to be cheap! Spend the extra $5 and get the Honda filter and buy an extra quart of oil to fill the motor. Sheeesh.

AA

aznpooky

ok let me ask you guys this, why are fram filters such crap? explain details to me not just something you heard from what somebody heard. does it not filter enough particles, does is inhibit oil flow, what? and also i think my oil level is just fine, the oil light aint coming on or anything. i think adding another quart will just be way too much oil in the engine and you guys know what happens when that happens

marcucci

I'm sure you've seen it, but you'll see it again:

http://www.ntpog.org/reviews/filters/filters.shtml

I'll revise my "Fram filters are crap" statement to "Fram filters are inferior to most." They are built more cheaply with the least filter material (in surface area) of any filter I've seen. They include cardboard in the cartridge which I think will blow out over time.

STP filters are about the same price as Fram and would appear to be of much better quality in all respects. I can't speak for filtering ability (in terms of microns), but I would feel much, much more comfortable putting one of them in as opposed to Fram.

I don't think it was mentioned, but if you checked your level immediately after the fill it won't be correct- it takes a little time for all the oil to make it down to the oil pan. You also HAVE to check it on LEVEL ground, otherwise it will read WAY off.

John MI blk/blk '01

This is very true. If I check my oil in my driveway the oil reads 3x's down. If I check it on level ground it is full. The difficult part is finding level ground.

John

aznpooky

from that link it states that as long as oil is changed within 3000 miles using a American Honda or Fram filter is fine. if you change oil every 5000 then using a higher quality filter would be required. i guess the next time i change my oil i will switch to a STP filter. i dont think there was much difference between the STP and the Mobil 1. well thanks for that link.

marcucci

You're welcome. I'm sure there is a difference between the STP and M1 filters in terms of filtering ability, but I have no way to test that. I would wager a guess that the STP is similar to Honda's (based on price and availability of materials) and that the Mobil 1 is "better." How much, I can't quantitatively say.

RedHead

Check out what this site has to say about filters:

http://members.nbci.com/minimopar/oilfilterstudy.html

HankookS2K

[QUOTE=aznpooky,Sep 24 2001, 11:27 AM] ok let me ask you guys this, why are fram filters such crap?