ALFAGTV6.COM

No - dont use the 164S "Thermal mechanical" tensioner.
I've had 3 break in the past year or so!
I now use the standard Alfa tensioner, but modified by welding up the oil feed stud, sealing the oil return hole and then filling the tensioner cylinder with grease so that it cannot move at all. Its essentially a good quality, fixed tensioner now. I figured that if this was good enough for the Porsche engineers when they built the 944 (without a dynamic tensioner), its good enough for me too.

I'm planning on changing the belt more often - maybe every 20K miles.

Cheers,

Joey,

I' ve changed my hidraulic detensioner unit at 90k kms. It was running without any problems, there was no leakage, I only replaced it because I had a new one. I my opinion if the detensioner is in good condition, it won't cause any problem, but if it's leaking no matter what kind of oil do you use, it will leak anyway.

I use Selenia 20K for Alfa Romeo (synthetic based 10W 40) in my car like many GTV6 owners here in Hungary. Others are running Selenia Racing.

thanks Mike and Ingegnere,

thats what i wanted to hear... so far so good, and like i say - no one's heard of the mech units here....

but every now and then you hear of an alfa going for cheap with a smashed valve train

i'll keep vigilant and try the grease trick if they go bad or heaven forbid the units become N.L.A.

cheers

Hi all

I have always used Valvoline Racing 20/50 in the older 12v, and either Selenia 10/60 or Silkolene 10/50 in the 24v motors. Never had any pressure prob's with either.


Andrew.b

I am happy with the Mobil 1 15W 50 in the turbo. I also like hearing all of these "exotic" oils we don't get here... Selenia, Helix... it is so..... F1!

-Brian

Brian

As far as I know, Selenia does have a dealer in the States. FL Viscosity Oil Company, Willowbrooks, IL.

http://www.viscosityoil.com/synthetic1.htm

They're almost next door.

quote fron the site "SELENIA 20K FOR ALPHA ROMEO"

Jeez...

Well...nobody's perfect.

That's funny.

Thanks for the link... I will stay with the Mobil 1... I can get 5 quarts at Walmart for US$18.00!

-Brian

Why change the oil anyway?

We all have our favoured oil for one reason or another and my contribution is not about the type of oil but why we need to change it. This is not as obvious to some people as we think.

Generally speaking, the oil doesn't loose its lubricating qualities so if you wanted to filter it and recycle it with a new filter it should be ok. (Heaven forbid)

The real problem for daily driving cars is the build up of sulphuric acid in the oil as a result of the combustion of petrol containing sulphur impurities. The acid leads to accelerated wear of the engine over time.

So if you want to make your engine last, one of the simplest and mosy cost effective things you can do is change the oil as often as you can afford it and use whatever oils you personally favour (that's another debate) An oil change every 5,000Km is not a bad start.

MD

MD,

Wish we could get a Castrol R that was good for daily driving... when I was a kid I used it once... boy was it great driving around and smelling that stuff... didn't know it was a race thing one time only kind of oil... figured out why the guy who sold it to me looked at me so funny!

Jim and I sometimes talk about making an oil dripper to drip Castrol R on to the exhaust manifold just to make that smell... lol!

-Brian

Brian,

Thanks for lightening the forum with your eccentricity. I am a little sombre over the outpourings in the other thread. I am too much of an outsider to know any meaningful background in my own right so I have to rely on face value of what I read. Personally I have no problem with either party because I do not know enough and I would suspect that many casual site visitors would be in the same boat. What I would like to see is that we move on and I am sure we will.

MD

I agree with you Brian.

Perhaps to hasten things, we should vote someone off the island.

Can we do that Michael?

DaveH wrote:I agree with you Brian.

Perhaps to hasten things, we should vote someone off the island.

Can we do that Michael?

What do you mean with that post?

I have had excellent luck with Kendall oils here in the US, and have seen a Verde with well over 200000 miles, supposedly never even opened up for even a valve job. However it can be hard to find in certain area's.