livefast1

i got the new hot rod magazine and theres an article on a guy with a 10 sec. junkyard turbo 5.0. in the article it says he substituted the ATF in his tranny for 10w30 motor oil. he said hes made 186 passes and it shifts better with the motor oil. my question is is this safe for your tranny or maybe someone could tell me y this would be beneficial.

undecided.steve

I'm not sure what you are saying but in general:

ATF is designed to provide hydraulic properties along with lubrication and heat dissipation.
It is also designed to have modifiers in it to limit clutch problems, torque converter shudder and so forth which may or may not
affect your tranny.
Motor oil is a totally different animal as it has to contend with extreme heat, lubrication and cleansing properties but
does not have to deal with hydraulic properties.

Sure the guy made 186 passes, what happens when he is on the way to grandma's house and the tranny explodes?

Bottom line, DON'T do it.

In fact, DON"T do ANYTHING you read in magazines without fully, and thoroughly investigating independent, knowledgeable sources
for your data.
The magazines almost never tell you the other side of the story, or if they do, it's buried in the article.

02 Ninja

I wouldn't go dumping motor oil in my tranny. I've never heard that before, but i've also seen some stranger sh*t being done. When I swapped tranny fluid (no i don't have a 10 sec car) i used AMS Oil's tranny fluid.

livefast1

o i forgot to mention it was a manual t5 so it wouldnt effect the clutch paks as there are none sorry bout that

livefast1

so technically in a manual transmission application motor oil would serve close to the same purpose

2000GT4.6

Don't do it. If your looking for a fluid swap go with full synthetic ATF, makes a big difference.

livefast1

yea i run amsoil atf in mine also i jus saw this and thought it was interesting, the guy said with regular atf the tranny would grind second but when he swapped in the 10w30 the grind went away and it shifted much better. jus thought it was interesting

svollmer

I'm a hydraulics engineer so I work with this stuff every day. ATF is definitely not the same as 10W30. Undecided.steve was right in his post about the differences, and the modifiers he talked about in the ATF are an additive package to increase friction which helps the clutch packs in an automatic. (I'm not sure why Ford spec'd ATF for our manual trans though, maybe because of soft gear material? Anyone know?) By going to 10W30, this guy probably figured he could reduce friction in the trans, meaning more power to the tires.This may work fine for a drag car that is not driven except for at the track, and maybe for short drives on the road.But if you drive your car every day, it's probably notgoing to doyour trans any favors. I've seen some ugly things happen to parts when people don't use the right oil. So, if your looking for adependable oil upgrade that improves performance, I would stick with a full synthetic ATF from someone like Royal Purple, Amsoil, etc.

99gtstang

never heard of that but i have heard of Tranny fluid in your oil. I have actually done it. I dumped oil, filled up with auto tranny fluid drove 60 straight miles then changed out with oil.... Several mechanic told me it's a good idea.

livefast1

wow never heard of that before what is the benefit in that