Oil Change

[csavaglio]

I know this has been covered ad nauseum, but after searching and doing a ton of reading, I've got more questions than answers. After doing 99% of my own car work for my adult life, I never, ever thought I'd be asking questions about an oil change, but here we are.

I'm pretty up and up about what oil and filter to use.

I plan to use a Mityvac to extract the oil. LT5 guys give some contradictory information though. First, guys seem to agree that the oil should be warm before extracting, which on a normal motor, I agree since it drains faster. This requires running the car. They also agree that quite a bit of oil stays in the motor for extended periods of time and the motor needs to sit for hours before all of the oil is in the pan. By the time the oil drains down to the pan, it will have cooled.

I could leave it up on jack stands overnight draining it out of the drain plug, but I have a small 2 car garage and I'm not about to leave my '69 outside overnight, so that's not really a viable option due to space. Besides that, I can't imagine for the life of me that when these cars were new, Chevrolet gave new Z owners a loaner car since a simple oil change take's overnight to accomplish.

So, what's the consensus here? Run the car to heat the oil up and leave a quart+ in the motor (along with the 1.5q in the cooler that everyone's ok with) or pump the cold oil out of the pan after the car's been sitting? I'm not even sure how the mityvac is going to work with cold oil, since I've always done it the old fashioned way and I've heard mixed about whether it's got the guts to pull cold oil.

It seems the goal is to get 9 to 9.5 quarts out of the thing including what's in the filter. Of course, checking the level is done after the motor's been sitting several hours or more.

So, guys using Mityvac's or similar, do you run the car to heat up and thin the oil first, or do you pump it when it's cold, thick, and mostly in the pan?

Thanks, guys.

Chris