I'm fed up and I took action - pic

[JanGeo]

If the engine was never timed it may be off or tuned to run strong but knock a lot - my 3 cylinder pulled great at low RPM but was in a state of constant slight knock at highway speeds on hot days. Usually there is a couple of knotches in the pulley or in my Geo's case on the flywheel that you viewed through a plug on top of the bell housing when you ran a timing light off plug#1. Easy way to adjust it is to make sure you can loosen the distributor bolts but before you do that mark the flange that is at the engine with a good scratch or paint mark so you know where the alignment was to start. Then loosen it up and either lightly tap it with a hammer or rotate it by hand a hair counterclockwise (? I think) to see if the idle drops a little which would indicate a slight retarding. Then drive it and see. By a hair I mean if you scratch it with a screwdriver then move it so the line on the distributor base just moves next to the scratch on the block.

Yeah keep with the 5w30 like a Castrol synthetic blend or full. I ran my for 90k miles with really long oil change intervals and didn't have any oil problems.