i have a 1990 volvo 740 turbo. how many quarts of oil does it need? what grade of viscosity? thanks!

I use 4quarts of Castrol GTX 10w30.

+1. 4 qts Castrol 10W-30 with filter (Volvo or Mann W917).

is the oil filter in a hard to get to spot?

Nope. get under the car and look up. It isat the back of the engine towards the turbo.
These cars are really easy to work on, becuase there is SO much room inthe engine bay.

I Personally Like the PUROLATOR Brand of Oil Filters.........Because of the Quality of The Threads to screw on, and the Filter has been proven to be of a Higher Quality than many others like fram.........check out these sites..

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Automotiv...il-filters.htm

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums...d=6&page=1

Rotella Diesel oil is great in red blocks, been using it the last few years. Mann are the best filters also (had read from a good source on a blog here or elsewhere can't remember forsure) Though I recently picked up some Delo 400 SDE on sale for 12 bucks which compares to the Rotella but has Moly additive included in it which after some brief research sounds to be good for the engine.

I use those diesel oils in my mercedes inline 6's, but they are a bit heavy for the redblock, which really does prefer 10w30 under most conditions.

My personal oil and filter choice is 3.5 quarts of Mobil 1 5W-30 and half a quart of Lucas Oil with a Wix XP filter. Has worked well for me so far.

Well, the Red Block is the last thing that will fail in a Volvo. Doubt there has ever been a case where a Volvo died because of the incorrect filter or oil. Better address how to keep the plastics, moldings, seats, electric gremlins, etc. from shortening the life of these cars.

We had ours dealer maintained for the 1st year and ever since I have changed the oil at 3000 miles (1st 10 years ) and then went to 5000 mile intervals. It came with 10W-40 dino oil and I used the Volvo OEM filter. At 372,000 miles I still use both.