| Author | Message | ||
     Baggermike |
this is for all you guys who were debating which oil is the best to use, I do not know what all this means but for someone that has technical back round this site may help, www.bobistheoilguy.com | ||
| Jlnance |
It's a good site. One thing you learn pretty quickly after browsing around is there is a lot more to oil than you thought there was. | ||
| Jos51700 |
Sponsors? The internet? These two things alone make me question the integrity of the information. | ||
| Roadkingtrax |
They sure do like that Schaeffer Oil? Hmm who is the sponser....well I'll be. It's Schaeffer!!! | ||
| Wizzells |
Ive been reading that site for probably 5 years now. While there is some personal bias as "which oil is best", there is so much to learn regarding lubrication that you could spend weeks reading nonstop and still not know 20% of what a select few on there know. They do have site sponsors that include Schaeffers, Amsoil, Redline, Castrol, etc., but on the whole these sponsors don't push any products. It's really the members on the site with the experience that decide which oils work best. Oil analysis #'s dont lie! | ||
| Baggermike |
Your right I still do not know what oil to get, I am using lucas synthetic oil because it is available, I would like to use mobil 1 if I could find it along with amsoil, the whole thing is complicated and just going to change my oil allot and should be good. Mike | ||
| Blake |
Some of the most expensive engines in the world don't get their oil changed until the analyis indicates a need to do so. Running in cold, taking short trips, and dirty/dusty conditions necessitate reduced oil change intervals. Otherwise, if you run synthetic and routinely get the oil nice and hot, you should be good to go for 6,000 or more as per the owner's manual. Anything less is overkill. Oops, the Buell 1125R Owner's Manual folks goofed on the intervals after 12,400 MI. They skipped over 18,600 and went right to 24,800 miles. I'll let the folks know. The KM intervals are correct though, every 10K (6200 mi).  | ||
| Baggermike |
Hi Blake how many miles to valve adjustment. Mike | ||
| Blake |
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| Court |
I stick to my position that with the modern oil specs you can buy the cheapest petroleum oil and the most expensive synthetic and if you maintain the motor per spec you'll never notice any appreciable difference in the first 100,000. Don't get me wrong . . . I fun Mobil 1 in my truck and change it ever 3,000 (or so) miles. Every year I have all the fluids (brake, power steering, trans) purged and replaced. The big difference is that I know I'm being anal and there is likely little good that REALLY comes out of this. There was a day when there were "bad" oils. . . .those days, like the days of the "bad" motorcycle are long gone. | ||
| Zac4mac |
There's still Pennzoil, made out of candles. It IS good for lubing chains tho... oh yeah, we don't have those. Z | ||
| Spectrum |
Mike - I was in my Local NAPA dealer recently and was surprised to find they carried Amsoil as does one of the local HD dealers. Ask around you might be surprised where you can find it. I also agree with Court. Low interval oil changes is the key to engine maintenance regardless if you use cheap or expensive oil. | ||
| Wizzells |
Zac, Pennzoil is NOT made out of candles - that is 100% myth. | ||
| Reepicheep |
I did research it, but tried not to over research it. IMHO, there *is* an appreciable difference between running a full synthetic and a non synthetic oil in an air cooled motor. Or a turbo charged Saab for that matter. I would not run either vehicle on non synthetic. There is *not* an appreciable difference between "high quality" full synthetics and "low quality" full synthetics, especially for any rational oil change interval (which I would define as between 3500 and 5000 miles). I do get surprised every now and then though... There should also (in theory) not be a big difference between running 5w50 and 20w50 full synthetic oil during the summer. But on my 05 9sx, it makes a HUGE difference, 20w50 works perfect, 5w50 vanishes at an alarming rate. | ||
| Jlnance |
There should also (in theory) not be a big difference between running 5w50 and 20w50 full synthetic oil during the summer. But on my 05 9sx, it makes a HUGE difference, 20w50 works perfect, 5w50 vanishes at an alarming rate. I noticed a surprising difference between the consumption rates of 20w50 Syn3 and 15w50 Mobil 1. On my trip across the country, I had the dealer do the 30k service before I left, and they of course used syn3. I'd ride about 600 miles/day and the level would drop about 2 Xes per day. I changed the oil in California to Mobil 1 15w50 car oil, which is what I normally run. I would have to add oil at least every other day on the way home. I was shocked that it made that much difference. | ||
| Baggermike |
Jinance did you add oil once a day with the Syn3 and every other day with mobil 1, I also wanted to know the difference between car and motorcycle oil if any, is there a difference or just the packaging of the oil, is this why you use car oil it is the same. Mike | ||
| Jlnance |
Bagger, I think I made it all the way across the country w/o adding oil with the syn3. I didn't see any reason to keep it topped off, and it never made it down to the add line. When I say it dropped 2 Xes, I'm talking about the X cross hashes on the dipstick. There is a difference between car and motorcycle oils. I couldn't enumerate them right off. It has to do with the various additives. But synthetic car oil is superior to the dino oil the bike (I'm talking Uly here) was designed to run on, so I'm not going to sweat the difference. It's too convenient to be able to pick up a quart at any autoparts store, rather than looking for Harley dealers. | ||
| Baggermike |
Jinance at pep boys the have lucas synthetic 20/50 racing oil for cars, I was reading the back and it said controls heat and wear in high performance heavy duty motorcycles especially harley davidson's it is what I have been using at 7 dollars a quart, last month I put it in a blender on high to foam it up and returned to normal in 45 minutes, I put castrol regular 20/50 motorcycle oil in the blender and still has not turned back and has a layer of something on top, I even put in the microwave to heat it up to see if that helped it get the air bubbles out but still looks the same like coffee and cream color. Mike | ||
| Reepicheep |
The best experiment you can do would be to simply run the oil you choose for 4000 miles, then send it to someone like blackstone for analysis. Ive settled on Castrol Syntec (full synthetic) 20W50 for now... mainly because they always have it at Wal Mart, and it meets the spec for the bike. Its actually pretty hard to find a 20w50 full synthetic. I think Valvoline makes some as well, I have gotten and used that from my local auto zone (I think). It was fairly priced (under $5 per quart) worked well also. If WalMart had a full synthetic 20w50 in their house brand, I would buy and use that. I use their full syn in the For my new (old) Saab, which runs oil to cool the turbo, I will run Rotella 5w40 full synthetic. Its really good, and its cheap at Wal-Mart. Guess I am pretty predictable | ||
| Court |
>>>IMHO, there *is* an appreciable difference between running a full synthetic and a non synthetic oil in an air cooled motor. Or a turbo charged Saab for that matter. I would not run either vehicle on non synthetic. Actually . . since I first posted that (1994) I think I'd be willing to back off it. Synthetics are now FULL synthetic (i.e. the molecules are the size they say they are, they no longer "average" the sizes.) and have been fine tuned to vehicles. I run Mobil 1 5W-20 in the truck. | ||
| Baggermike |
Reepicheep I do not know if that would work because four thousand miles on the highway is not the same as four thousand miles of city riding, what I got from reading Bob the oil guy is you can send your oil out and have it analized for the different metal to find engine wear and were the engine wear is, I think I will have this done every 10 thousand miles and will see if any problems are going and and catch them before it is to late. Mike | ||
| Reepicheep |
While I respect and admire your self reliant can-do attitude, I am willing to guess that the data you get from an oil analysis from your own bike would be much more useful then your blender, no matter how well calibrated Even if it wasn't the perfect mix of city and highway... | ||
| Baggermike |
I agree and was a experiment and I find it curious that one oil cleared up after 45 minutes and the other oil still looks like coffee and cream, I want to do this with other oils just to see how they will do, I read if oil has air in it then it is not doing its job, so the oil that wins the blender test is the oil I will use, however crude the test is, it is showing a difference. Mike |
