What is the best motorcycle OILS ???

[Datsa Noydb]

It didn't stop the conversation, it just arrived here in the USA after midnight.

Most of us were asleep.

[Lorenzo]

Is this or not supposed to be an high availability forum...

[newfyby]

What are thoughts on using Rottella diesel oil. ?????????

[Brendan W]

Pretty favourable in general....................

http://www.vfrworld.com/tex_vfr/tech/oil.htm

[jwhelan65]

I use Shell Rotella 5W-40 synthetic diesel oil in my bikes.

[tkent02]

I think most of us use Rotella except the newbs.

[Andy24]

Hi guys, I tried Castrol,total,shell,elf,motul,motorex,silkolene on my Suzuki GS400 '79 44000km and I found that it works best with elf moto 4 dx 20w50 (out of production,replaced with elf cruise 20w50,same thing) and with Shell AX7 15w50.
I like to have always good oil and I change it every 3500/4000km,i ride the entire year almost every day,in winter I use 15w50 and I warm the engine 2/3min,oil filter changed every 2 oil change and I put oil aditives like motorcoat LS 27.
ive found that more expensive oils like motul and silkolene doesn't work as well,the engine is louder and the shifting is rough when the engine is warm.
my engine consumes 0.7l of oil on 1000km of normal riding,consumes more if I ride it hard,do you guys have better oil consumption?

[Andy24]

have anyone tried ipone oil? is it good?

[fastbysuzuki]

Unfortunately rotela is not available in the uk

[Brendan W]

Unfortunately rotela is not available in the uk

Nor here. There is stuff called Rimula but the hassle of tracking down a stockist is too much and Shell can't even say if it is like Rotella. I've ended up with some 15W40 mineral oil for older diesel engines.

[Nessism]

Unfortunately rotela is not available in the uk

As I understand it the UK version of Castrol GTX has a good bit of zinc and phosphorus, unlike the USA version. You might want to look up a data sheet and as long as there is 1200 ppm of those ingredients you are good to go.

[John Park]

Hi guys, I tried Castrol,total,shell,elf,motul,motorex,silkolene on my Suzuki GS400 '79 44000km and I found that it works best with elf moto 4 dx 20w50 (out of production,replaced with elf cruise 20w50,same thing) and with Shell AX7 15w50.
I like to have always good oil and I change it every 3500/4000km,i ride the entire year almost every day,in winter I use 15w50 and I warm the engine 2/3min,oil filter changed every 2 oil change and I put oil aditives like motorcoat LS 27.
ive found that more expensive oils like motul and silkolene doesn't work as well,the engine is louder and the shifting is rough when the engine is warm.
my engine consumes 0.7l of oil on 1000km of normal riding,consumes more if I ride it hard,do you guys have better oil consumption?

Hi Andy.

I don't have a figure for 'normal' oil consumption on a twin, but that sounds like about three times what it should be on a tight motor. The roller crank twins had rather less finning on the cylinders and tended to run hotter than the later ones. The one I had was due for rings at about 50K kilometres , but I'd run it pretty hard. Somebody ran that motor another 20k anyway.

You can get into a situation with air-cooled motors where the blowby heats the cylinder walls causing accelerated ring wear, which causes more blowby and so on. That's why it's a good idea to keep the cylinder/ring sealing tight and preserve the cylinders as long as possible. Blowby also increases oil temperature in the crankcase.

If the compression is good, oil consumption isn't so important as long as you don't end up with fouled plugs. It could also be bad intake valve guide seals, but you'd be getting lots of smoke on deceleration if that much oil was getting in that way.

[Andy24]

Hi Andy.

I don't have a figure for 'normal' oil consumption on a twin, but that sounds like about three times what it should be on a tight motor. The roller crank twins had rather less finning on the cylinders and tended to run hotter than the later ones. The one I had was due for rings at about 50K kilometres , but I'd run it pretty hard. Somebody ran that motor another 20k anyway.

You can get into a situation with air-cooled motors where the blowby heats the cylinder walls causing accelerated ring wear, which causes more blowby and so on. That's why it's a good idea to keep the cylinder/ring sealing tight and preserve the cylinders as long as possible. Blowby also increases oil temperature in the crankcase.

If the compression is good, oil consumption isn't so important as long as you don't end up with fouled plugs. It could also be bad intake valve guide seals, but you'd be getting lots of smoke on deceleration if that much oil was getting in that way.

I didnt measured the compression but the engine runs great,start easily and the spark plugs arent wet of oil or smell like burned oil they are light brown\grey....smokes only on really high rpm,white\blueish smoke..

[John Park]

I didnt measured the compression but the engine runs great,start easily and the spark plugs arent wet of oil or smell like burned oil they are light brown\grey....smokes only on really high rpm,white\blueish smoke..

Sounds like the rings just can't quite scrape enough of the oil off the cylinders when the revs are up. Probably they have got too hot and lost some of their spring tension. The ring lands may be getting loose, too. But nothing that be would worth getting too worried about. It doesn't take much different from perfect to cause a bit of oil consumption.

[Uncamitzi]

This guy has an interesting take on it - select an oil which gives 10psi per 1000rpm for plain bearinged engines.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/faq.php?faq=haas_articles

His reasoning is valid, imo, with regards to bearing flow and cooling. That dynamic wedge needs to be maintained, and a too-thick oil isn't doing as much good as you'd think.

There is one slight gotcha I've come across mentioned with synthetic oils in ball-bearinged engines - ball skid. I've been using synth for the past couple of years and can't say it's affected me, but the risk is small, I think.

I've got to read these forums more often... I laughed for about 5 minutes at that..................