Egads, another oil thread!

[Cobia]

Heads up!!

Just got a flier from Pep Boys, 5 quarts of GTX and a filter (for your car) for $16.99. That's just about what a 5qt jug goes for at WM.

[3Phase]

Isn't it all the detergents and addatives in the oil that foam anyways?

Nate, the connecting rods will whip the oil, that's why most oil companies use at least some anti-foam additives, but you can only add so much anti-foam to oil before the oil stops being a lubricant or it becomes expensive. The new diesel and automotive oils contain less anti-foam than some motorcycle-specific oils but they're closer than they used to be. Don't run at 8,500 RPM all day long.

Use good oil without a lot of viscosity index improvers. Cheap oil with viscosity index improvers is basically a bowl of cheap oil filled with microscopic plastic coils of monofilament fishing line that uncoil when they heat up to make cheap oil perform like expensive oil.

It's great for cars but run it through a motorcycle transmission and it will quickly turn into a bowl of cheap oil filled with microscopic plastic bits and pieces that performs like an expensive engine rebuild will be necessary in your immediate future.

[cywelchjr]

Nate, the connecting rods will whip the oil, that's why most oil companies use at least some anti-foam additives, but you can only add so much anti-foam to oil before the oil stops being a lubricant or it becomes expensive. The new diesel and automotive oils contain less anti-foam than some motorcycle-specific oils but they're closer than they used to be. Don't run at 8,500 RPM all day long.

Use good oil without a lot of viscosity index improvers. Cheap oil with viscosity index improvers is basically a bowl of cheap oil filled with microscopic plastic coils of monofilament fishing line that uncoil when they heat up to make cheap oil perform like expensive oil.

It's great for cars but run it through a motorcycle transmission and it will quickly turn into a bowl of cheap oil filled with microscopic plastic bits and pieces that performs like an expensive engine rebuild will be necessary in your immediate future.

That's why I use the castol I believe MC specific oil most of the time. It's not really that much more expensive, and I figure it's cheap insurance, and if there is little difference, that's ok, I at least feel a little better, and that's worth something too.

[3Phase]

It's not really that much more expensive

I was using the Valvoline 10W-40 motorcycle oil until the local places here bumped the prices on all the motorcycle oil a couple of bucks over regular oil. A few extra parts-per-million of anti-foam doesn't cost that much so I bought some Shell Rotella 15W-40 (with Triple Protection!) dino oil because it was on sale at Wally World.

The Rotella's worked fine for the last couple of thousand miles with no fatal foaming and the transmission shifts like an XS11 so I bought another gallon a few days ago. I'll probably change it again when I get to Idaho or Utah before heading up to the mountains and Colorado; don't know where I'll be after that because I can't plan that far ahead!

[natemoen]

I wish I could remember what brand it was but there was some oil I had a year or so ago, I opened the bottle and it seriously smelled like a bar of soap. I just wish I had written it down so I never buy it again.

[CaptonZap]

Some light reading,

http://www.dansmc.com/4stroke_oil.htm

http://www.lnengineering.com/oil.html

[mstic2000]

Haven't tried the Super Tech oil in my bike engine. I do use it in my lower unit on my boat motor and the synthetic stuff in my middle and final drives. Haven't had any problems there. I use the Castrol 20-50 dino juice myself. I will have to look myself and see if my local Wally World is still carrying it.

I've used the Super Tech 10w40 the last two oil changes with no problems. I was using the 20w50 but was going through a lot of oil. The 10w40 seems to work fine.