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A while back I posted a product review on Rotella T Synthetic 5W40 along with the following general engine oil info:

One interesting and long piece of reading (definitely throne material) is the Motor Oil Bible. I clipped the pdf file to include the motorcycle section only and it can be viewed here.
At least take the time to read the shortened motorcycle version as it talks about friction modifiers for those of us with wet clutches.

Sidebar: The document above served as a great information tool. Keep in mind its only one man’s opinion. Although he recommends extended oil drains if you use synthetic oil, I am still choosing not to go beyond 3000 miles for my motorcycles (autos though may just work). My reasoning is that unike autos, the motorcycle engine oil on those with wet clutches get the worn clutch particles in the oil, and since mine is a sport bike that gets abused I’m not chancing it. On the flip-side, it provide a lot of (enter Johnny Carson voice) “I did not know that”. End Sidebar

Chuck turned me on to this thread over in an FJR Forum. Anyway, there is a guy giving out his opinion based on some thirty years working in the GM engine dyno lab. This is pretty long and its mostly a cut and paste job, but the info is very interesting nonetheless if you have a little heartache over the cost of synthetic oil versus conventional oil. It flows a little better by reading the actual discussion, but treat this as the Cliff’s Notes version.

Keep in mind that there are a lot of reasons to change the oil. Oil oxidizes with time and temperature, oil gets contaminated with combustion byproducts, oil gets contaminted with soot from blowby, oil gets contaminated with fuel and water…particularily during cold starts, acids form in the oil, oil gets contaminted with dust/dirt/debris, the antiwear additive in the oil (the “zinc” or ZDP) gets depleted with engine revolutions, the anti-oxidants/anti-acids/detergents/dispesant additive deplete with time and engine revolutions.

Synthetic oil addresses the oxidation as it will handle higher temperatures but that is about the only advantage of synthetic…so…in short, using synthetic does NOTHING to allow a longer drain interval. Synthetic has the same amounts of ZDP, same problem with fuel and water contamination, same problems with other contaminates including soot, same problem with acid buildup, etc…. All reasons why synthetic oil does NOT allow longer drain intervals.

The water from combustion byproducts/blowby combines with the sulfur in the fuel in blowby to form sulfuric acid over time so oil acidity slowly increases with time and miles and synthetic oil does nothing different to prevent this. You have to change the oil before the anti-acids in the oil additive package are overwhelmed.

If oxidation were the only reason to change the oil then synthetics would have an advantage in terms of life or extending the drain intervals. Unfortunately, oxidation due to temperature is RARELY the determining factor for the drain interval so any advantage synthetics might have in this area are moot.

I would recommend sticking to the recommended drain intervals even if you use synthetic oil.

It is interesting that the new Mobil 1 “extended service” oils added more ZDP to the oil to prevent depletion of the anti-wear additive to market the extended drain intervals to 15,000. BUT….read the bottle. It specifically states that if your engine is under warranty, change the oil at the specified intervals…hmmm….so much for their “guaranteed 15,000 mile interval. Another gem on the bottle is the statement that “if your engine has an oil life monitor follow the oil life monitor and do not use the extended drain interval.” The bottle also says that the extended service is void if the engine operates in heavy duty/commercial/livery service, is idled a lot or is operated in a dusty environment. That pretty much eliminates a LOT of other applications and matches the manufacturer’s recommendations for sooner oil changes under those conditions. So..after reading the can, exactly what good is the “extended service” Mobil 1. In addition, if you look carefully, the extended service Mobil 1 does not have the API SG3/SG4 rating as it exceeds the anti-wear (zinc) concentration for the API SG3/SG4 ratings. This is not necessarily bad for motorcycles but makes the oil a NON-recommended oil for most modern passenger car applications. I am not making this up….read the fine print on the bottle yourself.

I would change the oil at the normal intervals even if you do use a synthetic oil.

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It isn’t MY conclusion…it is a fact. Mobil even says the same thing. They have not stated anything about extended drain intervals with their products until the recent addition of the “extended service -15000″ synthetic oil. And they had to modify their existing Mobil 1 product to make that claim (modified to the extent that it doesn’t conform to the SG3/SG4 specs anymore) and they STILL put tons of qualifiers on the 15000 claim with the disclaimer about changing it according to the manufacturer’s oil life monitor, and changing it sooner if under warranty or operating in towing/commercial service or dusty environments. I am not making that up….read the bottle for yourself.

With all the other reasons for changing the oil there is no way that synthetic can claim a longer drain interval.

I worked extensively with the GM Research oil chemists that developed the GM Oil Life Monitor and know for a fact that it doesn’t change anything in the model for cars with synthetic oil from the factory.

I agree that it is possible, under certain conditions, to run the oil past 15,000 or even 20,000 miles in passenger cars with the oil not being “used up” or “worn out”…but…that is assuming no safety factor at all in the oil life and it is under the best of conditions. And…the testing that proved this was NOT synthetic. If the oil is being used under conditions that allow an extremely long change interval then conventional oil will last just as long as synthetic under those conditions.

The single advantage of synthetic is it’s ability to operate at temps above 305 F without oxidizing rapidly. Since there are few applications where the oil gets that hot the advantage is moot and contributes zero to extended drain capability. Even my CBX with a partial fairing blocking part of the engine never gets the oil to 300 even running on the freeway at 80 in summer weather…I’ve checked.

The fact is that the “extended service” claim for the Mobil 1 15000 oil is a bit hollow…especially when they add several $$$ per quart for the 15000 oil. A modern Cadillac Northstar or LS1 engine will go 12500 miles on the oil life monitor if used in highway driving, best case conditions…and that is validated with conventional, non-synthetic oil !!! So for the extra $$$ for synthetic and extra $$$ for 15000 you only get 2500 extra miles…and Mobil tells you on the bottle NOT to ge 15000 if your car has an oil life monitor. If you saw data showing the oil was fine with extended drain intervals then conventional oil would have done the same thing on that particular test.

Forget the idea that synthetic allows longer drain intervals. It is hype by some of the synthetic marketers (primarily Amsoil) to sell/justify their expensive (highly profitable) product. They test under one set of best case conditions and then imply that that is the case for all conditions.

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The other thing to keep in mind with oil drain intervals is that different engines have distinctly different oil lifes. The life of the oil in the engine is VERY dependent on the engine design, features in the engine and what is expected of the oil. As an example from the engines that I work on, the 93-99 Northstar engine would have a maximum oil life of 7500 miles. This was bumped up to 12,500 miles with the redesign of the engine in 2000 model year. This is the maximum oil life under optimum operating conditions, not the recommended change interval all the time. The difference in the engines is that the 2000 engine has rolling element cam followers instead of direct acting lifters. The rubbing element or direct acting lifters take the anti-wear ZDP out of the oil much faster and the direct acting tappets are far more dependent on oil quality and the presence of the ZDP to live. Oil that would be depleted of ZDP in the earlier engines in 7500 miles is still serviceable at 12,500 miles in the newer engines.

Older passenger car engines had rubbing element lifters, rubbing element rocker arms, pushrod tips, distributor gears that drove the oil pump, spur gear oil pumps, etc… Those engines needed a lot of antiwear protection and used it up quickly. 3000 mile oil changes on those engines with the oils of the day were probably stretching it under some conditions. Modern engines have gerotor oil pumps, no distributor gears, rolling element everything in the valve gear….they do not chew up the oil nor need high levels of anti-wear additives. Plus, the improved PCV systems keep the oil cleaner.

Any oil claims of extended drain intervals that do not make the distinction of what type of service or what type of engine should be highly suspect and considered primarily a marketing ploy. Period.

Motorcycle engines, like the FJR, still have rubbing element, direct acting tappets that need lots of ZDP and take the ZDP out of the oil fairly quickly. Synthetic has no advantage nor makes any difference in this respect. In addition, the oil lubricates the gear box where the gear mesh shears down the oil viscosity and takes even more ZDP out of the oil. Wet clutch action contaminates the oil also and is another source of ZDP depletion.

Since the basic model for oil life involves the linear depletion of ZDP in the oil due to metal-to-metal contact at lifter interfaces, gear interfaces, etc. I would guess that a motorcycle engine degrades oil life much more rapidly than a car engine…probably twice as fast. Also, motorcycle engines turn twice the RPM of car engines for any given maneuver so that multiplies the oil degradation by 2. The oil life algorithms (that have proven to accurately model engine oil life beyond a shadow of a doubt) actually count engine revolutions to establish the basic oil decay rate…so…the more revolutions the greater the degradation. This linear decay rate is multiplied by various factors that account for the oil operating temperature, ambient conditions, soak times, run times, engine load and many others. Short trips in cold weather will add considerable deterioration because of the effects of contamination by gas and water. Since cold weather operation is not much of a factor with bikes and they do tend to get thoroughly warmed up each ride (most people don’t “housewife” a bike on short trips and many stops) I would guess that the main factor in oil life with bikes is the depeletion of the antiwear additives….which would be the same with synthetics or conventional oil.

Understand, also, that any modern oil that meets the SL or SM API performance requirements have quite a bit of synthetic content in them. Any multivis oil that meets SM performance specs must have a synthetic polymer Viscosity Improver package or it wouldn’t pass. So, any modern oil is a synthetic “blend” as some companies like to market and charge extra for….LOL.

Amsoil…..????…..That is an oil marketing company that utilizes a pyramid scheme to sell their product thru a system of distributors and dealers and such. They know absolutely nothing more about oil than Mobil or Texaco or the other major oil manufacturers. Their bogus claims are meant to sell their products at high prices to benefit their pyramid marketing scheme. How could they justify the high price they charge for their product otherwise. Their products probably perform well to some extent but they have no outstanding attributes that others do not have for half the cost. Their claims of long change intervals are completely nonsense. They base them on the lower oxidation rates of their synthetic products at high operating temps. As mentioned, that is rarely, if ever, the defining factor in oil changes and the testing that determines the oxidation rates is run at temps above what most engines will ever operate at. They take something completely out of context and pretend that it is a big advantage. It isn’t.

If you look at all the tests that oils must pass to meet the API standards for performance, Amsoil only quotes selected results in areas of testing that do not replicate normal engine operation. If you really understand ALL the things that govern oil life Amsoil’s claims evaporate. They make themselves sound very technical and quote lots of “data” but it is a smokescreen to cover their marketing scheme that benefits their distributors and dealers…..

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There are ready answers to your comments that might surprise you.

First, though, let me be clear. Synthetics, such as Mibil 1, are excellent products. They can survive at temperatures well above the oxidation limits of conventional oil of 305 F. If an engine operates at those oil temperatures then synthetic is applicable. Synthetic offers good low temperature viscosity and pour points…low meaning below -40. Down to the -30/-40 range conventional oils are fine. If you are searching for oil on the northslope and cold start regularily at -40 then consider synthetic. Other than that, synthetic oil’s usefulness is questionable in passenger cars.

Racing teams use synthetic oil for several reasons. First and foremost is marketing. If it is “good for racing” then it must be great stuff, right??? Fooled you , didn’t it..!!! LOL LOL The racing teams get paid lots of sponsorship $$$$ to run the oils and put the stickers on the cars. That is why they use it. If someone paid them enougth money to run lard in the motors they probably would. The engines will run fine with conventional oils as evidenced by teams sponsored by conventional oil companies that do not run synthetic.

In racing things happen to often drive the oil temps above 305 F. If this happens….the synthetic can take it and conventional oil would have a limited life. It lets the NASCAR boys tape over the oil cooler for better aero during qualifying and if the oil creeps to 350 in the process there is no harm done. So it has a marginal use and is a good insurance policy for when the going gets rough and that fender gets pushed in an blocks off the oil cooler.

There are a number of new cars that specify Mobil 1. I work specifically on several of them. The Corvette LS1 is spec’ed a synthetic oil engine and the RWD Northstar engines in the SRX/STS/XLR are also factory filled with Mobil 1. So will be the supercharged Northstar in the STS-V/XLR-V. Why you ask?? One simple reason. There is no need to put an oil cooler on the car if it has synthetic oil in it. If the owner takes it to a track day and runs the car on the track hard the oil will get over 305 without an oil cooler. Synthetic oil will take it and conventional oil would be questionable. Otherwise, the performance cars like this would all need large oil coolers and all the associated plumbing. Putting all that extra equipment on all cars so that the 2% that actuallly see the track will keep the oil cool is not a good idea. Better to leave off the cooler (less expense, less chance of oil leaks, less complexity, less to maintain with age) and protect the small percentage of engines that might get the oil above 305 with the synthetic. Regardless of what you have read, were told or believe this is the main reason that factory cars are spec’d for synthetic. Period. I know because I work with them everyday and can assure you that that is the truth.

Interestingly, the real hotrods, like the STS-V run oil coolers AND synthetics because the engine will push the oil temp over 305 even with a large cooler if used for continuous track work. So, even though the car has an oil cooler, the same logic and reasoning applies…use the synthetic to keep from having to put a HUGE oil cooler on it.

The engine oil temp does not run any cooler with the synthetic, by the way. I have run lots of engine cooling tests with conventional and synthetic oils and the oil temp is the same regardless…just that the synthetic has highe oxidation temps.

If an engine is designated for factory fill with synthetic it has other uses as well. In the case of the Northstar engines in the STS/SRX/XLR the engine has variable valve/cam timing (VVT) on all four cams. The VVT system uses engine oil pressure as a hydraulic system to move the cam phasers using control signals from the PCM. The VVT system is a hydraulic circuit that is separate from the normal engine lube circuits. In cold start situations the viscosity of the “hydraulic oil” must reace a certain level before the VVT system will respond quickly enough to allow it to be used. The more linear cold viscosity of the synthetic products allow earlier application of the VVT on cold starts. Without the synthetic the system would still work fine…just the cam phasers would “park” until the engine oil reache a certain temperature. Since the synthetic was spec’d anyway, it is exploited in the engine design to be able to better utilize the VVT system.

So…..that is why factory cars have synthetic. Not because it is magic or has better “wear” properties…just because it can live above 305 for extended periods of time. Interestingly, the synthetic only adds about 25 degrees of increased oil temp range above 305. The metal parts in the engine, that are much hotter than the oil and that are cooled by the oil, cannot take much higher temperatures. Aluminum starts to loose strength and gets “soft” enough that it will start to collapse in structural areas. Even hardened steel , like tappet faces, start to temper and soften at temps approaching 375/400F so if the oil is starting to approach 330 or so the tappet faces are getting periously close to the range that they will be starting to temper and anneal. Not desireable. In a race engine that will be torn down after the race and wear parts replaced this is not such a stringent condition but in a passenger car or street bike engine those temps cannot be seen without damage…..so…..the high temp capability of the synthetic oil cannot really be exploited by much.

As an aside, you will find that “racing” has little to do with passenger cars or street bike engines. Just because something works on racing cars or is used by racing teams does not mean it is good or applicable to everyday use on the street. The marketers like to make you THINK that racing means good but that is just marketing and an image. Look at the facts, first.

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Like I said, the synthetics are excellent products. You certainly are not going to hurt anything using them… Just be aware that in most all conventional engines in cars and street bikes the use of synthetics is just not required. The areas that synthetics are “better” is far outside the normal operating range of the oil so that area or advantage is just not used nor needed.

My main reason for posting on this thread was not to run down synthetics at all…just make sure that people understand that the idea of extended drain intervals with synthetics is not really true and not something that they should be fooled into believeing. “Extended” means a lot of different things to different people. If someone reads Amsoils BS and thinks that they can run their FJR 25K between oil changes they are being sadly mislead. In explaining why synthetics do not necessarily provide addtional service life it is hard to not touch on their limitations and compare them to conventional oil.

The data that I see indicates that, under normal use, conventional oil functions perfectly well. When I see an engine run for 300 hours at full throttle/max load on an engine dyno with conventional oil and then at teardown the bearings are not even touched and other wear surfaces are fine it is hard to understand just how much “better” synthetic oil could have run….LOL LOL I have seen LOTS and LOTS of engines run like this and somehow, miraclously, the engines always look fine with conventional oil. And we don’t even add Lucas or Slick50 or ZMax or ???? LOL LOL

If you are using synthetic oil, what gain or advantage do you expect…??? I understand the idea of putting the “best” into something and if you want to use synthetic I have absolutely no problem with it….just don’t expect miracles and realize that the likely hood of really exploiting the advantages of the synthetic product in a street engine is pretty slim.

The proper application of synthetic lube products (in things like the VI package in conventional oil) is already being used and in the bottle of every oil you buy so the chemists that really understand the advantage of synthetic products are putting it in the correct applications for you.

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I don’t have any direct info on the Yamalube. Last time I looked at any of the Yamalube oils they were still rated per the SG performance classification as best I remember. If you have a bottle of Yamalube, look on the label and see what the API performance rating of the oil is. That will give a good clue as to the performance level of the oil.

The Yamalube is certainly NOT rated per the SG3 or SG4 API rating schemes for gasoline automotive engines as the SG3/4 ratings require fuel economy improving friction modifiers that are death to a wet clutch.

I suspect that their oil is formulated per one of the older SG or SH classifications that were around prior to the SG3 classification for fuel economy improvement.

Since the performance classifications have advanced to the current level of SM that (SG) is a long ways behind the performance capability of current oils. All of the recent development in oils has been around less deposits, viscosity improvers that do not break down and cause ring belt deposits, and high temperature (above 300) performance I suspect the only reason that they do not utilize the most current SM performance rating is to avoid any confusion with oils rated SL or SM that would ALSO be an SG3 or SG4 oil that would have the friction modifiers.

The auto companies wanted to use oils with friction modifiers for fuel economy testing improvement (on the EPA test) but the EPA would not allow it as they maintained that the customer in the field would not use that oil. So, the auto companies worked with API and the oil companies to devise the parrallel standard called SG-3 and the new starburst symbol that says “gasoline engines”. The parrallel standard would utilize the API performance rating (such as SJ or SL or SM) AND it would require fuel economy enhancing additives. By creating this new rating and getting the oil companies to utilize it it insured that the “fuel efficient” oils would be available on the shelf.

In the meantime, oils that still met the improving performance requirements, such as SL, but did not have the fuel economy friction modifiers were relegated to “diesel oil” status. The performance standards such as SL are still the same so any oil rated like that is guaranteed to be pretty high quality. I think Yamaha is just hedging their bets against people using the fuel economy oils by specing the lower, SG, standard since non of the fuel ecnomy oils were around when SG was in vogue.

Since no one is still formulating an oil additive package for blending SG rated oil the Yamalube can’t really be SG oil. I suspect that it is a conventional SL or SM rated oil , similar to the Rotella/Delvac/Delo, without the friction modifiers that is marked SG on the bottle. I’m guessing that they mark it SG instead of SL so that folks don’t read the “SL” and go look for another oil that is rated “SL” as most “SL” oils on the shelf have the friction modifiers.

Change intervals….???….Pesonally, on a long trip, I wouldn’t worry at all about pushing the oil changes out to 5 or 6 thousand miles. Nothing but highway miles in moderate temps…the oil change could probably be pushed out even further to 7 or 8K. I would personally draw the limit at 8K myself. This is just my opinion because I have yet to do any oil analysis on high mileage oil from my FJR. Yamaha only has the one, all inclusive, change interval of 4K in the manual so I would guess that there is a lot of cushion in that . If you take their recommendation (which must take some worst case riding in it…??) and allow for best case riding (all highway and always warmed up) and allow for a high quality oil I think doubling it would be safe. From past oil anlysis on my XS1100 it seemed to take the ZDP out of the oil about twice as fast as an auto engine of the day would. I tested some oil that I ran 5000 miles and it was still serviceable but noticeably depleted for anti-wear additives. The oils of that day (mid/late 80’s) have been improved upon considerably so I think that there is a lot more cushion there to push it a little further. The only hesitation I have is that the FJR has twice as many direct acting followers as that XS 1100 did so that would tend to deplete the oil faster.

Sounds like I need to get hooked up with our lube research guys and run some oil samples by them…LOL LOL

The thing that is always touchy about oil change intervals is just how low do you let the ZDP concentration get before you consider the oil used up..?? ZDP is sacrificial and must be present at the wear site to work, so….as the concentration depletes there is less and less ZDP and the available molecules of ZDP are spread out more and more and may not be where you want them to be. On a long trip, there is little worry about too hot of an operating temperature, or contamination by blowby (the oil is always warm) so the ZDP depletion is the issue. On the GM oil life monitor, if ZDP depletion is the only determining factor, we typically use a safety factor of around 2 for the maximum oil life. So….if the oil change interval would count out to 12,500 miles, the oil could really go 25,000 before the ZDP were COMPLETELY depleted. You really don’t want to run that far or push the ZDP to zero but it is an example of the safety factor in the calculation so I am sure that Yamaha does accordingly. My logic here is that Yamaha is not publishing an oil change interval that would take into account only long trip riding like this so there must be additional allowance for that type of riding. Plus, I know that under that type of usage, where the ZDP depletion is the determining factor the change intervals I am familiar with (the 12,500 miles) still has considerable safety factor so I suspect that there is little risk with a good oil to running the FJR to 8K on a long trip.

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I use Delvac 15W40 in my FJR and most everything else around the house.

I am a newbie to this site…LOL…but not a newbie. 33 years at GM and counting….the last 20 in engine development. If you want to see what I’ve been working on the last few years score the May issue of Hotrod Magazine and read the article on the Supercharged Northstar for the STS-V/XLR-V.

Class 8 , over-the-road diesels can go for long distances without oil changes simply because they carry a LOT of oil onboard. My brother’s White/Detroit Desiel had over 20 gallons on board. So….each particle of oil doesn’t spend nearly the same amount of time in the engine compared to car or bike engines that only carry 4 or 5 quarts. Since the engine has 15 times as much oil on board it can go 15 times further on a drain interval all other things being equal. So if a car engine can go 12,500 miles (best case) a truck could go nearly 200,000 just due to the extra volume of oil. This is a very very simplistic analysis and assume the truck engine beats up the oil the same as a car engine..which it doesn’t, it is worse….. so take it with a grain of salt but it serves to illustrate why the longer change intervals are possible with the trucks.

Several other things help. Oil coolers. Due to the heavy loads and considerable time spent at heavy throttle pulling hills and such over-the-road trucks have large oil coolers that keep the oil well below 300 even in the worst climates and steepest grades. Most of the diesels like that also use bypass filtration. They use a conventional filter that filters down to say, 20 microns, that all the oil goes thru each pass. Then, there is a smaller, 2 or 3 micron filter that only a portion of the oil goes thru. The idea is that eventually all the oil will go thru the bypass filter and catch the finest particles. So, keeping the oil cool, cleaning it thoroughtly and running LOTS of oil in the sytem allow for some long drain intervals. They don’t just run the oil for longer distances without making other provisions.

ZDP is a compound with Zinc and Phospates in it. It is an excellent anti-wear additive. Trouble with ZDP and gasoline engines is that it takes out the catalytic converter. Any oil the engine burns passes the zinc and phophates into the exhaust and both will contaminate and poison the cat. So….the whole emission compliance of gasoline engines depends on the catalytic converter so protecting it is primary.. That is why ZDP is minimized in gasoline engine oils and the drive is to push the concentrations even lower. That is why modern gas engines have features that I mentioned (like roller followers, roller rocker arms, no spur gears, no distributor gears, etc..) that do not require much anti-wear protection (the hydro-dynamic bearing film formed by the oil is adequate for those devices) and thus do not deplete the anti-wear additives in the oil.

Want ZDP…???….go to a GM parts counter and buy a can of GM Engine Oil Supplement (EOS). It is straight 40 weight oil highly fortified with ZDP. EOS has about 10 times the ZDP of normal engine oil so it is an excellent additive to “spike” the oil with ZDP for breakin or to avoid further wear in a marginal lube situation. ZDP is expensive and has to be blended into the oil with heat so it isn’t something that can just be eyedroppered into the oil. But you can use an oil that is high in ZDP (like EOS) to spike the oil in the crankcase. BTW…you don’t get any ZDP in any of the aftermarket snakeoil additives.

Too much ZDP can also play havoc with wet clutches so there is a balance as to how much you want in the oil.

Diesels have alsways been very hard on oil due to the high pressures and temperatures in the ring belt area (due to the high compression and high pressures when combustion commences) and the fact that most all diesels are turbocharged and the turbos have oil cooled/lubed bearings. The high heat of the turbo really cooks the oil and the high ring belt temperatures and pressures will coke a lot of lube products severely. Multi-vis oils, when they first came along, had rather poor quality polymers for the VI package. Those VI packages would cook in the diesels ring belt area and stick the rings. Especially bad were the multivis oils of the mid 70’s and early 80’s that were SE and SF rated. In that time frame there were NO multivis diesel oils…everything that was approved for serious diesel use by Cat, Cummins, JD, etc. were all straight weight oils because of the poor quality of the available VI polymers.

Interesting aside….more Oldsmobile diesels were killed by SE and SF grade 10W40 motor oil than anything else. Period. Those 10W40 oils were the “hot setup” and the “most expensive” so people bought them and put them in the Olds diesel even though the multivis oils were specifically NOT recommended …. ESPECIALLY 10W40 that has a great deal of VI in it to make the wide transition from 10 to 40. I stuck the rings in my XS1100 using 10W40 oil for the same reason because I didn’t know any better back in 1980…LOL Started to use oil bad…pulled the jug off….the rings were stuck in the grooves and wouldn’t even pop out when the piston was sitting there in the open. SE/SF 10W40 was the pits and lead to the higher temperature requirements spec’d for SJ/SL/SM rated oils.

Why the long story…???….Look at Rotella/Delo/Delvac oils. They are multi-vis (15W40 most commonly) AND they meet every diesel spec for NA diesels, Supercharged and Turbocharged diesels. They are excellent oils. They have to be to meet the SL and all the diesel specs and be multi-vis at the same time. Note that they do NOT meet the SG3/SG4 requirements since they do not have the friction modifiers in them for fuel economy.

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Don’t get me wrong….I am not running down synthetics and am not saying to not use them (I have gotten enough personal e-mails on this….LOL) I just posted the information so that people understand the different reasons for changing the oil and the different factors affecting oil life. In some cases there is absolutely no rational for dramatically extending oil change intervals…synthetic or not. In other people’s cases, depending on the riding schedule, longer change intervals are fine. Synthetic products are excellent products for the most part but you just have to understand where they excell (very high and very low temperatures) so as to judge if they are justifiable in your case. You aren’t every going to HURT anything with synthetic….you just might be paying a lot and expecting a lot more than you are actually getting, that is all.

I hate to start a flamer with a direct contradiction but 240 F is NOT hot oil. 240 is a nice temperature for oil…conventional or otherwise. Conventional oils from the mid 90’s on are perfectly capable of living for long periods of time (hundreds of hours) at 240 F. Oils of the earlier era of the 70’s might not like 240 ????? but current SL and SM rated oils are perfectly fine at temperatures up to 270/280 F continuous operation…. We “allow” conventional SL and SM rated oils to run at continuous 305 for hours on end on dyno and engine cooling tests with absolutely no problem whatsoever. Be carefull of looking at oxidation rates and such published by the competition and by synthetic oil marketers. They tend to take the first uptick in oxidation rates as a “critical” point and predict doom and gloom and oxidized oil at 240 and such. Just not the case. I have run a dyno car engine making WELL over 300 HP at continous full load/full throttle/6200 RPM with conventional oil at 300 degrees for 100 hours and the oil performed fine and the engine was fine at teardown. Conventional oil just does not fall apart like the synthetic marketers tend to predict. I would consider it pefectly normal for conventional oil to run at 270 or 280 for extended periods of time. Based on the oil life monitor algorithm work done at those temps and the extensive oil sampling taken at those temps the oil is just starting to kick up in oxidation rates at those temps and above 280 the oxidation factors start to increase to decrement the oil life algorithm more dramatically.

As a case in point….my old 78 XS1100….ran it’s whole life on conventional oil…..engine partially blocked by extended sport fairing and air cooled to boot. Started with the “sure death” 10W40 SE and SF oils of the late 70’s and early 80’s. That engine could push the oil temp above 300 on occasion running hard in hot hot weather. I would stop and stick a cooking thermometer into the oil plug hole to check it. It DID stick the rings at about 75,000 miles due to the deposit formation problem mentioned earlier with the old 10W40 oils. Tore the jugs off, cleaned the ring grooves out and reassembled. Nothing else done. Same timing chain, etc. It is still running fine at 108,000 miles. Still is quiet, no lower end noise. Pulls easily to redline. Trans works great and clutch does not slip at all. Starting to get a little piston slap when cold but not something to complain about. The conventional oils back in the SE and SF days were nothing like the current oils…and that engine lived fine on those oils with no synthetic ever near it. I have torn apart every oil filter that came off that engine and they are always clean with minimal particles and such. What particles do show up are ferrous bits from the trans it appears. That bike has been ridden reasonably hard, lots of fast cruising in Canada and out west. Lots of hot weather. Two trips up the Alcan and several times in Death Valley so it has seen some extreme conditions. If conventional oil were that bad it would have died a long time ago.

Certainly, I agree that if you are using something that works well and is proven for you then that is some of the best evidence that you are doing the right thing. Just realize that there are often other factors that may not be so obvious in the oil life that must be considered that may change with different engines or different climates, etc….. There is no hard and fast rule that covers all situations so evaluate your own situation very carefully.

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I have read some of the recommended break in procedures and such and tend to agree with the “hard and fast” approach as being OK….but…..there are some caveats as usual.

Current engine technology leaves precious little in the engine to “break in” per se. Finishes on materials and metalurgy have improved dramatically over the years as well as the precision and fit of components. All this leads up to little to no required “break in” per se.

I have also torn down a lot of car engines that were broken in in different fashions and , to be honest, there is little or no difference in them. The engines all live fine and look great whether they were run hard initially or run easy.

I think the thing that has changed mostly is that the engines will live thru a harsh, WOT breakin with no problem these days so the idea of having to “break them in” a certain way is pretty much moot. You are probably not gaining much with the harsher breakin and it isn’t hurting anything either.

The reason I bring this up is to make sure everyone is aware of one specific issue during breakin. Most all engines will bypass the oil filter to some extent at high RPM when the oil pump is pumping the greatest amount. This depends on the engine and the situation but, it is almost impossible to make an oil filter large enough to flow enough oil to provide 100% filtration at max RPM and max oil flow. Take this fact with the fact that what debris is going to be generated by the engine internally is going to be generated during breakin….primarily material scraped off the cylinder walls by the rings. Cast iron bores, particularily, will leave lots of ferrous material in the oil from the cylinder walls for the first few minutes of operation to be filtered out by the filter. Point being, if you run the engine to redline during this period of time and cause the oil filter to bypass the ferrous material will be dumped into the bearings which is not a good thing.

So….the only reservation I have about flogging the motor hard during breakin is to make sure the oil is hot to minimize filter pressure drop and bypassing and to limit RPM to some extent to limit possible bypassing. If the motor gets some miles on it (even 10 or 20) at low RPM then most all of the material is filtered out by then so it is not a big deal. Just an awareness issue as most people think that the filter is a 100% filtration deal all the time…which it isn’t. Many automotive engines will bypass 40 or 50 % of the oil at max RPM…. Since this is a rare event and not something that can be done for extended periods of time it is not a big deal, except if you press the situation by trying to run a heavy duty breakin schedule when totally green. Most cars have enough breakin just on the assembly line and on and off the haul-a-way trucks to get past this but a green bike engine out of the crate it traveled in might be different.

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I have stored bikes for 4 or 5 years and taken them out of storage, run them, changed the oil and the filters are fine. The idea that a filter might “degrade” submerged in oil is nonsense. If a filter does that it would have to be a completely substandard filter. The filter media is designed to be submerged in oil….no way would any filter engineer or manufacturer with any reputation use a media that would degrade in oil….

I once saw an oil filter that was run for so long on a car engine that it rotted thru from the outside due to salt and corrosion. It was removed because it started to leak and was returned for that reason. Turned out to be the OEM filter from the factory that had never been changed. I had over 70,000 miles on it and was 6 years old. It was actually in pretty good shape inside although the filter media was partially plugged with ethylene glycol from an internal coolant leak. The media was fine otherwise.

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Geez…one more thing.

Particles in the oil and oil filter filtration values…..

At every critical spot in the engine there is an oil film separating the moving parts. The thickness of the hydrodynamic bearing film is what is critical. Load, speed, bearing area, oil viscosity, oil dynamic viscosity, etc…. all factor into the equation.

The goal is to always have a bearing film thickness that is thick enough to be thicker than any particle that might be in the oil and thicker than the height of any surface asperity on any moving part.

If the oil film in the bearings under load is always greater than 20 microns, for example, then particles of 10 or 15 microns will never be trapped between the surfaces and will cause absolutely no harm whatsoever.

So…be a little wary of the reduced micron (high filtration) filters. They really aren’t necessary and can easily cause more filter bypass long term due to the added restriction of the finer filter media. This ultimately defeats the purpose of the higher filtration filter. I know this sounds like heresay to say that finer filtration is not “good”….but, it isn’t always good. I know of situations in the auto industry where finer filtration filters were evaluated and ultimately pulled from the marketplace due to the fact that they bypassed so much more oil than the conventional filters that they actually increased engine wear over the long haul. This is verified with data and engine teardown analysis that I have seen personally.

Filter companies are in the business of selling filters and marketing is part of the deal. If they can charge twice the price for a filter that is “finer” and convince you that this is a good idea then they make more money. Might not be good for the engine but they will make more money and by the time you ascertain any damage to the engine from this it is way way down the road.

There is no such thing as “high flow” media that also “filters finer”. An orifice is an orifice and a restriction is a restriction. If the filter media has finer pores for finer filtration then it is going to be more restrictive. Period. If the filter is larger with more filter area then that can partially make up the difference but it is very very hard to do. I have never seen a finer filtration filter that flowed as good as a conventional oil filter.

Yamaha is not stupid and knows this also. If they spec’d a certain filter for the engine then it is likely the best compromise for flow and filtration for the application. Unless you know more than they do or have the ability to do LOTS of durability testing then I would say that their filter is a sure bet…..you are doing the testing on the others because the likely hood of any aftermarket filter company doing much if any testing on a specific application is between slim and none. They make sure it fits and screws on and that is it.

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The engine manufacturer specs the filter, filter design, features, material specs, etc…. and has it sourced /manufactured accordingly. There is always a concern with making sure the filter cost is in line and within reason but I have never seen a situation where the filter had to meet a certain “price point” or anything. The filter specs for the OEM filter will always try to minimize cost….but….if you think the OEM filters try to minimize cost you really don’t want to think about the aftermarket filters from what I have seen. They are definitely manufactured to a “price point”….

The OEM does NOT supply specs or anything to the aftermarket…they reverse engineer.

Several things to think about with a filter. First, the most important time for a quality filter is the first few seconds and minutes of an engine’s life. I would say that 90% of the debris the engine is EVER going to generate will happen during the first few moments of operation as the cylinder walls are scrapped by the rings and all the surface asperities on the new parts are burnished and broken in. The filter MUST perform flawlessly during this time or the engine will fail. The OEM filter is tested extensively on the engine from green engines thru to 400 hour full throttle dyno endurance engines. The OEM filter is proven to work during the worst of the debris generation so why wouldn’t it be sufficient during the rest of the engine’s life…???

It is a bit comical to me to hear people agonize over finer filtration and trying to figure out which filter is the BEST for their baby….yet they leave the OEM filter on the engine for the first few moments of breakin and the first few miles of driving. If they were REALLY that concerned they would take the high dollar filter that they think is gold plated and install it on the engine before they ever run it at all….!!! Really I would rather that they didn’t as I KNOW that the engine is tested and validated with the OEM filter so it will work fine.

There are a LOT of junk filters on the market. There have been several different filter studies that different people have done and published on the internet where they compared specs, cut filters apart and compared construction, etc… Bottom line is that I have NEVER seen any filter that is functionally better than the OEM filters installed on the engines. There are plenty of filters that are much more expensive that do nothing better and , in many cases, are much worse in terms of bypass, construction, materials, etc.

The filter market is cuthroat as filters are considered by many store chains as “commodities” and the cheapest filter yields the largest profit so that is what is on the shelf. Price does not guarantee quality and neither does aftermarket brand name, necessarily. The AC-Delco filters, for example, have quite trying to compete in the price war as they have to meet the OEM specs as they are the OEM equipment so they are only in certain auto parts stores that handle AC-Delco filters.

There is nothing at all that says that aftermarket filters meet any sort of spec at all. Period. They could put toilet paper in the can and sell it and there is nothing to stop them. The OEM does not provide filter “specs” to the aftermarket. It would be pointless anyway. The aftermarket would make the cheapest filter they could anyway wether it meets the OEM specs or not. Claims to “meet OEM specs” are completely hollow and are just window dressing on the container to get you to buy the filter. The aftermaketers reverse engineer the filter according to size and thread type and such and make what they want. They rarely , if ever, even test the filter on the specific engine and if they do, it is just a screw it on and drive it around the block type of thing to see if it leaks. Pardon me if I have a dim view of the aftermarket filter industry but I have seen inside a lot of aftermarket filters and seen them made and PRICE/COST is the key ingredient in their makeup….can you say C-H-E-A-P. If you think about it, the only way the aftermarket competes at all with the OEM parts is on the basis of cost. IF the aftermarket parts cost more very few people would consider them. So they have to be cheaper. So they skimp on the parts, the design, the material, the testing, the validation, etc….. Just common sense tells you that.

There are only a few manufacturing plants that make the filters for everyone. Champion Labs is one of the largest filter manufacturers in the states and makes filters for EVERYONE. Even some of the AC-Delco filters are made there. Champion Labs builds the filters according to the specs provided. The AC-Delco filters from them are FAR superior to other filters they might make for the exact same application because the aftermarketers spec much lower cost materials. They know that they can get away with it because , once the engine is broken in and the debris from breakin thrown out with that first OEM filter, they do not have to perform nearly as well and the engine will live fine…..so they can compete on cost very easily.

Undoubtably there might be filters out there that might be superior in one way or another to an OEM filter….finding them and identifying them is the problem. There are certainly many many filters out there that are inferior. The OEM filters worked on the engine during testing and validation and during the most critical breakin period. I would hazard a guess that they are perfectly adequate for the rest of the engines life with absolutely no risk….. Any other filter and you are doing the validation for them, believe me.

If you think that GM or Yamaha or any other manufacturer tests the engines with aftermarket filters then let me straighten you out. I am SURE that all our developement and validation testing is done with the OEM AC-Delco spec’d filter and I cannot imagine Yamaha tests with Mobil or AMsoil or Fram filters…..LOL LOL The manufacturer has plenty to do to test and validate the OEM parts….aftermarket parts are not part of the picture or even a concern. If the customer chooses to use them they are on their own in my opinion as it is up to them and the aftermarket manufacturer to prove that the parts are as good…..and the aftermarket tests very very few parts like the OEM’s do.

Hehehe…this topic ends with him being invited to the Amsoil sponsored forum and he got banned apparently. They didn’t care for the ’snake oil’ comment…