Oil Analysis Update?

[20774]

So are you going to test, clean unused oil or used oil from a bike? What everybody seems to worry about is the zinc/phosphorus level in the oils? Wear metals etc are kind of bike specific.

I'm only considering new oil. Testing used oil is something that individual owner's would do and each bike will contaminate oil differently. Often times, testing used oil is done for a fleet situation to perform maintenance at an optimum time.

Something else to consider is that no doubt the company that does the testing keeps a data base. Is there a way, for a fee to do a search for the results from specific oils. It might save time & money.

Not sure something like that exists. What you'll probably find is some oils tested at one place and other oils tested at another place. I feel it's best to send oils to one place and get a snapshot in time.

I posted a link to a test performed by AMSOIL documented in 2009. They tested a wide range of factors, more than we would want to do. Probably cost them $25K to get all that done. They didn't test the kind of oils that I think we might be interested in.

[20774]

With a better handle on the costs, and a likely place to test, I think we've reached a point where we should make a stab at which oils to test.

My first choice would be to consider 20w50 only as that's the oil that the Airheads should use a majority of the time. We're interested in the SG/SH rated oil and also to see if those oils that indicate they meet SG/SH while also meeting SJ or higher are good enough for our purposes. Certainly, we should look at both dino and synthetics.

I would like to see some standards tested that allow us to compare to the past analyses. That probably means we'll test a couple of the products offered by BMW along with Spectro.

At any rate, let's make a list which can then be evaluated for final selection. Here's what I've seen posted so far:

Liqui Moly Racing 4T
Castrol Power RS V-Twin
Redline Synthetic

[Stan_R80/7]

IMO, focusing on 20W50 motorcycle specific oils would be the place to start. Getting a snapshot in time (i.e. 2012) for such oils and their chemistry with a translation of the phosphorous and zinc to the ZDDP content would be very informative and useful.

[typ181r90]

With a better handle on the costs, and a likely place to test, I think we've reached a point where we should make a stab at which oils to test.

My first choice would be to consider 20w50 only as that's the oil that the Airheads should use a majority of the time. We're interested in the SG/SH rated oil and also to see if those oils that indicate they meet SG/SH while also meeting SJ or higher are good enough for our purposes. Certainly, we should look at both dino and synthetics.

I would like to see some standards tested that allow us to compare to the past analyses. That probably means we'll test a couple of the products offered by BMW along with Spectro.

At any rate, let's make a list which can then be evaluated for final selection. Here's what I've seen posted so far:

Liqui Moly Racing 4T
Castrol Power RS V-Twin
Redline Synthetic

- BMW dino 20w50
- Golden Spectro
- Liqui Moly Racing 4T 20w50
- Castrol 4T
- Shell Rotella
- Mobil 1
- Amsoil
- Redline Synthetic

can't think of many more that I've heard people using

p.s I'd be willing to chip in on this, at least to cover the Liqui Moly one, I'd even send you a clean sample. Like I said, I hate when they say an oil can be an SG and then also rate it up to an SL

[20774]

Is that Shell Rotella the straight weight oil? A previous formula (multi-vis I think) was Shell Rotella T which has lowered their ZDDP lately.

I'll throw in another one that's come up on the vintage side (same consideration for ZDDP), due to the change in Rotella T is:

- Valvoline VR-1

[20774]

From reading the two ON articles, these are the oils that were tested in the 20w50 weight. The gray shading are the oils that were tested in both rounds. It would be good to carry several of these into the next round.

[cliffie1946]

Here is a fairly short article that I think pertains to the zddp/zdtp contents of the oil we are using in our older to not so older bikes. Written for the vintage car community, a lot of what it says is relevant.

http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2...es/?refer=news

[dpmonk]

just returned from a 2k trip on my /6. Checked oil at approx 700 miles and it showed almost no consumption. Ran the bike pretty hard at Barber raceway (kept up with Ducati) and a couple of trips on the dragon tail and a long day at 70mph the oil light flashed on at stoplight. Checked and level was just above minimum. added 3/4 qt of Castrol 4t. Looks like the oil went through the right carb.

Question is this; Valvoline claims it has anti foaming ingredients. If crank ventilation is source of oil loss is there any data on what oil prevents foaming the best? I was using Spectro gold.

Some dragracing fiends (friends) seem to believe that synthetic oil doesn't absorbe engine heat as well as conventional. Any data on that?

Sorry if I hijacked zddp thread with other questions but since the topic is oil....

[20774]

dpmonk -

Anti-foaming can be an important factor with oil and protection. I believe that this would be more important in a motorcycle where the engine and gearbox share the same oil. The rapidly spinning gears would tend to whip up the oil more than in our boxer engines.

But this oil quality was tested in the AMSOil article I mentioned previous. This test is ASTM D-892. You can read the whole article here:

http://wboil.com/pdf/Study-of-Motorc...nd-Edition.pdf

As you can imagine, AMSOIL did quite well in this specific test as did other oils, specifically those in the 50w category. Valvoline 4-stroke oil was the brand they said they tested along with BMWs synthetic oils.

There were no tests for heat absorption and according to the article, absorbing heat can be a bad thing, for the oil. As the oil is heated, lighter fractions will vaporize...that's not a good thing. ASTM D-5800 measures this. Also, as oil is heated, the ability of it to maintain viscosity under shear loads is important. This is test ASTM D-5481.

These are tests that we would likely not preform due to cost constraints.

[dpmonk]

Since I also own a hexhead I am interested in the synthetics oil, but how many people run Synthetic in Airheads successfully, with no seal leaks?

I recently had all the oil seals replaced in the /6 and really don't want to start anything since it is pretty oil tight now (except I am still losing oil through the updated breather).

On the other hand it seems to be a no brainer that the synthetics test better than conventional oils in wear tests and resistance to shear and thermal breakdown that would be really good in an engine that only uses 2 quarts of oil.

[20774]

This is where I think I'm heading. There's a mixture of car and motorcycle oils, as well as petro and synthetics here. Some stuff was tested before and there's new stuff on the market. Unless specified, these will be 20w50 grades:

- BMW (petro)
- Golden Spectro 4 (blend)
- Castrol 4T (petro)
- Valvoline 4-Stroke (petro?)
- Mobil 1 V-Twin (synth)
- AMSOIL Motorcycle (synth)
- Brad Penn (blend)
- Castrol GTX (petro)
- Valvoline VR-1 (petro)
- Castrol Power RS V-Twin 4T (synth)
- Shell Rotella T 10w40 (petro)
- Liqui Moly Racing 4T (petro)
- Redline Motorcycle (synth)
- Harley H-D 360 (petro)

That's the current thinking!

[cycleman2]

Since I also own a hexhead I am interested in the synthetics oil, but how many people run Synthetic in Airheads successfully, with no seal leaks?

I recently had all the oil seals replaced in the /6 and really don't want to start anything since it is pretty oil tight now (except I am still losing oil through the updated breather).

On the other hand it seems to be a no brainer that the synthetics test better than conventional oils in wear tests and resistance to shear and thermal breakdown that would be really good in an engine that only uses 2 quarts of oil.

Try syn's and see how it goes. With all new seals it should be fairly safe, but I'm going to bet that it will seep in some places. From what I've read the early K bikes will seep with syn's and they are a better sealed engine.

If you are getting that much oil into the breather area you have either an overfill condition or you are getting some blow by into the crankcase. Take the inlet tubes off between the breather and the carb and see if there is any quantity of oil on the breather side of the slide. You shouldn't have that much pressure in the engine. The breather is just a vent for vapours ( condensation etc ).

[Stan_R80/7]

The Mobil 1 synthetic 15W-50 oil is an auto oil, but seems appropriate for airheads and is relatively easy to find (sold in 5 quart jugs at Walmart). It would be interesting to see the oil analysis compared to the Mobil 1 oil information, specifically regarding ZDDP.

[cycleman2]

First this is a good read if you like statistics: http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/used-o...hat-is-normal/ This link seems to say there's not a lot of difference in wear metals be it dino or sync.

I was on that site and did a couple of quick searches and came up with the following:

Valvoline MC 20-50
Zinc 1121
Phos 980

Mobile 1 15-50
Zinc 1160
Phos 1076

Amsoil MC 10-40
Zinc 1281
Phos 1073

Rotella T6 5-40 ( Diesel oil )
Zinc 1248
Phos 1051

All of these samples I viewed ( where done in the last 3 months ) where from used oil samples on mc mostly from water cooled engines. If somebody wants to spend a bit of time on this site you can find out just about anything you want to know about oil.

It was kind of interesting to see a diesel oil ( popular with some bike owners ) have very similar levels as Amsoil's mc oil.

If you look at a sample from a 5-20 you'll see that the zinc level is lower, probably in the 7-800 range. What I think is going on is that as the zinc level is lowered the manufactures have to lower the viscosity. The wear issue is always with cold starts. That is where the additives like zinc are important. ( You have metal to metal contact with no oil pressure ) Once the engine is up to operating temp then the zinc level is not as important. The additives like zinc etc get used up through the life of the oil and that is why the manufacturers specify a certain distance/time between oil changes. To me that seems to be the way the oil world is going.

Oil threads are always interesting. Must be a winter exercise as we got about 8 inches of snow up here last night.

[dpmonk]

http://www.mobiloil.com/USA-English/...duct_Guide.pdf

the levels in the motorcycle oil are quite a bit higher than the 15w50 car oil.
actually quite a bit higher than in the amzoil advertisement / oil analysis.

Oh and about blowby, I sure hope not with new pistons, rings, valves, guides and way more money invested than the bike is worth.