What oil do you use?

[toolpro]

Thanks guys for telling me the obvious.  I will buy the Yamalube or similar and change immediately.

But from a purely curious pov, does anyone have any idea what the harm might be of using the 50w?  On another forum we had an oil engineer, but I have lost touch.

Thanks all, Rick

[peteinpa]

I don't know where you live but here we're dropping into the low 50s at night.

Straight 50 wt. won't flow fast enough when cold and its not called for on the viscosity chart.

[geophb]

12 hours ago, peteinpa said:

I don't know where you live but here we're dropping into the low 50s at night.

Straight 50 wt. won't flow fast enough when cold and its not called for on the viscosity chart.

^ This was a issue on the older Polaris sportsman 500. You had to run 0w-40 to get oil to top as fast as possible when cold. People would let the oil get old or fill it with whatever they had and it would wipe the exhaust cam on startup.

[toolpro]

Thanks guys.  That makes good since to me.

Best regards, Rick

[sorkyah]

20 hours ago, toolpro said:

Thanks guys for telling me the obvious.  I will buy the Yamalube or similar and change immediately.

But from a purely curious pov, does anyone have any idea what the harm might be of using the 50w?  On another forum we had an oil engineer, but I have lost touch.

Thanks all, Rick

Besides flow and heat dissipation 

The 50w may not lubricate the clutch correctly, if there are any additives in it( or not in it) plates might swell or degrade faster depending on what the oil contains

 

I don't have the experience in the Moto community, but auto transmission, transfercase and differential clutch packs are extremely sensitive to the fluid used, I imagine Moto's are similar

 

[kylerhsm]

I'm just about due for my first (since I've owned it) oil change with the bike about to hit 15,000km. It was serviced by a dealership at 10k but I'll be doing an intermediate change before I probably take it to a dealer for 20k just to maintain the log book servicing. In saying that, I've never owned a bike that I've done more than 5k km's before selling

I'm finding the gearbox to be quite clunky and not very smooth shifting so I'm hoping a change in oil will change this for the better. I think I'll try a 15-50 (or similar, just with a warm weight of 50). The shifting in this bike is well below average when compared to the other 20 different models of bikes I've owned.

[peteinpa]

I  just put in Castrol Actevo 10-40 MC oil and it smoothed the shifting right out. Haven't used that oil in years.  had one of the diesel oils before and it was very notchy at 3k miles.

Of course I'll have to wait till 3k miles on the Castrol.

[fzZach]

Noob question again.... How many quarts of oil for the fz... 

[rfmueller]

About 2 3/4qts with oil filter replacement.  Make absolutely sure that you keep the oil level in the middle of the site glass window.  If you get too much, you're MC will shift very hard.

[1down5up]

After running dino yamalube for the first several oil changes, I decided to switch to the Yamalube full synthetic 10w40 that replaced the 15w40. Will report back results, here's the the oil Yamaha is replacing with the 15w40 with:

Yamalube 10W40 Hi-Performance Full Synthetic Oil

---

Find 4-Stroke Engine Oils at Chaparral Motorsports

 

[Tony9020]

On 5/5/2020 at 6:17 PM, rfmueller said:

About 2 3/4qts with oil filter replacement.  Make absolutely sure that you keep the oil level in the middle of the site glass window.  If you get too much, you're MC will shift very hard.

In the middle? I thought it would be till its full? 

[DewMan]

3 hours ago, Tony9020 said:

In the middle? I thought it would be till its full? 

Check the owners manual. It shows the glass and shows the minimum and maximum lines on the sight glass. As long as the oil level shows between the the two lines when the bike is upright on even ground you'll be fine.

[geophb]

16 minutes ago, DewMan said:

check the owners manual. It shows the glass and shows the minimum and maximum lines on the sight glass. as long as the oil level shows between the the two lines when the bike is upright on even ground you'll be fine.

Just emphasizing the upright part!  It will read overfull if checked on the kick stand or a rearstand.

Held upright with both wheels down is the proper way.          

[mjh937]

Yep, and do not overfill it.  You can get engine parts frothing up the oil and causing it to not flow through the engine properly if it is too full (there is probably a technical term for this, but I have no idea what it might be). 

[geophb]

32 minutes ago, mjh937 said:

Yep, and do not overfill it.  You can get engine parts frothing up the oil and causing it to not flow through the engine properly if it is too full (there is probably a technical term for this, but I have no idea what it might be). 

Aeration or foaming come to mind. 

[FZ07R WaNaB]

On 9/19/2019 at 9:20 PM, peteinpa said:

I  just put in Castrol Actevo 10-40 MC oil and it smoothed the shifting right out

This has been totally my experience too. FYI, this is a synthetic blend that comes in 10/40 and 20/50.

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by FZ07R WaNaB

[Tony9020]

3 hours ago, DewMan said:

Check the owners manual. It shows the glass and shows the minimum and maximum lines on the sight glass. As long as the oil level shows between the the two lines when the bike is upright on even ground you'll be fine.">

Oh wow thank you! 

[klx678]

Interesting question, have any of you ever seen an actual oil failure?   Not running low on oil, but actual flat out oil failure with no other reason than the oil itself?   Never seen any tests where they just ran an engine until the oil actually failed.  Seems most problems relate to something other than actual for real oil failure.   After working in a dealership for seven years full time and another 15 years only oil failures we saw were when there was oil starvation.

Another interesting thing.   Overfilling or having oil at a level where it is thrashed and foams/aeriates due to the crank thrashing it about actually causes horsepower loss for sure.   Watched Hot Rod TV one time when they did some dyno testing, running the proper amount of oil in their engine with a high volume pan.  Then they drained a quart to six, horsepower went up.  Drained another to have 5 quarts higher HP yet.   They stopped there, but it makes you kind of wonder if they had done four.   I remember a Plymouth 383 we had would always blow off a quart then hold at four.  Interesting...   Makes running the engine in between the max and min a good choice.

 

 

[ludedude]

4 hours ago, DewMan said:

Check the owners manual. It shows the glass and shows the minimum and maximum lines on the sight glass. As long as the oil level shows between the the two lines when the bike is upright on even ground you'll be fine.

That reminds me, I need to find a service manual!

On topic, I use only Amsoil on all my bikes.

[rfmueller]

Amsoil is amazing stuff.  I used to be a dealer for about 7 years.  Used it, studied it, and the competitors.  Saw results first hand.  There's a summery of what I found somewhere here in the forum, but bottom line is that it beats the rest, hands-down.  It's all I use.

[1tondriver]

1 hour ago, rfmueller said:

Amsoil is amazing stuff.  I used to be a dealer for about 7 years.  Used it, studied it, and the competitors.  Saw results first hand.  There's a summery of what I found somewhere here in the forum, but bottom line is that it beats the rest, hands-down.  It's all I use.

Just changed the oil today and Amsoil Metric is in its belly. I use it exclusively as well

[geophb]

15 hours ago, klx678 said:

Interesting question, have any of you ever seen an actual oil failure?   Not running low on oil, but actual flat out oil failure with no other reason than the oil itself?   Never seen any tests where they just ran an engine until the oil actually failed.  Seems most problems relate to something other than actual for real oil failure.   After working in a dealership for seven years full time and another 15 years only oil failures we saw were when there was oil starvation.

Another interesting thing.   Overfilling or having oil at a level where it is thrashed and foams/aeriates due to the crank thrashing it about actually causes horsepower loss for sure.   Watched Hot Rod TV one time when they did some dyno testing, running the proper amount of oil in their engine with a high volume pan.  Then they drained a quart to six, horsepower went up.  Drained another to have 5 quarts higher HP yet.   They stopped there, but it makes you kind of wonder if they had done four.   I remember a Plymouth 383 we had would always blow off a quart then hold at four.  Interesting...   Makes running the engine in between the max and min a good choice.

 

 

Why stop there? Go even less. How about 0 qts! .  jk

As far as an oil failure, assuming one maintains the oil as specified and with the proper wt range, a failure due the physical properties of the oil is going to be rare.  Most oils are very good these days, and the better manufacturing of engines today just adds to it.

[klx678]

That was Freiburger's comment...   "I bet it makes most horsepower with no oil!"   I do wish they'd dropped one more quart.   With a new oil pan filled to the capacity called for, they found it would be above the windage tray, hitting the crank.  They recommended when fitting a new high volume pan, to measure the water required to fill the pan to just below the windage tray and use that amount of oil in the engine.  Now this was with high capacity, not stock.   Obviously the hot ticket would be dry sump - near to zero oil in the crank case as possible, most being pumped out to the tank/frame/whatever.

I may have forgotten to add that oil pressure would actually drop as the churned oil would aeriate.  Up in the higher rpm.  That as they dropped oil fill amount that pressure drop would be less.  Demonstrated the additional problem with overfull on oil - pressure drop.

My comment on that really was saying it makes sense to run middle/low on the oil window than to be full up.  It can take out power for sure if there.   Few think of the crank splashing around in oil as being a power drain, but it is.  On a car a simple solution is to run a high volume pan then run a quart or two below.  The pick up is still in more than adequate oil.   Not so easy on the bike, although the older MotoGuzzi oil pan set up could have a spacer added to deepen the pan with appropriate oil pump pick up modification.    

I think the oil thing is really important for track day and race people, but for the average rider odds are as long as you actually put oil in the engine, keep an eye on level, and change it at least as often as the manufacturer recommends, adding a filter change, the engine will never experience an actual oil failure.  The racers and track riders are likely running higher engine temps so there would be some plus to the racing oils.   For the average rider - again - the one thing that does seem to be affected by oil is shifting and clutch.   So that really would be the one absolutely legitimate reason for some specific oils.   All oils will protect as long as they are in the engine.  Performance may vary, but not so much the protection.   Otherwise we would see failures.

But hey, I'm just an average rider.  This is just my opinion from everything I've read and seen.   If an oil company would follow my recommendations we'd have motorcycles that smell like bacon...  

Edited May 8, 2020 by klx678

[00RAH]

whichever 10w40 is on sale automatically becomes the best oil ever, currently its Valvoline, i also like to cut-out the sticker from the oil bottle and put on my bike so it looks like im sponsored by them.

[myfootisdumb]