[ST] Oil

["bare" <barenekd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is a long running thread on every motorcycle digest going. Here is the
straight skinny. And you can bet there will be naysayers.
You can mix and match synthetic and dino oil. You can run them together. You
can run them alternatively. There is no problem mixing them. The advantages
of synthetics are, it's slicker than petro. This is why it's not recommended
for break-in. You may see a slight horsepower gain using synthetics. Your
gearbox will shift better. You can run synthetic oil longer than dino
because it doesn't wear out. The long-link molecules that give oil its
viscosity will break down in dino, they don't in synthetics. When synthetics
first hit the market in the '60s, the idea was to never change it, just
change the filter ever 6000 miles! They didn't consider other contaminates
such as gasoline and water in there equations, I guess. At any rate, you can
run synthetics a lot longer between oil changes than dino oil.
The 3000 mile and less oil change recommendations came in the old days when
bikes were all air cooled and ran dino oil. Air cooled engines run at higher
oil temps than water-cooled engines and breaks the dino down much more
quickly. You can run dino oil with no problems in a water cooled engine for
6000 miles. You can go longer with synthetic.
So, the message is this, run whichever oil you choose to run. Don't worry
about whether or not the engine has had synthetic before or not. It doesn't
matter. A lot of the things you hear pertaining to synthetic oils are old
wives' tales from the '60s. They just don't pertain to modern oils.
The general consensus is to avoid SJ rated oil though because it has
friction modifiers and may or may not make your clutch slip.
Bare



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