What is your Engine Oil choice?

I am leaning toward Castrol Syntec 20W50 because it has more Zinc (but pricey). Also considering blending 4 pints GTX20W50 and 2 pints SAE50 weight. All around riding, some stop and go along with highway. Not too much in cold weather and kicking 20 weight sounds better then 50W. I also am switching to a chrome Drag Specialties filter made for Harley's. What are forum thoughts?

I have had great success with Amsoil MCV. If you shop around, you can find gallons for around $36

As far as the filter goes, as long as it is a free flow low bybass type filter, practically anything goes. I feel it is more important simply use one and change it then to chose which name brand is better. You can almost say this about the oil too, almost. The KN153 is fine filter.

I use Morris Golden Film SAE 50 monograde year round.

I use Valvoline VR-1 Racing oil SAE 50wt. It's non synthetic and supposedly has high amounts of zddp.

For an oil filter I use Napa 1352 (Mann W712/9)

I think it's been determined that Mobil1 V-Twin has the highest zinc content.

Dave

Valvolene 20/50 4 stroke motorcyle oil. Relatively cheap and available at most auto parts stores, change it often.

As a good friend of mine said - and he puts more mile on his Commando in a month than most people do in a year, "some oil is better than no oil; new oil is better than old oil." He put 20k mile on his bike in one trip and just used "whatever oil they had" when it needed some - Mexico to Tierra del Fuego to Barrow AK and back to Mexico. Here in Mexico I follow his advice and just buy whatever the store - often a grocery store(!) - has in the little auto parts section. There's always some 40 wt. Commando seems quite happy in 7 years of that…

Its a huge area of personal choice / preference.

I use Redline. Their motorcycle oils have class leading additive packages including very high levels of Zinc (required by Norton cams and followers).

I use their 20-60.

Have done for quite some time, in a range of Brit bikes.

Without wallowing in the obvious, the oil killer for Commandos is engine heat, which can exceed 325F at the head under harsh riding conditions (stop-and-go on a hot day.) Few oils can retain their film strength at these temperatures. Alan Goldwater has a good tech article on the INOA site:

http://www.inoanorton.com/docs/OilTemp.pdf

comparing oil integrity after a thousand miles or so of use. Here, Redline is the clear winner, and it is available, with a little effort, in the Seattle area. HOWEVER, I have occasionally postponed oils changes and even top-ups because I was out of Redline, and I believe this was a really dumb thing to do. Mike's advice is good; if your bike needs an oil change and you can't get your choice of oil, change it with what you CAN get. You'll need to change it again anyway within the next thousand miles.

I'd ridden a lot of conditions with temp guages and flat state you can't hardly keep up with 60 mph traffic flow with head temp below 325'F. Comnoz has recorded 500'F deep in head while giving his steed some freeway speeds fuel burn. This oil in exht. side of head easy gets regularly way over 400'F then drains down to heat the lower elements up more. Thanks goodness there is only a trickle of oil to head or it would turn to coke-char after it reached full engine temp, or would take a car radiator size cooler to keep in normal range, as Harley found out the hard way in their oil cooling experiments. Only heat that matters that the oil can cool is the tight spaces/contact surfaces it flows by, anything else just heats the oil and does not cool engine.

So physics quandary is whether to kick over or E start it in cold with either straight 50 grade that hasn't wet sumped as near as much a puddle as 20/50 to punch against. Mix & blending makes sense to me. Alas new diesel grade oil has lost a lot of its desirable additives, so if not running engine mostly in cam surf range I quess just hi end oils will bring peace of mind toddling along a while.

mike996 said:

As a good friend of mine said - and he puts more mile on his Commando in a month than most people do in a year, "some oil is better than no oil; new oil is better than old oil."
SNIP

Click to expand...

Was your friend at the 2004 INOA Rally Round the Races? I'll assume you probably were not or you might remember where that saying came from one of the tech sessions I hosted at the rally.

Norton News #137
From Alan GoldWaters remarks from the rally:
"I did especially enjoy sharing a tech session with Gerry Bristow, and it turned out we really didn't disagree that much about oil. As Dave Comeau so ably summed it up, "new oil is better than old oil, and any oil is better than no oil. Beyond that it's a matter of personal choice, budget and availibility."
pix on pg 26
and a pix of hobot on pg 24

Alan got the sequence wrong but the basic idea still stands.
:mrgreen:

Fast Eddie said:

Its a huge area of personal choice / preference.

I use Redline. Their motorcycle oils have class leading additive packages including very high levels of Zinc (required by Norton cams and followers).

I use their 20-60.

Have done for quite some time, in a range of Brit bikes.

Click to expand...

I'm also using Red Line "motorcycle oil" in 20w50 for street use for the same reasons above.

hobot said:

I'd ridden a lot of conditions with temp guages and flat state you can't hardly keep up with 60 mph traffic flow with head temp below 325'F. Comnoz has recorded 500'F deep in head while giving his steed some freeway speeds fuel burn. This oil in exht. side of head easy gets regularly way over 400'F then drains down to heat the lower elements up more. Thanks goodness there is only a trickle of oil to head or it would turn to coke-char after it reached full engine temp, or would take a car radiator size cooler to keep in normal range, as Harley found out the hard way in their oil cooling experiments. Only heat that matters that the oil can cool is the tight spaces/contact surfaces it flows by, anything else just heats the oil and does not cool engine.

So physics quandary is whether to kick over or E start it in cold with either straight 50 grade that hasn't wet sumped as near as much a puddle as 20/50 to punch against. Mix & blending makes sense to me. Alas new diesel grade oil has lost a lot of its desirable additives, so if not running engine mostly in cam surf range I quess just hi end oils will bring peace of mind toddling along a while.

Click to expand...

Thanks Again Hobot, You are da man! I "blend" the same way in my TW200

Wal-Mart sells 5 quart jugs of 20-50 for $12.95; then I add a shot of Moss Motors' zinc additive.

With iron cylinder/piston clearances, gasoline gets into even the best oils; change it often.

Well depends, if sump full of cold oil then its like paddling molasses otherwise just the oil film shear of rod shells and crank bearings and ring drag on closer cold metal clearances to over come, as many times till heating chambers/plugs enough to sustain combustion. Oil pressure gauge would be best guide to selection oil grade per temperature expected. I think a bit of wet sump is good for the cam/lifters but don't yet know how much that is, but better than completely dry kick offs so don't want to shut down wet sump immediately after shut down. Peel had a oil tank sight tube so could glance to see level as shut off compared to next start and whether to add some for the few seconds needed to get more oil back than leaving. I am pleased/surprised how little almost undetectable ferric fuzz on magnet seen since I got over crank seal blowing worry and make each start, especially first one, like a cam break in session. I've a handful of events of very low oil so begged or bought what ever oil available to get on home w/o much worry going by Gerry and Dyno's motto.

ZADP varies in its amounts and formula on what temps it begins to lay down sacrificial Zn-P nano pads layer but at least boiling hot surfaces required as most packages aimed at water cooled engines. Studies show at some ZADP level it begins to interfere with oil at speed protection and its own adhesion and off course our catalytic converters.
ZADP only protects for a very short time of metal on metal contact during instants of oil pressure starvation, not many seconds of slow idle, my favorite state to love/hate.

Some light reading here: http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/

Great article.

These points are interesting to me and run contrary to what Grandpa The Machinist taught me (except for the last one):


5) There is a “sweet spot” where the equipment and lube perform better together

6) That start of that “sweet spot” is unique to each piece of equipment, and lasts much longer than many people would suspect

7) Wear rates will generally shrink as the oil is used, contrary to popular belief

8) Changing oil frequently does not reduce wear in healthy engines with healthy oil

9) Changing oil too soon is a waste of product, regardless of what brand/grade/base stock of lube you choose to utilize

13) To realize the claimed benefit of any premium product, one must operate in a conditional set of circumstances that manifests into statistically distinguishable differences; the benefit must be tangible, otherwise the benefit does not exist

gortnipper said:

Great article.

These points are interesting to me and run contrary to what Grandpa The Machinist taught me (except for the last one):


5) There is a “sweet spot” where the equipment and lube perform better together

6) That start of that “sweet spot” is unique to each piece of equipment, and lasts much longer than many people would suspect

7) Wear rates will generally shrink as the oil is used, contrary to popular belief

8) Changing oil frequently does not reduce wear in healthy engines with healthy oil

9) Changing oil too soon is a waste of product, regardless of what brand/grade/base stock of lube you choose to utilize

13) To realize the claimed benefit of any premium product, one must operate in a conditional set of circumstances that manifests into statistically distinguishable differences; the benefit must be tangible, otherwise the benefit does not exist

Click to expand...

"9) Changing oil too soon is a waste of product, regardless of what brand/grade/base stock of lube you choose to utilize"...
Indeed. But changing oil too infrequently is a waste of engine!

Shell rotella 15-40 straight. 22.00 for. 4qt jug at Walmart. Zinc content high.

jeffmack said:

Shell rotella 15-40 straight. 22.00 for. 4qt jug at Walmart. Zinc content high.

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They claim 1378ppm of zinc. That's not bad. About 100ppm less than Amsoil at half the cost.


Just to add to this chart, Redline is 2500ppm