Moving from mineral to synthetic oil

[bwflorence]

Hey all,

when I bought my bird I was told to run mineral oil for the first 6,000 Ks so the engine would `bed in` better. well, the 6000ks is up and I want to move to a full synthetic oil.

I know you cant mix mineral and synthetic oil directly. Assuming you have to replace the oil filter, what else (if anything) should you do to get the old oil out of the engine ???

[arcticflipper]

Flush the motor.

With engin flush or diesel etc.

Maybe take it into the dealership - first service should be included?

Not too sure there, With us it is.

Oh and normally they do change the plugs, or check them and a few other parts that might need to be tightened.

[bwflorence]

Its out of warranty...its a 03 model.

I dont think I wanna pay an extra $150 to a mechanic for labour charges when I can do the job myself.

[arcticflipper]

we normaly flush the motor with engin flush - diesel - or similar product.

We also check the plugs and replace if need be. Check the gaps on the plugs.

Then we'll look at the Camchain - or listen for any noises.

Check the brakes and brake disc's for wear and any abnormalities, also check the steering torque, and all wheel nuts and caliper nuts.

For good measure, replace the stock airfilter with a aftermarket, or clean the after market filter + clean the FI injectors.

With this we'll check a couple of bolts here and there for torque, and if any is incorrect we'll check all in the same area.

Also check the throttle freeplay and the water levels.

I know that the carbed bikes has a couple more things, like jets needs to be replaced at the first service and syncro of carbs etc.

Also check the chain and sprocket wear.

I'm sure the might be other things that was not mentioned.

Or just do the normal service like you would any other service?

[Guest rockmeupto125]

I know you cant mix mineral and synthetic oil directly.

How do you know this, and what would happen if you did?

You didn't happen to get this from the same soul that told you to run 6000 klics before putting in synthetic, did you?

For god's sake, keep diesel fuel away from your engine.

[bwflorence]

Ive never tried it but ive been told that they dont mix well. The oil becomes milky and loses some of its protective qualities. It`s especially harsh on the clutch im told.

I dont make the news, I just report it

[sykotek-xx]

It is a common thing to break in with dino then switch to synthetic. What fact is behind that I cannot quote you because I don't know off the top of my head, but it logically makes sense being that the synthetics lubricate so much more efficiently, and since the bike (and most everything else) comes from the factory with the dino oil what harm does it do running it till the first oil change?

I've never heard of the 'don't mix dino and synth' thing. I have never flushed any engine with amything prior to switching, and (knock knock) have never had a problem or noticed any degredation (visible) in the oil after the first or subsequent synthetic changes.

[bartonmd]

I hate to say this, and I don't mean to be a dick, but do we need a sticky in The Garage titled "don't believe anything arcticflipper says!" ??

Synthetic and regular oil DO mix well... when synthetics first came out 20 years ago, they didn't mix well with CERTAIN KINDS of regular oil, so you were supposed to do 2 changes very close together... Never heard of any milky shit or anything (other than water in the oil, or putting too much oil in and the crank frothing the oil), but the additive packages didn't mix well and may counter-act each other.

Now days, if you look on the website in the FAQ section of about ANY synthetic oil, they say something to the effect of "you CAN mix synthetic and dino oil without a problem"

FOR GOD SAKE KEEP DIESEL FUEL AWAY FROM YOUR ENGINE!!! (unless of course you get coked up oil passages or something, which I've never seen on any bike, and only seen on cars that have overheated VERY badly, and been driven for quite awhile with no coolant in them).

Edit: Also, DO NOT stick a regular feeler guage in your plugs... The corners of the feeler guage will take off the platinum or irridium coating... it says this in the manual!

Mike

[Redbird]

I hate to say this, and I don't mean to be a dick, but do we need a sticky in The Garage titled "don't believe anything arcticflipper says!" ??

And here I was trying to come up with a polite way to say that, I hit preview and I see you've saved me the trouble, Mike. Thank you

BTW- Your plugs are fine at 6000 kilometers, same for your airfilter unless you've been dualsporting the thing.

[bartonmd]

I hate to say this, and I don't mean to be a dick, but do we need a sticky in The Garage titled "don't believe anything arcticflipper says!" ??

And here I was trying to come up with a polite way to say that, I hit preview and I see you've saved me the trouble, Mike. Thank you

BTW- Your plugs are fine at 6000 kilometers, same for your airfilter unless you've been dualsporting the thing.

No problem... it needed to be said... BADLY!

Mike

[arcticflipper]

and you can suck my dick too....

[bartonmd]

can I rub your semen on my chest afterwords?? mmmm... semin-mixed chest hair... :wink:

Mike

[arcticflipper]

and here I thought you were a swallower... :cry:

[bartonmd]

nope... I prefer the "flaming dragon" and after it comes out my nose, THEN I spread it all over... duh... :roll:

Mike

[arcticflipper]

:shock:

[bartonmd]

don't get me wrong though about my "sticky" question above...

you DEFINATELY seem to know your shit about riding a wheelie then a stoppie toward a police officer who's pointing a gun at you... and punching said police officer... and passing others on the inside of single lane off ramps to show that the XX is at the top of the GT bike braket still, all the while proving that magazine wrong... because you KNOW EVERYBODY you cut off and otherwise endangered read that article and now KNOWS the authority of the XX :roll:

but alas, that stuff was said in THe Pub, so I guess it wouldnt' be covered would it?

Mike

[arcticflipper]

OK if you say so, you are entitled to your opinion. That's fair.

[bartonmd]

Very true, but it just gets old (to me anyway) when somebody asks a very simple question and you lead them HORRIBLY astray, and 4 or 5 people have to first discount what you said as being completely out of bounds before answering the simple question that was asked to begin with… It just seems to me that the kind of questions you ask about the basic principals of things motorcycle related, you shouldn’t be telling anybody the answer to anything. Not knowing something is perfectly fine until you lead somebody astray with something you pulled from your ass…

For instance:

From what you said above, he could have changed his oil out for diesel fuel and went for a 15 minute ride to get it mixed really well… in the process lunching a practically brand new engine on a fairly expensive bike not knowing that you’re NOT supposed to put any load on the engine when you’re running diesel through.

Iridium Spark plugs on an ’03 are good for, what? 16,000 MILES… He’s got about ¼ of that use out of them and doesn’t need to touch a thing, and you’ve got him gapping plugs that are SPECIFICALLY NOT to be gapped by any normal feeler gauge or plug gapper tool because it’ll take the coating off of them… Hell, even on a ’97-98 the Platinum plugs are good for, what?, 12,000 miles (just off the top of my head)…

While he’s at it, you said “look at the cam chain” so he’s going to take the valve cover off and look at the cam chain to assure it’s OK… and God knows what else while he’s in there.

4000 miles is also, what? Half of the life of the $40 (around there?) factory air filter, so that’s money he didn’t have to spend.

Also, jets last longer than 4000 miles (even though his is FI)… More on the order of 100,000 miles, because they do erode away VERY slowly being brass, but damn! You shouldn’t have to TOUCH the carbs (providing the bike is kept stock) for the first 100k at least! (needles and seats do wear and such, so you will have to touch them about 10 years from now)

Fuel injectors do not need to be cleaned, especially at this mileage, and if they do, it’s just putting some Seafoam in the tank. I’m getting visions of him taking your advice and taking off the injector rail and spraying carb and FI cleaner into the injectors and shit.

You said to put in an aftermarket filter for good measure, but several people around here with FI bikes that are otherwise stock that put in a K&N drop-in filter seem to be getting significantly worse fuel mileage, but no real extra power… That's not something really bad, but something I had to throw in there...

Yeah, this stuff is all if your advice was taken directly with no more questions asked or answered, and I don’t know that he would do that, but it’s happened before, especially if somebody sees the first posted answer and goes and does the stuff without waiting for more posts… At worse, he’s lunched a perfectly good engine, and even at best, he’s spent $80 he didn’t need to spend…

I don’t mean to go off on you (which I know I did), but damn… when you answer questions you don’t know the answer to, it can do nothing but cause problems. I’m not saying don’t hang out here or anything, because I think you’re probably an OK guy, but damn… Just use some common sense.

Mike

[arcticflipper]

I understand.

Thanks for the advise.

[Pete in PA]

I'm going to leave the above alone......I'm trying..... really I am.

I'm just going to ask at what mileage IS an engine ready for synthetic? Done breaking in, etc.

Buddy has a Suzuki M50 and want's to know.

No he's not going to flush with diesel etc.

[bartonmd]

Honestly, I've never gotten a straight answer on it...

Some people say you can do it from the start, some say you should do it at a certain mileage (like 10k, or 15k or something)...

The answer that made the most sense to me was the following:

You get oil analysis done when you change your oil... Whenever the "beak in" materals come down to "normal" and consistant levels, THEN switch to synthetic...

My bike was switched some time before 5,000 miles, and I had too much break-in metal in my oil from the 9k mile OCI (filter in the middle) that I changed out at ~19,000 miles on the bike...

Knowing that, if I'd done it over again, I'd have probably switched to synthetic at around 15k miles... but that's just me.

I do know a couple people who've put synthetic in their Neons from day 1, and burned 1 qt every 1500 miles until 60k, when it had stopped using oil almost completely and the mileage got better about that point too... So I assume that it was broken in at that point rather than at 10k miles or so...

Whenever you switch to synthetic, you need to not start extended drain intervals until your engine is broken in completely and you stop getting break-in metals hanging out in your oil...

Mike

[shovelstrokeed]

FWIW, and at the significant risk of being called a "vernacular for fellator", I'll provide my $0.02.

There is no danger whatsoever in mixing synthetic and mineral based oils. The motor can't read and if you do it very quietly, it won't even notice.

There used to be, back when Christ was a corporal and I was just in high school a tendency among the cool guys to run Castor Bean Oil, just like the two stroke guys used, in their 4 stroke bikes. This stuff does not play well with mineral oil and does require a flushing oil before going in either direction. If you like your bike to smell like its running Nitro. Castor oil, not Castrol, is the stuff. Be warned that it does produce wax deposits and contains none of the friction modifying additives of a modern oil.

Back on topic.

There is some cause of concern with the higher rated SG, SL, synthetics as they do run a good deal more friction reducers and that could lead to reduced friction in the clutch (slip). To date, I have had no trouble with Mobil 1 15w50 synthetic but did have trouble back when I was running a drag bike with Torco full synthetic. Other than that, the superior heat resistance and longer detergent life of the synthetic oils makes them a better choice.

Oh yeah, since the oil needs to lubricate the transmission as well, there is some loss of longivety due to the shear loads placed on the oil as the gear surfaces slide over each other. Might be a good idea to just stick with the stuff that Honda recommends in the manual and change it more often in the heat of the summer. That's gonna be my plan.

[EVLXX]

Someone did a oil analysis at around 14K... and said the engine was still showing signs of braking in, after running Synthetic in it for 6k...

if I remember all of that corectly...

So.... if I had to do it all over again, I would probably have waited until 15K to switch from Dyno to Synthetic.

As for the fear of clutch slipage from useing Oils that have friction Modifier in them... Well My last oil was Mobil 5w-30, and it was in for around 5K, and I never felt the clutch slip... ever. I just wouldn't recomend repeated use of Racing oils that have high levels of friction modifiers. But I would be to affraid to put some in every now and then, but that just me.

And NO Diesel... in your Motor... ever, just switch oils. The problem with putting Diesel in your motor is that you'll never get it all out. There's all kinds of little noocks and crannies, like bearing races, in the motor that won't full release all of the lubricant. So you will be contaminating your next oil with Diesel.... and that could be very Bad.

[sykotek-xx]

You have to look at the SAE seal on the oil. Friction modified oils WILL fuck your clutch in a wet clutch system. You need to stay away from the energy conserving oils. Trust me I've been there.

1999 Katana, 3000 miles, second oil change, went to an energy conserving synthetic (didn't know better, bought whatever was on sale). Clutch immediately started slipping at anything over 3/4 throttle, and had to replace the plates because it continued to slip even after two changes back to striaght Suzuki dyno.

Luckily the clutch in a bike is nothing like the clutch in a car, as far as labor.

Look at this link, the "ENERGY CONSERVING" wording in the bottom of the SAE circle is what you want to stay away form.

http://api-ep.api.org/filelibrary/API_Moto...lGuide_2004.pdf

[pug]

I hate to say this, and I don't mean to be a dick, but do we need a sticky in The Garage titled "don't believe anything arcticflipper says!" ??

Synthetic and regular oil DO mix well... when synthetics first came out 20 years ago, they didn't mix well with CERTAIN KINDS of regular oil, so you were supposed to do 2 changes very close together... Never heard of any milky shit or anything (other than water in the oil, or putting too much oil in and the crank frothing the oil), but the additive packages didn't mix well and may counter-act each other.

Now days, if you look on the website in the FAQ section of about ANY synthetic oil, they say something to the effect of "you CAN mix synthetic and dino oil without a problem"

FOR GOD SAKE KEEP DIESEL FUEL AWAY FROM YOUR ENGINE!!! (unless of course you get coked up oil passages or something, which I've never seen on any bike, and only seen on cars that have overheated VERY badly, and been driven for quite awhile with no coolant in them).

Edit: Also, DO NOT stick a regular feeler guage in your plugs... The corners of the feeler guage will take off the platinum or irridium coating... it says this in the manual!

Mike

+1000 in pretty much everything, this is a Honda not a Ducati