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Moving from mineral to synthetic oil


bwflorence

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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_MotorOilGuide_2004.pdf

I've seen what you're talking about on other bikes, but I've never seen it on the XX... I'm sure it's happened, but I've not heard of it... It'd be my guess that the XX is just over-clutched, so unless you're drag racing and stuff, especially with power adders, you won't notice anything... but I still stick with oils that aren't energy conserving...

Mike

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Might be, I was running a stock clutch on the katana but had it worked up nice, stage 3 jet kit, individual cone filters, full stainless yoshi 4>1 race pipe, sprockets, probably why it ended up planted in a guardrail with my dumb ass sliding along behind it. :)

So it may be that the XX has better clutching, stiffer springs. I think that the newer bikes lost a couple clutch plates vs. the old ones so maybe the newer ones wouldn't be as lucky as the older ones.

Like I said I had it happen, first hand. Perfectly running bike with virtually no miles, went to synthetic, and it ate the clutch.

Never raced just ridden hard.

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I know you cant mix mineral and synthetic oil directly.

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

Aren't sythetic blends a mixture of mineral and synthetic oil? I believe so. If manufacturers

mix them in their own bottles, I guess we can mix them a little in the bike...

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ps, if you do decide you ever need to flush an engine, there are special very light weight oils for that purpose, that mix with the original oil (but do not act like solvents as petrol/diesel will) and come with large printed words about idling on a hot engine for short time only.

ps, never felt a need to do an indepth flush on anything - i figure the older it is, the worse a flush becomes if you try to clear the deposits that are actually holding the thing together. The engine oils these days tend to come out all nice and runny when hot as well, and when dropping the pan, they seem to clear the solids as well.

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I know you cant mix mineral and synthetic oil directly.

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

Aren't sythetic blends a mixture of mineral and synthetic oil? I believe so. If manufacturers

mix them in their own bottles, I guess we can mix them a little in the bike...

Very true... and if you do a little more digging you will find that most of your Synthetic Motor oils are made from Base Mineral Oil.

The only one that I know of right of hand that is Truely 100% Synthetic is Amsoil.

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EVL,

I believe Mobil 1 is also a 100% synthetic oil, but those 2 are the only ones I know of other than the REALLY expensive stuff...

Arcticflipper,

I agree, thank you. I wasn't trying to be a dick or anything, although it may have come off like that, but I've seen stuff like that happen before (mostly on car forums to tell you the truth) and just kindof wanted to show you what could have been done with the info in what you posted...

Mike

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I have heard that new corvetts come from the factory with Mobil 1 in them.  So, maybe the slick oil don't harm brake in.

along with porsches, some beemers, vipers - i think, and many others. no break in problems.

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Yes, vettes and others have been running synthetic for the past few years right out of the factory, but I will say one thing... A lot of the engines that I know of that run synthetic brand new are engines that are considered relitively low volume, high quality mills... Due to this, I believe they probably have less breaking in to do because of higher quality parts and tolerances kept closer to nominal...

The only engines I've seen take a long time to seat rings and stuff have been high volume stuff that probably doesn't have the QC that the higher end stuff has...

Just something to think about...

Mike

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Guest rockmeupto125

I'd venture to think that a high performance Honda engine has at least the same qc as a Corvette engine.

Personally, if I ever got a new bike, I'd probably change out the delivery oil to synthetic on the first change, or no later than the second...and only because I change oil twice on a new engine....once at the 50-100 mark, and then again around the 1000 mark....and I'm a cheap so and so.

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