The best OIL to use!

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check this out.
forums.dragbike.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=11294

www.amsoil.com/lit/g2156.pdf
There is some good info here.

H1Vindicator wrote:

Heavy duty oils such as Chevron Delo & Shell Rotella-T and racing oils such as Mobile-1 Racing & Valvoine VR1 Racing are good choices for motorcycles because they have higher amounts of ZDP (Zinc-phosphate extreme pressure additive).
ZDP is an anti-wear ingredient.

From the MSDS for the following two products:
Chevron Delo 400 LE SAE 15W-40 has 1-2% Zinc dithiophosphate
Mobile-1 Racing RT 10W-40 has <2.5% Zinc dithiophosphate

The ZDP isn't listed in the MSDS of various motor oils including some made by the above two companies.

confirms the info i was told a while back that chevron delo and rotella T have additives that a lot of other oils dont....i think these are rated for diesel service....running rotalla right now......

thomas ed wrote:

castrol gtx is what I use

Exactly what I used on my bike for a long time. I have a friend who is a mechanic and he has a z bike with 85,000 miles on the same untouched engine and that bike still runs strong he says.
His secret is that he uses only motorcycle oil and drops it every 3000 miles religiously. He told me NOT to use synthetic going along with what tirebomb was saying and it's true. It is thinner and finds its way out.
I think before he worked on my bike I put some synthetic mix in as the guys at the shop told me to stay away from full synthetic and even with the synthetic mix I put in my valve gaskets started leaking like a siv. It never did that before when I used regular old castrol. They still leaked at one corner after new gasket was installed. I was told that once the synthetic gets in its really hard to remove it.
I had been told before by all the old kz guys "run the 20 50". He told me that while running 20 50 may be good for harleys not good for real bikes get too hot with car oil the oil burns up causes the valve seals and plastic stuff inside the engine to dry and get brittle. He said that the motorcycle oil is designed to keep those parts pliable and in good shape. It costs enough so I guess enough said. He has worked on bikes for over 20 years I think I will value his opinion as he would have no reason to lie to me just to sell me overpriced stuff.
That is my experience with oil

The posts at the kzdragbike and the article are very nice. The dragbikes though are not high mileage engines though and I don't think that can really apply to our normal riding situation. There is no doubt in my mind that synthetic is a much better oil than regular oil and also no doubt in my mind that the chances for a leak are much higher than with regular oil.
I think, perhaps, what the other guys are saying make much sense. They drop the oil religiously and that in itself is more important than the quality of the oils as no oil that is burned up is going to lubricate. 20/50 oil works in HOT climates and like BlueMeanie says he drops it every 1000 miles. In that case I can't possibly see how the oil would go bad. Yet if you change your oil every 3k with the more expensive oil as compared to every 1k doesn't that sort of put the cost of changing the oil at an equal? Motorcycle oil vs. Automotive oil? One more thing about 20/50 oil is that you certainly do not want to run that stuff if the temperatures are low as it takes a good deal of time for the honey to become thinner in cold weather resulting in damage to the top end. It would stand to reason then that a good 10/40 motorcycle oil would be a good choice for all around weather riding. Maybe even 10/30 if you are going to put more than a few thousand miles on in the COLD FRIGID weather we all love to ride in so much.:laugh:
This has been quite a good topic to discuss and hear others opinions on the matter. Thanks to everyone who has contributed that really have much experience in the matter. I for one will never go back to automotive oil ever again.

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A lot of good info on the Team Chevelle website regarding zddp, flat tappet cams etc...

www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=195620

mark1122 posted that amsoil link and it is awsome...however my a.d.d and dislexia make it almost un readable...can anyone who read it tell me if an amsoil 20-50 is a really good choice....
and without getting in trouble for not reading correct....is there a great difference in 10-40 and 20-50 should i not run 20-50 like the guys who worked on bikes taught me to do 20 years back...
i change the bike oil often...

does this information stay the same for the ratty hondas and toyoytas,datsuns,that i "LOVE" to use for transportation?????

The thing to remember is that all multi viscosity oils start with a base oil and add viscosity increasers. A 10-40 oil is 10W oil with VI's added. These VI's are long chain molecules that expand and contract with temperature. They also get sheared shorter by the gears in the transmission, so your 10W-40 is constantly on a journey which will eventually end back at 10W. Some data shows that oils can get degraded in only a few hundered miles. Most bike manuals say change at 3000, I say no more than 2k.

Another thing to consider is that if you do a lot of city riding and short trips, you should cut the recommended oil change mileage service interval IN HALF.

Anyway, Rotella and castrol GTX both have a very good reputation but the oil which seems to be the best overall is Amsoil synthetic. FYI, a TRUE synthetic has an inherent advantage: it requires less VI's to make the multi grade spec since it has inherently bettr hot viscosity than dino oil. Less VI's, less viscosity degradation. BTW, most oils sold as synthetic are not, they are filtered dino oil. Amsoil is true syn, but I am not sure about the rest.

Rotella conventional oil has a very good rep. Oils that are rated for diesel service have better additives in them so they can withstand the very long service intervals of diesel trucks.

IMHO, changing the oil every 1500 miles with a decent brand of dino oil is better in the long run than buying expensive synthetic oil and running it to the full interval... it also costs less.
YMMV

kztee wrote:

"Change your oil in the fall to clean out the old oil and all the contaminates that accumulate in it."

THis makes sense. I usually change mine in the spring before taking her out for the first time. I will change up this practice.

Do both: go to the tninner stuff like 10-30 in the fall for cold weather, and then back to 15-45 or 20-50 in the spring for warm weather.

i myself have not experianceed slippage but i have had problems with the clutch creeping really bad with full synthetics and i found that when i pulled the clucth apart to see what was going on with it i found the clutch plates were completly dry i think what was happing was thesynthetic oil is so light and slippery it was actually slinging of the plates and not adhereing to them at all i drained the synthetic out and dump some 20-50 quacker state conventenal oil that i had in the trailer and it fixed the problem at once so i have not tried to use it since by the way the oil i dumped out of it i used in my genie it worked wonderfully in that but of course no cluch pack to worry about

Castrol GTX once was a good oil for these bikes and I used it exclusively for years, but their formula (along with other automobile oil companies) changed a few years ago reducing the ZDDP. However, for those folks who still like Castrol products, Castrol does make oils that may be more appropriate for our bikes. Here's a link that shows an email from Castrol to a Mopar site that addresses the ZDDP issue and gives some Castrol alternatives:

Castrol Letter