Wich Oil?

Went to buy some oil... and thought I should get some opinions. I use Motul 5100, since that is what i use in modern bikes, but thought there might be a better choice for our KZs.

What do you use?

I have used Kendall 20w-50 motorcycle oil for a lot of years with good luck. A few years back I switched to Brad Penn 20w-50 motorcycle oil which I believe is Kendall under a new ownership.

There are a lot of ways this could go did you look at the zddp post real good reading and if you look up oil in google search it brings up a lot of kzrider posts .. my only choice after reading till my eyes water is 15 40 rotella .. you can get it at walyworld for 12 to 15 bucks cheepenough I change it anytime it looks dark.. oil is a lot cheepr than a motor

Just make sure whatever oil you use meets the JASO-MA standards. I use this and like it:

www.mobiloil.com/USA-English/MotorOil/Oi...acing_4T_10W-40.aspx

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martin_csr wrote: wiredgeorge & others mentioned the regular Shell Rotella-T, so I started using that after comparing the MSDS info from various products. Chevron Delo & Valvoline Premium Blue are a couple of others suitable for motorcycles. The Delo went on sale, so I switched to that. Heavy duty oils, motorcycle oils, & racing oils have about the same amount of anti-wear additive. Racing oils supposedly aren't suitable for mc use, but I don't recall why.

Wikipedia - Shell Rotella T - JASO-MA

"Racing oils supposedly aren't suitable for mc use"

This is not accurate. Many vendors specifically call their street motorcycle oil "Racing oil." See Mobil link above "Mobil 1 Racing 4T™ 10W-40 is designed primarily for on-road, high-performance, 4-cycle sport bikes...", they are one of several. Ed

In my opinion, all modern oils should be massively better than what we could buy 30-40 years ago - and even back in 1975 Honda gave 7500 mi / 12000 km oil change intervals for their GL1000, and the CX500 - which revved to 10.500 rpm - had the same intervals when introduced late in 1977. That was with 10W40 SE quality.

However, not all oils are the same. We have a Scandinavian shop brand called BILTEMA who sell their own brand of oil. What you get is not certain as they will buy in bulk from various sources and lable as their own, but mostly they buy from Statoil.

Now, they motorcycle oil, 15W40, always get used up faster than most other brands and unless 100% oil tight oil will drip out from various seals and joints when using BILTEMA oil. Previously, clutches could also be seen to slip. This was the case in 1985 and in 1994 and in 2005 and in 2012. For instance, my old KZ400 twin would drip a tiny amount when parked and would drip quite a bit when warm with BILTEMA motorcycle oil. Running Quaker State, it would drip very little when hot and nothing when cold. In addition, clutch operation and not to mention gearchanges where nothing like smooth with very audible gearchanges. With the Quaker State even putting in 1st gear for the first time after startup in the morning was silent.

I cannot get Quaker State anymore around here, and people tell me Statoil have purchased them :blink:, so this time I bought Pennzoil 20W50 mineral motorcycle oil for the KZ650. After 300 miles the level hasn't dropped and gearchanges and clutch operation is smooth other than putting it into gear for the first time of the day.

In my opinion, most motorcycle specific oils are good and using familiar brands should be a warranty for good performance. But don't be surprised if the cheap Mobil 1 etc. bought from Walmart or other big chains is different from what you get from your motorcycle dealer.

The ingredients in oils have changed over the years. For example, today's Castrol GTX oil (and pretty much all other AUTOMOBILE oil) is not the same as it was in the 1980's. Back then it worked great in KZ bikes. But, things have changed. Early AUTOMOBILE oils contained zinc phosphorus compounds (ZDDP) to protect engines from metal to metal contact. This was good for engines, but it was found to be destructive to catalytic converters. Consequently, in AUTOMOBILE oils ZDDP was virtually eliminated and replaced with different chemistry generically referred to as "Friction Modifiers." These work fine and offer good protection for normal AUTOMOBILE engines. However, today's AUTOMOBILE oil "Friction Modifiers" are destructive to wet clutches. KZ bikes (and many other brands) have wet clutches. As a result of these oil chemistry changes a distinction needed to be made between those oils which are suitable for wet clutches and those which are not. That distinction was documented by the Japanese Engine Oil Standards Implementation Panel (JASO). JASO developed a number of different oil specifications for different applications. The specifications that apply to 4 stroke motorcycles fall under the "4T Specifications." Within the 4T specifications the JASO MA class oils are specifically formulated for 4 stroke motorcycles with wet clutches.

Using oils that are not designated as meeting the JASO-MA standard may be destructive to KZ clutches. Here's a link that may be helpful:


www.oilspecifications.org/jaso.php

Thanks for the info and links. I would have never thought this much about it, but when I saw the Motul was a Synthetic blend, I was start wondering. I have been using it in the KZ for a few years now, but I never put a lot of miles on any one bike.

Seems that the 5100 is JASO MA - so I should be good and the side benefit of the Motul is it smells good...

Make sure it has lots of z's and d's and p's in it whyat ever you use! :woohoo:

After much much reading here,and elsewhere....the highway gods have smiled
Rotella T for the win! AND, its always available, nation wide, 7 days a week, and its nearly the cheapest you can find- at WallyWorld.
I add half a container of stp oil treatment to boost the zddp stuff. I change my oil every 2000-2500..and guess what? Pour it back into the container, drop it off at walmart, and they handle the mess of properly recycling.

I personally love synthetics, but wont run them in an old bike- or old anything, you're risking leaking seals and other problems- if you just rebuilt the bike, or its a modern (5 years, 5-10K miles) then skip the rotella and hit the synthetics.

Rotella has a very good reputation, I have never read a bad report on it. As I recall, it's also available in synthetic but the dino version is more than adequate.