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Bob is the Oil guy has a great forum where lots of guys get oil analysis performed on their used oil to see how much metal there is from wear as well as a look at the break down of viscosity and acid buffers. Main take away from this is that most guys change their oil too often (including me.) Changing the oil before it's starting to break down and the acid buffers are gone is basically a waste of money and it won't reduce engine wear one bit. Personally I'd rather run a high ZDDP oil and leave it in the crankcase longer than change a cheaper oil more often. That said, I run diesel oil in my bikes and they seem to like it fine. I don't think KZ's are particular about oil for the most part so we got that much going for us.

650ed wrote:

Dr. Gamma wrote: .................... In all the Kawasaki motorcycles I owned or had as demos I NEVER ran the oil and filter more than a 1,000 miles before I changed it. ...........

Thank you! I was beginning to think I was the only one who changed the oil & filter in the KZ that often. Ed

Fresh oil and filter is cheap insurance in my book. I like to keep the inside of my motors as clean as when they were new!!!! I can't believe some of the KZ motors I have seen. They had that very same awful brownish color like the inside the valve covers and heads of a small block Chevy with 150, 000 miles on it!!!!

Always changed my oil every 1000 . Always run them hard cheep insurance .

I used to change mine about every 10th pass down the 1/4 mile track. I don't really remember why I did that, but my motor never had issues of any kind back in that day. I always used full synthetic for that purpose as it definitely made a difference in over all performance ...

A number of years back Consumers Reports tested oil change interval in a fleet of NY city taxi cabs. Severe duty. Some cabs got 3000 mile changes and others 6000 mile changes and there was no difference in wear after 60k miles. This test also showed that there was no difference in wear comparing the 20 different oil's tested. Good factual information. The XS11 site has a copy of this article in case anyone wants more info.

Did anyone else ever notice that their bike seems to run better after an oil change!!!!

Every time

Yep. Nobody likes friction....

Way over kill for me.... from 1980 to approx 2005 I changed mine every July then in Oct when I put it away. Since I averaged 1,000 miles a season give or take there were many times I saved the oil and ran in one of oil burners (or changed it) since it was so clean. Since I started running it all season and still ave about the same. And those were the days of reg Castrol and Valvoline too so couldn't of afforded synthetic doing that.

It does say every year of 6,000 miles, whichever comes first, Soo once a year is in line with the recommended oil change intervals.