Like I said before, too hot to ride. My house is clean (enough), the yard is mowed, and most important of all the bike is clean. So, I'm sitting here discussing oil again.

 

To each thier own

Ride Em Carry Em

 

Today I do... it was about 285 degrees in the shade outside earlier today, and now it's thunder-booming with a gullywasher.
It was about 300 in the shade yesterday but I still went for an all-day ride.
Which is another reason why I'm sitting at home today- trying to recover...

 

[quote]ORIGINAL: iclick

Actually, it was a slow Saturday night for me. It's now a slow Sunday because it's too hot to ride. [sm=smiley13.gif]

I'm no engineer either, but what counts are real-world results. All the synthetic products we commonly mention here can handle far higher temps than we'll likely see in our HD engines, whether PAO or PE-based. I ran another brand, probably a PAO but I've never verified it, in my old RK for 106k miles before selling and saw no change in compression or oil consumption in the nine years I owned it. It also showed no sludge when a rocker cover was removed and inspected. It ran across TX in '98 in 107° weather without protest along with countless trips in weather nearly that hot. My point is that if the PAO is inferior to PE oils, when will this difference manifest itself? My contention is probably never in the context of normal ownership, or even double that mileage. In torture tests I've seen on oils where heat was a part of the tests, the differences between most synthetic oils regardless of base stock were not great.

I also contend that some formulas may be superior not because of base stock but additives. When you balance it out, who's to say who is superior to whom in any given category? The tests I've seen reflect this.

I'm sure you'll agree that finding solid evidence for these questions is difficult, and again the final formula is as important as the starting point, IMO. Who's to say that someday a properly formulated fossil oil won't surface that will out-perform the best synthetic. I've never seen it, but I don't think it is impossible with today's technology.

In an MCN oil test in Feb. 2003 (page 22) you'll see that Redline and Castrol Syntec had about the same "Heat Stability/Aging" score, both of which were high, and I don't believe Syntec is a PE-based oil. In fact, it is usually mentioned in the context of being a sub-par performer, which I doubt. In that test, Syntec out-performed Amsoil, which I think is a PE-based oil. In fact, the top 10 on the list showed only a few percentage-points difference between them.

What I like about Redline more than its base stock is the moly content. I'm a firm believer in using moly as an additive, and at least in 2003 Redline contained more than any other of the MCN samples, about 900ppm. It's so high I would think twi

 

The oil I use is not a PE, AFAIK, and two tests run on my old RK showed no appreciable viscosity breakdown in 5k miles. Wear metals were low and TBN with plenty of headroom. Thus, in that bike the oil used was optimal--indeed no other oil likely could've done better in the results shown by these tests. OTOH, that bike's oil temperatures rarely exceeded 180°, and we all know TC's run considerably hotter. I have yet to perform a lab test on this bike yet because it's so new, but I may do it on the present oil since I'm about ready to change it again.

I still say the overall balance of the oil's formula is more important than the starting point (base stock).


There are statements floating around on some Amsoil sites that moly "destroys valvetrains," and that Cummins had "banned" oil with moly content in any of their diesel engines. I was incredulous to say the least after reading this so I called Cummins tech support, and they said (1) they hadn't heard the claims by Amsoil, and (2) the statement wasn't true. These Amsoil sites claim the info was in a Cummins TSB, but Cummins claims no such TSB exists. I emailed one of of those Amsoil sites with the info I obtained and didn't get a response, but the statements are still there two months later.

Amsoil, of course, uses no moly. It is an expensive additive that is used in most high-performance oils, and if it damaged valvetrains I'm sure it would've been exposed by now. I asked this Amsoil dealer how come my last RK lasted 106k (now at 110k) with no loss of compression. If the valvetrain would've been destroyed by the moly in the oil I was using, it would've done it before 110k miles and would've showed up in compression tests. As I said, I received no response, but the false claim is still on the site.
[quote]Here's to hoping the heat breaks for us all so we can spend more time on the road vice on the compooter... [sm=alcoholic.gif]