It seem awful strange to me that when the price of oil go up, the oil companys go up for a quart of syn. oil. The syn. should not be effected by the price of fossil oil, it is man made. Right, or am I wrong about this??

 

+1 for Red Line. Using their products in all three holes.

 

So you are using Mobil 1 15w/50 in all 3 holes? I would think you might have some issues in the primary using it.

I like the Harley Primary Oil in there with Mobil 1 90w/140 trans oil in the trans. I use the 15w/50 engine oil only in the motor.

 

Sorry I was confusing. I was just talking about the regular 15w/50 in the motor only. I use Mobil 1 Gear lube 75w90 in the tranny and ( only because I have several quarts if it ) I have been using Mobil one Vtwin in the primary. When I run out, I'll switch to something cheaper for the primary.

I'm a big believer in using specific lubes for specific applications. I think the single oil for all three holes has to make compromises to work. They have to leave out additives that would be good for the motor but not the tranny. Leave out additives for the tranny because they are not good for the motor. etc

I like to use an oil the was designed as an engine oil for the engine, gear lube for the gear box, and something in the primary that will keep it cool and not cause the clutch to slip.

 

If you really want to know what Mobil oil is or the class it falls into there is a Mercedes page that discusses in great length the class and types of oils that are acceptable for use in their vehicles, our car used to use 0/30,( how can an oil can have zero vis.) now 5/30 Mobil, the list defines the properties of the various oils----it is a little dated but informative.

 

It is made from propane and natural gas, thus making it vary with the market. It should still not swing like it does.

 

Royal Purple is getting ridiculous with their pricing and my distributor friend is depressed, as it isn't helping his sales. I recently moved from RP 85w140 gear oil to RL SPH because the RL is $10/qt., RP $14 (same retailer), and the RP is $18.75 in yet another location. Both work equally well but price has dictated a change. The RP 20w50 should cost no more than $9.60 (MSRP). I buy it by the 5-gal. pail which is cheaper by the quart, and I'm paying $120 at wholesale ($160 MSRP). I remember when the same pail was $70 (wholesale) a few years ago.

 

it seems like when i run syn oil of any kind,,,my engine runs hotter,,not a little but enough to really notice and also i hear valve train noise a lot more,,,,,and to top it off my oil pressure does wierd things that it doesnt do with regular dino oil,,,,,just wondering if anyone else has noticed that ?

 

It is only the lower viscosity oils that have friction modifiers that would affect the clutch. These would be 10-30 and below. Those that have friction modifiers will have a "Starburst" symbol on the bottle, instead of just a round circle symbol, and are labeled "Energy Conserving Oil." Next time you are in WalMart, look at bottles of different viscosity, and you will see the difference on the bottles.

If you run a lighter weight in the cold weather, you'll want to pay attention to that. Many of the Jap bike proprietory oils, such as Yamalube or Hondaline, are clearly stated on their winter weight oils that they "contain no friction modifiers affecting clutch performance."

 

Some higher-viscosity products use high levels of friction modifiers too. Two examples are Redline and Royal Purple, both of which use relatively high quantities of moly in their forumulas--RL around 900ppm (by far the highest I know of) and RP at 250ppm, in contrast to M1 which comes in at about 100ppm. Almost all high-quality synthetic oils use some moly in their formula, and although it is great for engines it wouldn't be something I'd want in an oil that cools my clutch disks. That said, about ten years ago I ran out of HD primary oil and used some RP 15w40 in my old Evo RK primary with no ill effects. OTOH I tried the same oil in a '95 Dyna a few years before that and found the clutch action indicative of an oil that was too slick. I pulled that oil out in 15 miles and installed something much less high-tech. The primary doesn't need anything more than a simple, inexpensive multi-viscosity fossil engine oil, and some even use ATF successfully. IMO if you pay more than $3/qt. for primary oil you're paying too much.

That's probably of more importance to the Jap-bike crowd than HD owners since in many of those bikes the engine oil is shared with the tranny and primary. HD owners can pick an oil that ideally fits each of the three applications, and although it makes the oil-change process more tedious I think it is a much better concept.