Automotive vs. MC oil quote

[ocrstar]

Here's a quote from a motorcycle message board I'm a member of. What do you think of this line of reasoning regarding automotive oil in a motorcyle?

"Depending on the bike, some have different bearings than cars (i.e. plain bearings vs. roller bearings). Oil for cars is designed to work with plain bearings, which have no moving parts. Some motorcycles have roller bearings, and using car oil will cause roller/ball bearings to slip/skid/hydroplane. Over time this will cause a flat spot on the roller or ball...and eventually...boom. When a bearing lets go, all **** breaks loose. Safe bet to stick with oil designed for your bike."

 

[wileyE]

1/2 truth's and not the whole story IMO.

MANY motorcycle oils ARE cars oils at api-sg additive levels. Might think of it this way, that old car 10w40, 20w50 that you used to buy at 79cents? now costs you 3 times more relabled as motorcycle oil and meets jaso-MA.

Some bikes use plain and some roller bearings, and the cams on many use no bearing material. The difference between auto and mc oil shouldn't matter. There IS huge debate about rollers and needles using synthetics though, mostly in the harley crowd. Some of the best V twin builders in the business swear they have a collection of worn parts to prove it. I respect their experience but have my doubts having never seen it myself.

 

[Titan]

Certainly not the whole story. I especially don't buy the nonsense about a ball bearing skidding, causing a flat spot. At least, not due to an oil being too slippery.

Auto/motorcycle oil differences have more to do with friction reducers affecting wet clutch performance. And, many people find it makes no difference in their bikes.

All that said, I'm a fan of the HDEO's for motorcycle use. Cheap. Robust. Good performance. Did I mention Cheap?

 

[Jaybird]

I think we would find many PCMO's and HDEO's that would pass MA or MB specifications, IF they decided to market them to that niche.

IMO, it's more of a marketing gig than anything.

Another thing you will hear ad infinitum on MC boards is "do NOT use an EC oil in your wetclutch as it WILL make your clutch slip"
But in my experieince I have never seen an oil cause such slippage. In every instance I had a chance to see first hand there was another underlying problem that caused the clutch slippage.

Most folks who post up things like that are simply wanting to add to the sound/noise ratio, and have no real clues on the issues.

 

[jsharp]

It seems in the last few years the "if it has moly or friction modifiers, it will cause your clutch to slip" nonsense has appeared in force. Probably thanks to propagation via the internet

Funny, I was using oil with moly in wet clutches in the 80's without problems. And the Mobil motorcycle oils also contain moly, about the same amount as their automotive oils.

The bearing skidding myth is an old one and I've heard that since synthetic oils first appeared. Most everyone building high performance m/c engines abandoned mineral oils decades ago. That the Harley builders cling to this myth says more about them than it does about oil.

 

[klr]

I have used plenty of standard automotive oil in my MC's over the years and never noticed anything in terms of slippage. Then again, I am not a racer and I am not worried if an imperceivable amount of slippage occurs which would rob me of a tenth of a second in a quarter mile drag race.

In fact let's assume your MC clutch slips a normal amount, (take off for example). That is what it's job is. I think if you could view your mc engine internals you'd see your clutch does slip a small amount all the time. that is what its job is. You don't perceive it.


I am not talking hitting 5th gear at 10k rpm and hearing the high revs gradually fall. (this is usually the first place you would perceive true clutch slippage, and my brother has a old beater bike where you can perceive this clutch slippage).

So if you have a tiny amount of slippage that you can not perceive and the slippery moly filled synthetic Automotive oil causes a tiny (10%) more slippage on take off. Is your clutch wearing more than normal or less than normal. ???? I would argue this is more of a brain teaser than you might initially realize - think about it.

The MC oil advocates who are concerned about the real slippage will argue that the real slippage causes excess heat and thus warpage and excess wear blah blah yadahadyada. If you are experiencing real slippage than I would agree.


If you have no perceivable clutch slippage, and you're not a racer, change your oil often and sleep well.

my 2 cents, klr

 

[paulo57509]

http://theoildrop.server101.com/cgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=9;t=000368

 

[sunruh]

actually, the manual for my 2006 YZ250F says to NOT use an EC-II rated oil.
now, i have NEVER seen an EC-II rated oil! has anybody?
and yes i race and i've never had a clutch slip because of the oil.

 

[wileyE]

Goes way back to api-sg/sh, if they could beat (fuel milage) the reference oil by 1.5% they could label EC (energy conserving), beat it by 2.7% and they could label EC-2. Like sunrah says' you probably would never see em go after it with the viscosity's spec'd for bikes.

[ May 25, 2006, 10:46 PM: Message edited by: wileyE ]

 

[Gary in Sandy Eggo]

quote:

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Originally posted by ocrstar:
Some motorcycles have roller bearings, and using car oil will cause roller/ball bearings to slip/skid/hydroplane. Over time this will cause a flat spot on the roller or ball...and eventually...boom. . . .

---

Back to the original question. Lets examine it from a logic stantpoint.

1st, since the only friction in a roller or ball bearing occurs between the balls/rollers and the bearing cage, there's little reason for the ball/roller not to turn between the two surfaces they're keeping apart. Regardless of the lubricant.

2nd, wear only occurs when two pieces of metal touch together and one digs into the other. In the presence of that kind of "friction", a roller or ball is certainly going to turn.

3rd, IF an oil WAS so slick that the balls/rollers would slide rather than turn, that slickness would preclude any possible wear.

Regards, Gary in Sandy Eggo

 

[dwendt44]

jsharp is correct.
Prior to the motorcycle mfgs selling oil under their brand name(a profitable part/acc.), they all suggested 10W-40 auto oil.
Honda, in particular, sold HP-4(a syn blend) with moly for years with no problems.
When a few RC-51(a streetable racer) and some ST-1100s did have some clutch slipping, they changed their story and now offer HP-4 with-out moly. Last I checked, you could still get the HP-4 WITH moly, IF the dealer stockes it.(some don't)
I have known some Wing riders who use 10w-30 during cold weather with no problems. Of course, these are not hard driven sports bikes.
Thing is, the RC-51(and maybe the ST-1100) have marginal clutches(for their power), they may have some slipping anyway.

Side note: I think EC-II is 0W-30, and 5W-30 MAY be EC-II oils. That classification may have been dropped altogather.

 

[sunruh]

dwendt,
you are quite wrong on 0w30 being EC-II.
i tested Castrol Syntec 0W30 (GC) and not only was it *NOT* EC-II, it wasn't even EC rated.
i have looked at dozens of diffent weights of oil from many brands and NEVER have i seen EC-II.

 

[Fatboymoe]

The oil causing roller's to skid is a HD myth. Just today, a friend that I work with called and told me about how Redline oil, which I recommended for his HD, would cause the roller lifters in his 01 HD Lowrider to wipe out the Camshafts in his bike according to his local, independent dealer. This is a lasting Urban Legend started by HD shops berating synthetic oil when HD didn't have any to sell. Now, that HD has their own overpriced Syn 3, it's now O.K. to use in all modern HD's. What a crock! I told him not to walk away from that dealer, but to run away! The reason that some HD TC's had cam problems was because HD used a cheap roller cam bearing and that caused many Cam failures. The upgraded bearing is now a Torrington bearing and is usually supplied with most aftermarket cams. Also, some early TC's had lifter failures caused by a poorly designed roller on the lifter. These have been since upgraded to a better, needle bearing design. These hydraulic roller lifters are the same part number as some small block Chevy's. I don't recall any lifter problems with SBC's using synthetic oil. Some Urban Legends are hard to let go.

 

[IslaVistaMan]

A "lasting urban legend" indeed, FatBoyMoe.

To show you how prevalent it is (and how interested Amsoil is in marketing to the Harley crowd), Amsoil even states that their newer MCV 20W-50 won't cause bearing skate. It's printed right on the bottles.

The MCV and MCF 10W-40 are superb oils, probably the best motorcycle oils made. Neither are friction-modified. These are exceedingly rugged oils that are very shear-stable and capable of relatively long-drains.

If anyone's interested, there is a 5,000 mile UOA of the MCF in the motorcycle used oil analysis section that I posted a while back. So far, no one's put up similar mileage results from competing bike oils.

Amsoil's got a winner with this stuff, and they know it.

 

[dwendt44]

Didn't mean to ruffle your feathers, sunruh.
Amsoil and QS both rate their 0W-30 and 5W-30 oils as EC-II; I assume some other oil makers do so with theirs, too.

 

[KX 455]

The whole Moly theory is rubbish.I have been using Delo 400 from the beginning coming off of the Delvac in my 05 RMZ450 with 100+hrs now. No slippage here,sand course hammer on. Back in 2000 I tried Mobil 1 10/30 in the gear box for my 00 KX250.It was winter and I had a lot of time on my clutch,I said what the ****,Let's see if a EC oil will cause slippage. Sand course some elevation,half hr rides 3 times. The mobil 1 10/30 did not cause any slippage at all. I do think it may be a little light,but it was 40 degrees out and it was for perfect testing.I was heavy with the clutch coming out of thick sanded corners without a wimper from the clutch pack.

What are the contents of a friction modifier?
I would guess Moly is one of them!Boron,calcium? Eveyone seems afraid of Moly,but there are other friction modifiers that are a usual make-up of oil correct?

 

[Hans]

Mr. Sunruh,
I hate to say this, I'm kind of an old guy but I have seen lots of ECII oil. I don't think they list it like that anymore and I don't remember the numbers exactly but it went something like this ECI gave you 1 percent better fuel economy and to be rated as ECII the oil would need to give you like 1.7 percent better fuel economy. My numbers may be of a little but there definitely used to be ECII oil. I'm no oil expert but I spent 31 years in auto manufacturing.

 

[sunruh]

doesn't really matter if you saw it 5 years ago or 25. there is NONE on the shelf of Autozone today!!!
i checked not 3 hours ago. not valvoline, castrol, motorcraft, mobil, exxon, texaco, quaker state, pennsoil had a ECII oil on the shelf regardless of model, blend or weight.
besides, an ECII oil from yester decade isn't anywhere near what the oils are today.

 

[Mike_dup1]

quote:

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many people find it makes no difference in their bikes.

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More like they don't ride much to see any adverse effect and more importantly, don't care. I know several like this, one older guy (60) who got into an arguement with the Yamaha dealer over this in his new "Big Bear" ATV, argued the salesman/store owner when he told him to make sure he used only oil spec of them. No @#$%^& salesman is going to tell him that the oil in his Ford Diesel won't work in his ATV. He came and told me this and I said the dealer was right, still it going to use the 15W-40 diesel though.

The effect of friction modifiers on MC's, ATV's etc must have some truth as they developed a spec just for them. JASO MA

And it more than just clutch slipping....

[ June 18, 2006, 09:02 AM: Message edited by: Mike ]

 

[Blake Sobiloff]

quote:

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Originally posted by Mike:
The effect of friction modifiers on MC's, ATV's etc must have some truth as they developed a spec just for them. JASO MA

And it more than just clutch slipping....

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If JASO is so important, why are most motorcycle manufacturer's brands of oil not JASO rated?