Bough a new motorcycle

[eljefino]

You are air cooled right?

I have a cheapo harbor freight IR thermometer, I zap my cyl heads after a ride. They're within a couple degrees of each other, indicating good fuel mix across both cylinders. 75'F day = 205'F heads. Could also zap the oil too I guess.

That's almost cool enough to run a 30 weight, I have 15w40 in my air cooled virago. "They" say most motors like 5-100 cst in the bearings, a target easily hit with xw40 weight at my temps.

If you run it hard the 20w50 will be good but be honest with yourself about how hard it is. Your legs would be sweating profusely from all the heat radiating IMO to need it.

 

[Lurch]

Originally Posted By: outoforder
Just bought a 2000 yamaha 650 classic. Current owner uses mobile one motorcycle oil which as we all know is crazy expensive. I was considering switching to conventional Rotella or Delvac at my next oil change. Pros and cons to this decision?


I would personally, definitely switch to Rotella or Delvac. I'm going to switch from Honda GN4 10-40 to Delvac 15-40 at my next bike OCI.

Excellent bang for your buck with Delvac and Rotella. To heck with all that fancy expensive oil. IMHO it's unnecessary.

 

[GoldwingGuy]

Keep in mind that a V star 650 is air cooled and 20w-50 or 15w-50 oil would be my first choice when it is hot. Run 15w-50 in my Suzuki Savage, now there's a mans motorcycle. The Goldwing is fine with 10w-40.

 

[Ausfahrt]

Originally Posted By: boraticus
I don't believe in expensive synthetic oils for motorcycles. The only place I use synthetic oil is in my snow thrower.


That's an interesting way of doing things.

Would you mind sharing how you arrived at that strategy?




Personally, I have switched to Mobil 1 15-50 in all of my air cooled OPE's and motorcycles for an extra measure of protection here in the Florida heat. I don't own a snow thrower (I know, go figure

) so maybe it's more of a cold weather thing.

 

[boraticus]

"Would you mind sharing how you arrived at that strategy?"

Synthetic doesn't get as thick during cold weather. Makes it easier to start.

However, the snow thrower engine uses synthetic oil at a considerable rate. More so than other snow thrower engines I've owned that ran conventional oil. I plan on going back to conventional oil this winter. Maybe I'll have to pull more than once to fire it up but I won't have to add oil after every two hours of use.