cycle/arx, lc & fp in bikes?

[nicrfe1370]

Steve,
I used Cycle-RX (Auto-RX) and LC at the same time (which I later learned might be counter-productive) in a batch of Rotella Synthetic 5W-40 in my Kawasaki ZX-11. I can't give a fair opinion on how well it cleaned or anything (though I feel like it did quite well) but my experience was that I had no problems with any of the additives, specifically, no clutch slip. Frankly my unscientific, but observed experience was that everything worked much better with this mix of oil and additives. The shifting was very smooth until I drained the oil at 700 miles, there was no clutch slip at all that I could percieve, and I do specifically feel like I notice a bit with other oils with no additives. The bottom line I think is that each motorcycle seems to behave just a bit differently to oils and additives, but this has been my experience. Hope it helps.

 

[deepsquat]

I have done a full clean cycle on my 90 Honda pc 800 and for the last year have alway kept a dose of LC in there as well andd keeep FP in the gas tank too !

 

[SteveU]

Has anyone had any experience using these in motorcycles with wet clutches? How well did they work? I have a 86 Honda nighthawk with hydraulic lifters that has a ticking sound around 3000 rpm like a lifter might be sticking & wondered if any of these might help.
Thanks,
Steve

 

[Tim_Z]

I have been running a maintenance dose of LC in my 04 Triumph Speed Triple for about the last 8 months (7,000 miles) which sometimes

sees spirited riding with no problems to date.

Tim

 

[SteveU]

What do motorcycles tend to do more of, carbon up or make varnish? I just turned 30,000 mi last night & have averaged at least 1 oil change per year when riding it. It sat for approx 5 yrs when I got married but has been back on the road 4 yrs now. I bought it new and have done all the oil changes on it, ran semi-synth oil all but 2 changes, dino for 2 changes, & then changed to amsoil 10w-40 full synthetic the last 2 yrs. The oil filter gets changed each time the oil is changed. Would this be a better canidate for arx or lc to quiet the lifter noise? Don't seem like there could be much sludge in there. I just added 2 oz fp to the fuel & have noticed a difference in low rpm acceleration making turns, the slight stumble about 2500 rpm didn't happen. Was running amsoil PI at 2 to 4 oz/ tank & it was still happening.

Thanks,
Steve

 

[wileyE]

Ticking could also be your cam chain? also exhaust to head leaks can tick too and go away when it warms up?


With a big finned aircooled motor right between your legs, it'd be unusual NOT to hear some clicking and ticking going on, LOL

 

[SteveU]

It seems to only do it around 3000 rpm like when going thru town, doesn't change when warmed up. Don't seem to notice it on the open road.
Steve

 

[tweeker43]

i use lc and fp in the new bmw. my oil looks good so far (5000 miles) on a business card. bmw says to run it to 6000. using valvoline mc oil.

on my last bike you could hear clicking at idle, pretty much all the time.

 

[Terry]

For recently completed longer term Dyson Analysis testing of a well maintained Suzuki RF900R using Cycle-Rx see www.Cycle-Rx.com

Clutch , trans, engine cleaning , safely, was impressive to me.
In this test unlike the HD Cycle-Rx test compression remained stable.

The owner used Amsoil products for most of the bikes 60,000 miles. For the test we used Suzuki 10w-40 MC oil then we get a good 2000 mile post Cycle-RX result on the original Amsoil 10w-40 motorcycle oil.

Enjoy.

 

[SteveU]

Terry,
Very interesting link. I ordered a case during the last sale. Right now I have LC in the oil, would it be a good idea to add ARX once the 'volatile' part of LC has burned off in 1500 or so miles or would they still compete with each other? I'm just thinking with summer half or better over that it would be hard to put enough miles on to have the LC do its thing + 3500 mi for both the clean & rinse cycle. Would it work to do the clean cycle this summer store the bike over the winter & do the rinse next summer or do they have to be done back to back? Do you believe that the motorcycle in your test would benefit further from a second application of arx?
Thanks,
Steve

 

[Fatboymoe]

I use FP in my BMW R1150RT. I always use Chevron 91 but add 2oz of FP every other fill-up. I do think that high speed touring doen't require it but I do get stuck in traffic sometimes. A good Italian tune-up works wonders.

 

[IslaVistaMan]

So, to re-cap then Terry, the test was run using Suzuki OEM "dino" under the first four phases -- pre-clean (2000 miles, no CRX), clean (1000 miles with CRX), clean (1500 miles with CRX) and rinse (2000 miles, no CRX).

Why did you feel back-to-back cleaning phases were necessary? Was it because the oil filter loading during the first clean cycle led you to think another phase was necessary?

If anything, I think the results of this test show that Cycle RX does work, and that bike engines (particularly those with wet clutches) really should be treated to a regular maintenance dose, plus a cleaning at least every 20,000 miles.

Good stuff! Thanks for the info (and thank you too, Frank!)

 

[Terry]

Isla, To follow up. Suzuki cleaned only once, we just pulled a 1000 mile mid cycle test for a look-see.

Please read the legend closely, lots of data and easy to confuse. I did my best to format it as well as we could for easy reading.

2000 miles on oem oil
1500 miles on CRX, just pulled a sample at 1000 to show progress.One oil filter ( spin on Fram).
2000 miles on oem rinse phase
2000 miles on Amsoil 10w40 for a comparo.


I agree that another CRX treatment would be beneficial to this bikes trans/clutch assembly.

The darn clutch pack and trans really needed cleaning !

SteveU, LC and CRX are fine if CRX is used at last portion of a oil drain that was employing LC. 500 -1000 miles after LC use is as safe as motor oil and CRX or ARX can handle both easily.

Use FP60 all the time with CRX/ARX !

 

[Mackelroy]

((The darn clutch pack and trans really needed cleaning !))

You forgot the pictures >G
I've never seen any contamination inside the cases of my mc engines with frequent oil changes, they always been very clean.

I'm just wondering what it takes to get an engine into this condition to warrant this cleaning stuff. I could see if you running some junk oil and never change it, but if your running AMSOIL or any other high quality synthetic with frequent change, the engine ought to be pretty dang clean.

 

[Terry]

Mac, thats the point. This bike was maintained and owned by a professional and USING AMSOIL lubricants most of its life.

Oils don't clean deeply but attempt to MAINTAIN a level of cleanliness. If the motor oil did such a great job, Cycle-RX would not be needed, agreed.

In the real world internals of your bike if a 60,000 mile shared sump it indeed needs cleaning.

The test tells the truth and paints a photograph more meaningful than looking from the outside in with the naked eye.

Looking inside out with FTIR,ICP, and particle detection viewing what the motor oil has experienced is more instructive for me as an analyst.

Imagine if you were not using a high quality oil like Amsoil and thinking that the OEM oil was protecting your bike. Take a look at the vis levels after the samples were drawn. Cycle-RX even assisted the shear effect on the OEM oil.

Amazing chemistry.

 

[Shaman]

Everytime LC touches my clutch I can tell, the engine is noticeably smoother with a 3 oz shot in the pan.

 

[IslaVistaMan]

I'm currently running the second of back-to-back cleaning phases on my 1982 GPz750 (inline 4, air-cooled, all stock, bought new. Yes, I'm the original owner, gray hair and all now).

I shortened the first cleaning phase to 700 miles, which was done using a fresh load of Amsoil's older "ARO" 20W-50. I just changed this out this past Saturday after 23 "in-engine" oil days and 5 separate riding days in some fairly warm weather (90 degrees plus) in the San Diego back country. Both high RPM and some loafing were encountered, but no slow-speed toy crawls for this bike. I try to keep the pace up just because the engine is air-cooled.

Current cleaning phase is with Chevron Supreme SL-rated dino 20W-50. I'm about 200 miles into the second phase now after Sunday's jaunt. The bike has an internal cartridge filter, and I was able to see that very little loading had occurred in the first 700 miles. Good news? Maybe. But I want this puppy clean.

The engine's oil history was Castrol GTX 20W-50 for the first 27,000 miles (1982 - 1999), with ARO thereafter. Mileage is at 39,740 now. I felt kind of quilty going back to a dino to maximize the cleaning process, but the Supreme seems okay so far, and shifting hasn't been affected. I'll run this for 800 miles or so to complete the second cleaning phase, and then start the rinse phase, again using the Supreme.

Oil changes throughout the bike's life have typically been at 1,000 to 1,500 mile intervals. Air temps ranging up to 95 degrees or so, very little cold weather riding, and an adequate warm up with easy RPMs have kept the motor fresh over the years. No clutch problems, either during cleaning or before. The engine still runs superbly at just off idle, and was carburated only moderately rich right from the factory. Kawasaki got the recipe right, I guess.

One thing I noticed when I first went to the ARO five years ago was oil consumption climbed immediately over the Castrol 20W-50. Too soon to tell after installing the Supreme now, but my thinking is that maybe this motor likes a dino oil better (that, and it probably needed a cleaning back in 2000 before going to the ARO).

I plan on running a maintenance dose of Cycle RX after everything is done, and report back periodically. I'd love to get at least 100,000 miles out of the bike before parting it out or finding a collector who wants it.

 

[Terry]

Mac, There is an excellent letter from Carlos Roque who controlled the Cycle-RX test and worth reading as he is not owned or controlled by Cycle-RX. Click on testimonials. The letter is long but he is professional and thorough, no push over for any adds including Cycle-RX.

Isla, I believe the add pack is what the bike prefers and optimizing that is what oil analysis could do for you instead of guessing.

I like both the LC and Cycle-RX products and would suggest that you try a periodic cleaning with the Cycle-RX and use the LC for oxidation control Shaman. UOA would allow me to fine tune that recommendation in any case.


Terry

 

[IslaVistaMan]

I think you're right, Terry. After the rinse phase with the Chevron Supreme, I may stick with the Supreme until the next oil change and then send the oil into you for a full analysis.

Then, I'll switch back to Amsoil and see how things change -- both in consumption and wear-wise. Maybe Amsoil's new MCV 20W-50 will show less consumption over their ARO.

Thanks for your comments. It'll be nice to get the oil wired for this bike.

 

[Propflux01]

quote:

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Originally posted by SteveU:
I have a 86 Honda nighthawk with hydraulic lifters......Steve

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What kind of nighthawk do you have? I had one also, never heard of hydraulic lifters in a Honda M/C engine, they are either bucket under shim or the rocker w/adjuster screw. if it is a 250, 450 or 650, it will have adjustable rockers.