Off Road 4 Strokes, OCI

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Jul 11, 2021
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I have a DR650 (duel sport) that I use almost exclusively as a off road machine. It sees a lot of single track technical riding so not many miles per hours of use.

All I can find is OCIs for distance. Wondering how often I should be changing oil given the use of the machine.

Two thing that “worry” me is that it’s a oil cooled motor and runs warm doing this low speed driving and I’m slipping the clutch lots, just nature of the type of riding.

Oil is Shell Advance Ultra 4t 10w40

I also have the same oil available to me in 15w50

Thanks!
 
Two thing that “worry” me is that it’s a oil cooled motor and runs warm doing this low speed driving and I’m slipping the clutch lots, just nature of the type of riding.
It probably doesnt hold much oil (1.5 qt or less is my guess), and is probably easy to change, so based on the fact it gets ridden hard I'd change it every 500-600 miles. Maybe sooner if most of the miles are all hard dirt riding.

What's the owner's manual say?
 
Those are great bikes!

I had a DR350 as my main trail bike for a lot of years. Start up was always finnicky, but other than that, it was rock solid!

For my air-cooled dirt machines, I changed oil every 10 hours of ride time. Probably overkill, but I use the cheap Rotella 15-40 and I've never had issues.
 
It probably doesnt hold much oil (1.5 qt or less is my guess), and is probably easy to change, so based on the fact it gets ridden hard I'd change it every 500-600 miles. Maybe sooner if most of the miles are all hard dirt riding.

What's the owner's manual say?
Holds 2.3 qt

OM says nothing useful in the regard.
 
Those are great bikes!

I had a DR350 as my main trail bike for a lot of years. Start up was always finnicky, but other than that, it was rock solid!

For my air-cooled dirt machines, I changed oil every 10 hours of ride time. Probably overkill, but I use the cheap Rotella 15-40 and I've never had issues.
10hrs of trail time would keep my OCD in check. I might just go with that. Probably overkill like you said but I’m from the camp of oil is cheap and motors not so much.
 
I love the ol' DR650; I had one for several years. The DR650 has been around a LONG time; very old basic and venerable design that hasn't changed in decades, literally. If it were a poor design, they'd have changed it by now. Just like the Honda XL650R, it has been going along with the status-quo for many, many years. That means the design is solid and hasn't needed significant changes. That Suzuki engine does not need to be babied; it's robust. There's no real flaw in the design in the engine itself. What few common "concerns" there are have nothing to do with the oil.
- the neutral switch screws need to be secured
- the main drive chain upper idler should be removed and hole plugged
- the main countershaft seal can blow out; add the factory retainer which came along later and it'll be fine

As far as the OCI, obviously going by hours is doing to be a bit more consistent than miles in this case. I'd say change the oil perhaps every 100 hours. If you "average" 20mph, that would be a very conservative 2000 mile OCI.
 
Every 1000km, easy to remember. This is what I did with my Wr250r, using cheap oil and one new filter at the end of the season.
 
Those are great bikes!

I had a DR350 as my main trail bike for a lot of years. Start up was always finnicky, but other than that, it was rock solid!

For my air-cooled dirt machines, I changed oil every 10 hours of ride time. Probably overkill, but I use the cheap Rotella 15-40 and I've never had issues.
I loved my DR350! I still think it was the best all round dual sport ever made. If they had ever bothered to modernize it a bit and shed 10-15 lbs it would still be a good bike today.

As for the OP’s question I’d be thinking 50 hours would be a good interval to shoot for.
 
Holds 2.3 qt

OM says nothing useful in the regard.
That's a decent amount of oil volume for a small engine. If it was half of that I'd be more worried about oil degradation from hard off-road use.
 
Everyone has their own comfort level. If I were in your shoes, I would probably run the oil for about 20 hours, send in a UOA, and adjust based on that.
 
Air & oil cooled 650cc thumper, ridden in slow technical terrain, 2.3 quart oil capacity... I'd suggest an oil change every 25 hours or 300 miles ((both give or take) with a filter change every 2-3 oil services. The oil you're using sounds like good stuff, and most modern oils are very good especially motorcycle-specific oils. There is NO WAY would I do 100 hour / 2000-mile service intervals with your circumstances, that's just crazy. Even 50 hours is really too far, just my $0.02. Of course the air filter is the most important one for engine longevity, keep a close eye on that one.
My XR400 holds just under 2 quarts of oil and gets ridden in some technical stuff too, but I try not to beat on it. It has an oil cooler and I run a mix of Rotella T4 15w40 and Honda GN4. I change the oil about every 20 hours with a filter change every 2-3 services, more often if recent trips have been especially gnarly. I've never found anything in the filter media but also I run magnetic drain plugs (frame and engine). I've had this bike since 2009 and never had the engine apart, still runs awesome.
 
You really have two concerns to be discussed ...
- engine wear
- clutch wear

ENGINE:
The extremely short OCIs are unwarranted.
Let's take the guessing out of this ... get some UOAs !!!!
Why guess when you can know?

The engine itself is very robust and does not need to be babied, as I already said. It's a very mature design and has not needed any major changes since it's introduction. The SACS (Suzuki Air Cooled System) has an oil cooler already. The SACS works just fine as long as you're progressing along at 5mph or greater as an average. I had a head-temp thermocouple on my bike and eventually I got tired of watching it, because it really revealed to me that the basic engine cooling (air fins and oil cooler) were doing their job well enough.


CLUTCH:
The clutch design is fairly decent and has no major issues, but if you're really hard on it, it's no different than any other mechanical clutch; it can only take so much heat/slipping friction before it starts to degrade. Also, if you're "slipping the clutch lots", then you're not geared down enough. Given that you describe it as mainly an off-road use bike, there's no reason you cannot drop the CS sprocket one tooth, and/or add some to the rear, for lower gearing which will reduce the necessity of slipping the clutch as often. If you've already done that, and you're still slipping the clutch very frequently, then you're going to wear down the clutches and no oil choice is going to stop the excessive wear. I don't care what you or any other bench-racing bike jockey thinks ... no known brand/grade of oil can stop excessive clutch abuse. You may end up needing to replace clutches more often than "normal". It's a dual-sport (not "duel") bike; it's not a dedicated off-road machine, and therefore the gear ratios and gear spacing are a compromise between on-road and off-road criteria. The idea to understand here is that regardless how many hours the oil has on it, if you're seriously abusing the clutch with a lot of slipping, then the clutch will develop a very fast degradation rate no matter what the oil is like ... clean, fresh oil has no ability to reduce wet-clutch wear over a lube that has 100 hours on it. The FMs and thermal transfer capacity of the lube isn't going to save your clutch, no matter how "fresh" the oil is.
Note: the UOA will tell you nothing about clutch wear, unless you've worn the material all the way down to metal-on-metal, and shame on you if it's got that far arleady.


My point is that OCI duration in regard to the engine does NOT need to be less than 2000 miles or approximately 100 hours. In regard to the clutch, the OCI won't alter the degradation rate if you're slipping the clutch often and excessively, because oil cannot stop or significantly retard clutch wear in abusive conditions.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the replies everyone,
I’ll probably do 10-20 hours and go from there.
I will write out a more detailed response when I have some time in front of a computer.

I have a 14T CS sprocket on the way(factory is 15T) and a bunch of other goodies.
 

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