Best oil to put in the bike?

[Neosophist]

Theres different 'certifications' of oil though..

Only the C4 Certified diesel oil is reccomended for bikes by shell, this oil is extreemly hard wearing and lasts an awful long time.

Hence the high price.

It also has lots of cleaning agents in it too.

I'd just stick to 10w40 semi-synth. Such as Honda Ultra S9 etc.

[Old Painless]

If the chemical which makes clutches slip is molybdenum, why are cams coated in it when fitted as it will end up in the clutch ?

[nakes999]

Theres different 'certifications' of oil though..

Only the C4 Certified diesel oil is reccomended for bikes by shell, this oil is extreemly hard wearing and lasts an awful long time.

Hence the high price.

It also has lots of cleaning agents in it too.

I'd just stick to 10w40 semi-synth. Such as Honda Ultra S9 etc.

Hmmm ok, I think I'll get some semi-synthetic then...

[Neosophist]

If the chemical which makes clutches slip is molybdenum, why are cams coated in it when fitted as it will end up in the clutch ?

It's a big debate the old oil type.. you have those that swear that normal oil is 100% ok and motorcycle oil is a con.. even going into great depths to back up their claims.

Then you have motorcycle oil enthusiasts that do the same.

Clutch slippage is due to several factors so it's not easily reproducable... but it does happen.

- State of clutch.. is it worn or new?
- Type of oil - What friction modifiers are used?

The cams arn't supposed to be dipped in Moly so the amount that ends up in your oil wont' be a great deal.. most oil manfucaturers use a different type of Molybdenum (as opposed to disulfide) which you lube the cam with.

Different oil manufactureres use different amounts and types of additives in their oils.. some of these obviouly affect clutches as people report problems.. just becuase their not universal doesn't mean they dont exist, so it should be ackknowledged that an issue does exist somewhere.

One of the issues that Car oil supporters fail to mention quite a lot is that your average car oil isn't designed to be run through the transmission of a motorcycle.. the sheer forces of the gearbox can quickly break down standard oil.. 10/40 becomes 10/30 in less than 1000 miles in a modern day motorcycle.

Maybe not an issue if your changing your oil every 600 miles, but if you leave it in there for a couple of thousand and do some hot summer riding your oil might not be providing adequate protection.

There really are x-10000 factors that can be taken into account.

Best thing to do is learn as much as possible about engine oil(s) (from reliable sources as opposed to forums / wikipedia etc) and take into play how often you change your oil and the state of your clutch and see what works for yourself.

If you want to use fully synth car oil you may have problems with your clutch at some point that you wouldn't with something else.

Main thing that can be deduced from all of this is that if you use the proper stuff you dont' get any problems :)

Yes it can be slightly more costly but thats just how it is.

Honda Ultra S9 10/40 Semi-Synth is totally fine for all the VFR400 series bikes :)

[Morespeedvicar]

Hi, i've always put silkolene comp4 in all my bikes untill this year, i've had loads a problems with my nc30 knocking (or wat sounded like knocking) at 3000rpm, i'd checked everything but couldnt find out wat it was, anyway when i changed the oil this spring (a yearly service) so i thought i'd tried something different as an experiment, so went for castrol fully synthetic.
My nc is now running the best it ever has done in the 3 years i've had it! the 'knocking' has dissapeared and it sounds lovely. I've not had any clutch issues at all, so from now on im sticking to that.

It maybe all a happy coincedence and i'm not going to say your garanteed not to get clutch problems, but as long as you use bike oil and not fully synthetic car oil i recon you'll be fine. Oil technology moves on all the time, so why stick with old crap, after all we dont use windows 3.1 on our pc's anymore do we.............

Cheers
Ian

[Neosophist]

Hi, i've always put silkolene comp4 in all my bikes untill this year, i've had loads a problems with my nc30 knocking (or wat sounded like knocking) at 3000rpm, i'd checked everything but couldnt find out wat it was, anyway when i changed the oil this spring (a yearly service) so i thought i'd tried something different as an experiment, so went for castrol fully synthetic.
My nc is now running the best it ever has done in the 3 years i've had it! the 'knocking' has dissapeared and it sounds lovely. I've not had any clutch issues at all, so from now on im sticking to that.

It maybe all a happy coincedence and i'm not going to say your garanteed not to get clutch problems, but as long as you use bike oil and not fully synthetic car oil i recon you'll be fine. Oil technology moves on all the time, so why stick with old crap, after all we dont use windows 3.1 on our pc's anymore do we.............

Cheers
Ian

But we have 'Windows 3.1' bikes... well technically we have DOS 3.30 bikes... :)

Older clutches are a lot more prone to slippage.. some of the new clutches won't slip with fully synth car oil :)

[Johnny Wishbone]

Meandering slightly off topic but keeping it oil based, how often do you change it?

I'm building an NC30 purely for track use but if I'm going to put good oil in, I can't afford to be changing it every trackday. Surely if I'm using a good brand of Semi, changing it too often would be a waste?

[Old Painless]

The better the oil you use the longer the drain intervals.

On the road with a fully synthetic you can push 8-10K easily with top-ups.

When racing i would go for once a year.