Hey all I tried a search on hot weather riding and I guess I didn't fine much.

Here is the question I am moving out to AZ Pheniox for school and I

was woundering if my motorcycle will have a problem with the

summer heat?  I use sythetic oil.  Will my bike over heat and die? I

will have to get to school for noon.  High heat of the day.

Thanks for the info Oldfeller.

Yup MMI you know any thing about it? Any good thought on studying?

I have the desire to learn big time. I cant wait. I hope I can get full Fedr finan Aid and Pell Grant. Just did the phone interview Monday.

Oldfeller/Onederer/Gort

Some interesting conversation on oils here! Oldfeller and Gort’s tales are true – I used to work for Mobil as a technical sales engineer in the UK, working with industrial and automotive end-applications.  The Mobil 1 series is simply the best – by far.

Mobil 1 History.  Since a fellow called JR Ewing pioneered vacuum distillation of lube oils and set up Vaccuum Oil a long time ago, which became SOCONY Vacuum, then Mobile, then Mobil, Mobil Oil has been the market leader in lube technology.  Exxon, Texaco, Amoco, Shell, BP – all the other big players have accepted that, and focussed elsewhere.  

Synthetics.  Mobil took it further and led the synthetics market.  Most lube oils are distilled from crude to separate out molecules with about a 30-carbon structure.  They’re all sorts of shapes, being isomers, but with about the same chemical structure.  Because they are all uneven shapes, with some like crosses, some like Christmas trees or whatever and the odd one a straight line, they have varying levels of resistance to thermal or physical breakdown.  The Mobil 1 range is made from gas!  They’re polyalphaolefins, which means the approx 30-weight carbon molecules are polymerised from C2 gas to make lovely perfect straight carbon chains, every time.  And guess what – Mobil patented the manufacturing process.  All the others have to make do with purification processes to try to emulate what Mobil does.  Lots of smaller companies make very expensive specialty synthetic high performance and racing oils.  Ask yourself whether they have the billion-dollar backing to conduct the research that Mobil does, or whether they have a few hundred million in a bottom drawer to make a synthetic polymerisation plant at one of their refineries.  It’s a bit like wondering whether a BMW M5 is better engineered than a home-built hotrod.  The very same, exact same, Mobil 1 oil you can buy at a gas station is what’s put in fomula one engines – think on that.

Why synthetics are better.  The straight carbon chains of the synthetic are just incredible – they are highly resistant to thermal breakdown, which is why they’re often the only lubes to deal with very hot high performance engines.  They also break down less under physical stress- like between gear teeth, and they rub less against each other microscopically, so you actually get less friction – and therefore less heat/more power/less fuel!!  (change engine oil, gear oil, diff oil and hub grease for synthetics and you gain 2.5-4%).

Test results.  I’ve seen European engines come off test beds after programmes like the one described by Gort and with exactly the same results.  You can easily double the life of an engine by using Mobil 1.  With gearboxes, where contamination is less of a deal, we saw 500% increases in industrial trials.  Yes – 5x life extension.

Oil never wears out? Onederer, your statement that conventional oil never wears out isn’t entirely true.  You’re quite right that the main problem is additives losing their effectiveness – especially the detergent/dispersant package being used up.  Oil will thicken with accumulation of suspended carbon, and thin with accumulation of fuel contamination – maybe a combination of both.  It also may suffer from suspended water (it’s designed to safely hold a few percent water) and metal contaminants, though most debris and bits should be pulled out by the filter.  Viscosity improvers will break down over time, but that just narrows the oil’s viscosity range. However, there’s another factor, which is break down of the base oil itself.  The actual base stock will eventually oxidise, and that happens a lot quicker with normal oils than with synthetics, especially Mobil 1.  Eventually it gets tired, though it can be recycled by filtering through clay beds to get rid of the crap.

Change intervals.  Also, you can extend change intervals with synthetics.  Some haulage companies are now running 100,000 mile oil change cycles with synthetics with regular filter changes, and they’re still getting extended life over mineral oils.  We used to run our company cars on it and usually double the recommended change periods.  We also had the facility to take out some of the old oil and get full lab sample tests done.  The results always showed that the Mobil 1 was performing better and protecting better at 20000 miles than a mineral oil could brand new.  No bull, just tested proof.  I run double change intervals with normal filter changes.  My turbodiesel car has 180000 miles on the clock from doing this, runs sweet, burns no oil and still returns 50 miles to the gallon.

Bike vs car oil.  Some people are concerned that car oils have different addictives which are not suitable for bikes.  Two suggestions I’ve heard are that there are too many friction improvers in car oils for bike clutches, and that the car oil doesn’t have enough detergent dispersant pack for a bike, especially a twin, and you’re better with a diesel car oil.  I’ve run a LOT of bikes on Mobil 1, including several tuned bikes that have really pushed the clutch to its limits, but I’ve never had a slippage problem.  As for detergent levels, you can run a diesel on Mobil 1 – so it’s not exactly short of detergents!.  If a bike has clutch problems, that’s because it has clutch problems.  Maybe there are a few models out there that have too little reserve strength built into the clutch and they can be a problem with a better oil, but that’s going to be a very rare problem.
Also, just for the record, in many cases the difference between the bike oil and the car oil is the label.

Synthetic myths.  The early synthetic oils were based on other chemistry – like glycols for instance – and were incompatible with conventional mineral oils.  That is not the case with Mobil 1.  It’s chemically the same as your mineral oil base stock, just a purer version of it.  So, if anybody tells you you have to be careful where you use Mobil 1 or that you have to flush the old oil out first, just nod your head and ignore them.  Think of it as the Mobil 1 being a blueprinted machine assembly, while the others are Friday afternoon rush jobs.  It will mix happily with other oils and it is exactly the same in terms of compatibility with seals and other laterials.  I would advise using a simple mineral oil for bedding in, say 500  miles, but that's all.

Manual transmissions.  Put Mobilube SHC in your axle (differentials need EP additives), but Mobil 1 is great for gearboxes.  Most manual transmissions just don’t need special lubes, and the oil industry has been laughing for decades while charging for them, because all you really need in a gearbox is a straight oil, with virtually no additives.  Expensive gear oils are just overkill when your engine oil, bought cheaper by the gallon, will do just as well, if not better.

Over in the UK we have a chain of motor accessory outlets which sell their own brand of synthetics – but I happen to know that it is Mobil 1, filled into rebranded containers by Mobil at their blending and packing plant.  So the choice is $80 for a gallon in a Mobil can, or $50 for a gallon in a re-branded can.  No-brainer!

Onederer wrote on 01/29/08 at 19:53:48:


Onederer  

Tell me more on what a oil cooler is

Soon wrote on 01/29/08 at 18:12:01:


dont sweat it    we run our bikes every day all year,  we run 20w50 dino and change it often. the local police bikes dont even run oil coolers    KEEP OIL IN IT    that is important  

KwakNut wrote on 01/30/08 at 06:08:30:


Thank you