Rotella t6 is a Group 3 oil=====Mobil1 and Amsoil is a Group 4=====Klotz is a Group 5 oil Group, 5 being the best,Thats why I use it.

Jay - there are sooo many things to get the ulcer over..good heavens, unless you are racing in the NewMexico desert, change your dino evry 5 K miles (thats usually once a year) and spend the money you saved on a good steak.  
Again, which syn are people suggesting?

Really, the consensus round here is that unless you have high speed high RPM or temperature related issues you really don't need the synthetic oil in the first place.   (need as in "must have")

And if I didn't have my own personal history cooking a car engine into "sludge lock" using dino oil I might not be such a "synthetic oil saves you from high temp issues" fanboy either.

Verslagen and I DO have "hot" engines (performance modded) so we may need the synthetic oils that we use.   He also runs in the California summer heat, which I luckily don't have to deal with.

However, Bill plods along around at the fairly cool Great Lakes area speed limits with a stock engine using a group 5 synthetic oil that costs him $13 a quart (with shipping on top of that) simply because he LOVES his Klotz -- it's red, it's magical and so it's gotta be better than anything else.

Now Bill's going out of his way to irritate the one person who is getting ready to verify if Klotz is better or not by emperically testing it and collecting temperature rise data off of it to directly compare it to Rotella T-6.

Go figure -- must be some "performance jitters" on Bill's part as his magical red stuff is actually going to have data collected on it for the very first time .....

       

so what do you think of this stuff?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Brad-Penn-Motorcycle-Semi-Syn-20W-50-Case-Gree...

I've never posted to an oil thread, but here goes. The engineers who designed and built the engine specified an oil suitable for their design. That being 10W40. The owner's manual says 10W40 API classification SF or SG.

Oils having a higher API classification meet the lower API classification. (There are some concerns with this statement: See, for example  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_oil or http://www.aa1car.com/library/api_motor_oil_classifications.htm and http://www.ehow.com/list_6120303_sae-oil-classifications.html ) Therefore, if you are using 10W40 with an API classification of SF or higher you are meeting the engineers' specs. The classification system goes ..., SE, SF, SG, ..., in ascending order. Given the above concerns, it is probably best to use SF through SJ API classification.

Multi-viscosity oils are graded as ccWhh where the cc number is the cold-start viscosity and the hh number is the hot-running viscosity. Viscosity is the flow characteristics of the oil. The higher the number the thicker the oil.

Now if you choose to use a different oil than 10W40, then you are making yourself the chief engineer with all attendant risks. That being said, one possibly sensible alternative is to use an oil with a lower cc number than 10 while staying at the hh number of 40, like 5W40. This should help cold-starting, and a lot of engine wear is reported to happen on cold starts.  Be sure if you choose to use a 5W40 oil that it is JASO certified (safe for wet clutches).  It is my understanding that all 10W40 oils of API classification SF or higher are safe for wet clutches.

A 5W40 oil may have higher consumption than a 10W40 oil while the engine is heating up to running temperature, but probably not thereafter. I don't know, it's an educated guess, I'm not an engineer.

The bottom line: If you are using 10W40 oil API classification SF-SJ, stop worrying and ride. If you must worry, worry about the fill-level of the oil. Keep it near the top fill line. An inspection mirror makes checking easy while you're sitting on the bike, upright, and level.

It is my belief that no engine has been damaged from the use of a modern oil of the specified type, while many engines have died from

• being under-filled
• use of a non-specified oil  
• not changing the oil at the specified intervals (4000 miles/12 months)
• installing an oil filter backwards
• blocking oil passages with a home-made gasket
• faililng to re-engage the oil pump drive gear when servicing the clutch
• etc.

does anyone use suzuki's performance 10w40 oil?

verslagen1 wrote on 08/12/10 at 11:22:07:

I see Suzuki has a cold weather oil,Lot of of snowmobiles use 0w-40w,Lot of ATV's plow snow here in the winter.

According to Wikipedia:

"Group I base stocks are composed of fractionally distilled petroleum which is further refined with solvent extraction processes to improve certain properties such as oxidation resistance and to remove wax.

"Group II base stocks are composed of fractionally distilled petroleum that has been hydrocracked to further refine and purify it.

"Group III base stocks have similar characteristics to Group II base stocks, except that Group III base stocks have higher viscosity indexes. Group III base stocks are produced by further hydrocracking of Group II base stocks, or of hydroisomerized slack wax, (a byproduct of the dewaxing process).

"Group IV base stock are polyalphaolefins (PAOs).

"Group V is a catch-all group for any base stock not described by Groups I to IV. Examples of group V base stocks include polyol esters, polyalkylene glycols (PAG oils), and perfluoropolyalkylethers (PFPAEs).

"Groups I and II are commonly referred to as mineral oils, group III is typically referred to as synthetic (except in Germany and Japan, where they must not be called synthetic) and group IV is a synthetic oil. Group V base oils are so diverse that there is no catch-all description."

Thus the Groups are a way of describing the base stocks of the oils, and there does not appear to be anything describing any Group as "the best." Seems to me that any oil from any Group which meets the requirements for the machine in which it is used is adequate, and any oil that is "better" is also "overkill." Naturally, the opinions of others may differ from mine.