This is a simple, easy to understand question.


I suspect the answer might not be so easy, so I thought I would separate the question out cleanly and put it to you guys as a separate item.

Collective,.. Derr... ...

... but I suppose it depends on how you ride...
The more you whip it,.. the more need for protection...

Did that come out dirty?... ...

 
Fair question -- answer is kinda subjective (as is the need for the 1,000 ppm question at the head of the thread)


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Back in the days of old, when the Kings ruled the land ....

.... actually, back in 1980-90's oil was 10w40 and it was rated SF-SG-SH during the decades without a lot of change in the grade structure other than to add more detergency and more long life anti-wear chemistry.

Oil had 1,400 to 1,600 ppm of ZDDP commonly and flat tappets were the vast norm in engine/cam/tappet technology, not the rare exception as it is today.   There was no rule saying you HAD to put in that much, but if you didn't your oil wouldn't work so everybody did ....

Then came CAFE and catalytic converters and the API SJ standard.   ZDDP got a cap of "no more than 1,000 ppm of ZDDP" with the SJ standard.

SM dropped it to 800 ppm

SN dropped it to 600 ppm

..... and Savage engines started dying from the ticky knocky syndrome.   Faster and faster, more and more.


Meanwhile, back in the Kingdom, the heavy duty side of things was changing too.


The Heavy Duty Engine Oils started out at 1,600 ppm like the best general car oils had, then they dropped to 1,400 with CI and then dropped to the current CJ standard of 1,200 ppm of ZDDP.

Three months ago, I would have told you that 1,200 ppm was a good ZDDP amount as all HDEOs had at least that much and MOST of the expensive motorcycle oils had a lot more, but none of them had less than 1,200 ppm of ZDDP.   And it would have been true.

Right now, every new VOA I see on the new SF/SG/SJ motorcycle oils are coming in right around 1,000 ppm of ZDDP.   I do not know what rules drove this change, but EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE LOCALLY AVAILABLE JASO MOTORCYCLE OILS HAS REFORMULATED / REBOTTLED ITSELF IN THE LAST 2 MONTHS

....  I am still hoping to see higher numbers from somebody, but so far 1,100 is the highest seen.   Lucas is the lowest, at 800 ppm, and it claims to be JASO motorcycle oil too.

So, you now understand where the current 1,200 ppm ZDDP SuzukiSavage standard came from, and how the 1,000 ppm ZDDP that you can currently get out of a motorcycle oil shows up in the topic question up in the thread header  ....  

.....  and why we are having this discussion.    If we only need 1,000 then we are golden.   If we need more, we need to use HDEOs exclusively until we can find some bike oil that has what we need.  

Or else be like Boule and Dave, go get yourself a bottle of ZDDP booster and start using it.

And the bike oil people still aren't saying boo about what they just did. They used to be willing to tell you what was in their "new and improved" formulations mainly because it really was new and improved.

Now we are getting SF/SG/SJ obsolete API standards loophole-style run-arounds instead of facts.


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Have cat converters started showing up in bikes big time?   Will the same change that looks to kill off the carb equipped bikes in 2013 usher in a wave of catalytic converted equipped motorcycles ???

Catalytic converters have indeed made the big time in motorcycles. I believe you will find every recent fuel-injected motorcycle has a cat. Even Kawasaki's carbureted 250 Ninja, redesigned in 2008, has a cat. As I understand it, the European Union's emission standards for motorcycles is even stricter than ours, and cats are the only way to meet them. I was looking at a new Enfield Bullet, and the oxygen sensor is clearly visible in the exhaust pipe. I didn't read the literature to see if it has a cat, but I expect it does.

Serowbot wrote on 08/07/12 at 16:48:45:

I sure hope it wasn't too warm there at that time or had a fan blowing on the motor, because I would have told them to go and overheat and ruin their own d@mn motor!

Is 1,000 ppm of ZDDP enough for the Savage engine to do what? Go 80,000 miles in 1-mile trips, at 10,000 RPM? Probably not. Would the ZDDP requirement be different for synthetic vs. dino oil?  Probably.                                            

I am not even sure what a flat tappet looks like, I guess it is the end of the adjustment bolt where it taps on the valve stem?  Seems like if there was a problem with too high a pressure, those parts would eventually round off or dish out or whatever, creating more contact area and a lower pressure not so demanding of high ZDDP.  Sure there'd be loud ticking, but you should be able to take the slack out at the adjuster. I realize when the parts are no longer flat it is difficult to get a reading with a flat feeler guage. I had an old BMW that would not take a reading.. had to adjust the valves by wiggling, clicking and feel. But it worked.

Just thinking out loud.  I haven't seen pics of tappet/valve damage, though there are plenty of threads about savages that clatter for one reason or another. Is the 'flat tappet' disadvantage the only thing about the savage engine that would make it require a higher ZDDP level?

Boule’tard wrote on 08/07/12 at 20:41:59:


I think he's actually talking about the cam followers. Nowadays they put rollers on them. On the Savage it's just cam lobes grinding on the valve actuator arms producing friction.

Ah thanks guys, I got it.

So as those things wear into little arcs from the cam rubbing on them, is the flatness a diminishing problem?  Never as good as rollers of course, but it still seems to me that they'd eventually settle into a stable configuration, same as when I thought the problem was at the other end of the rocker arm