synthetic oil vs oil

GeorgiePorgie

GeorgiePorgie

PR Founding Father
What are your thoughts on which is better for a race bike. I usually put regular in the gearbox and synthetic in the other if separated...

Most of the time I stay away from synthetic...but maybe this isn't the best practice...
 
You will be hard pressed to find a situation where synthetic is not superior to dino oil. Plenty of proof on the web about this. I havent run the dino oil in my bike for over 10 years now and I havent had any problems from it.
 
Synthetic all the way. I think... NOT 100% positive... but the only bad additive in some oils is called something like molybdenum.... I butchered that word. That additive makes your clutch slip. So find a synthetic without and run it. ALTHOUGH, if you've been running your bike for many hours with a regular style oil, you shouldn't switch to a synthetic. It'll blow it up. When you run an engine on conventional oil, all the parts wear into each other at a lower tolerance. Meaning that the fit up gets sloppy, to an extent. Sloppy is a bad way of putting it... but anyways... when you add a slippery synthetic oil to an engine that is already wore this way, the looser tolerances of the parts from running a conventional oil will make the engine rattle apart. Also, once you switch to a synthetic, you can't switch back. I can't remember off the top of my head why you shouldn't switch back, but I've always been told you can't.
 
Any supporting data on that ? I have never heard that before, I have switched to synthetic on a truck and car I have at well over 100k miles and never had a problem for years after ...... I have friends that regularly go back and fourth on their dirt bikes with no issues. I have read many articles in the past about synthetics before switching to them in my cars ( one of them made in excess of 500 RWHP) and never had an issue.
 
i always heard you can switch from regular to synthetic but not back to regular after you go synthetic.. ?? i dunno.
 
hershey said:
Any supporting data on that ? I have never heard that before, I have switched to synthetic on a truck and car I have at well over 100k miles and never had a problem for years after ...... I have friends that regularly go back and fourth on their dirt bikes with no issues. I have read many articles in the past about synthetics before switching to them in my cars ( one of them made in excess of 500 RWHP) and never had an issue.
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When I was in school to be a technician, it's what I was taught. So that's my supporting data. I've personally never had a failure that came as a direct result from switching oils. But at the same time I've always been careful what I run in my engines. I don't believe in switching to ''Y'' brand oil in a bike, car, truck whatever has had ''X'' brand run in it all it's life. And lastly what I said about an engine wearing more on a regular oil vs. a synthetic, that's just common sense. And there is tons of data on that, to boot.
 
nooo... i said "i always heard" and ended with "i dont know"... I wasn't very confident when I made that statement. I wouldn't have stood behind it!! Thats just what I have heard before. Never questioned it because I never ran into an issue of needing or wanting to switch to/from synthetic!
 
hershey said:
Sorry Cody but I am calling BS on your training !

Yahoo

And the final blow, scroll down and see the truth about switching !!!!!

Valvoline
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And the final blow... lol. So I guess im wrong, according to Valvoline. Like I said before, its what I've been told from many different people over the years. I've talked to a few auto techs about this a while back. Just one example though, I had a truck with nearly 140,000 miles on it, and everyone I asked said id be ill advised to switch the truck over to synthetics. I thought it was sound advise. I still think though that playing musical oils is a bad idea.

Thanks for the links.
 
HoyackRacing829 said:
rotella and forget it. enough said
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Rotella T in EVERYTHING for me now! Love that stuff.


And that myth about switching from synthetic and back is something my dad used to say as well... and could never come up with a reason for it. Never bought into it personally. There has been times when I would go to do an oil change on my bike and low and behold I wouldn't have any oil at the house except for synthetic. Would use that for a change here and there, never experience ill effects (ie: my motor "rattling" apart). Can't beleive a teacher told you that with a straight face ;)
 
Rotella in the Mack, Massey, and Red GMC. it would go in the dozer if I were responsible for the maintenance. However, I tried in the yz450 motor last year, and I didnt like it. When i changed it, it didnt look so hot. Had a weird smell too. Put GN4 back in it, and back to normal, oil seemed almost new when it came out.
 
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