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What Oil Should I Use?

3K views 43 replies 19 participants last post by  Mr. Fluffer 
#1 · (Edited)
what is the best oil for my gixxer? what oil do you guys use? is diesel oil ok? what is the big deal about sythetic? if you are reading this thread, you either got called stupid and got told to use the function, or you are not retarded and figured it out for yourself.

linky: (CLICK THE FUCKING LINK! I DON'T CARE IF YOU SWEAR BY ROTELLA, READ THE FUCKING LINK)(edit-disclaimer: read post #31 before or after reading the link, he is a chemical engineer)
http://motorcycleinfo.calsci.com/Oils1.html

how about understanding oil instead of taking advice from faceless assholes like me or ironhead?
 
#6 ·
i purposely put common search terms so that when people did a search, they would find the thread, and then perhaps click the link. if i simply posted the link, the same old shitty oil debate would still happen anyway, so i thought search terms would be more helpful. the problem is that there are some people out there who will simply see the search terms, and think this is a debate thread. there is no debate needed, the link is the purpose. if a chemical engineer wants to pop on here and discredit some things in the link, i sincerely hope that they do, but this is not a troll.
 
#9 ·
Just to muddy the waters a little I'm trying Royal Purple this time .:lol
 
#10 ·
First note:

Your piston rings do not do a perfect job of sealing. Some combustion by products will slip past the rings into the engine. This can be little particles of carbon. Remember, diamond is carbon that was combined under heat and pressure.
The stupid is showing already. It doesn't matter one bit what else may include a particular element. Salt is half (by atom, not weight) Chlorine, does that mean it's the same as WW1 Chlorine gas chemical weapons? Fuck no. And the heat and pressure comment makes it sound like he thinks the heat and pressure of an engine will turn soot into diamond. The temperature/pressure for diamond formation would melt every bit of the engine block, and the pressure would crush it flat. At least do a magnitude check, damn it!
 
#11 ·
First note:



The stupid is showing already. It doesn't matter one bit what else may include a particular element. Salt is half (by atom, not weight) Chlorine, does that mean it's the same as WW1 Chlorine gas chemical weapons? Fuck no. And the heat and pressure comment makes it sound like he thinks the heat and pressure of an engine will turn soot into diamond. The temperature/pressure for diamond formation would melt every bit of the engine block, and the pressure would crush it flat. At least do a magnitude check, damn it!
Damn and I thought I had a get rich quick scheme in my garage lol.


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#12 ·
Second:

Also, if your gasoline has sulphur in it (it does), this sulphur can react with water and oxygen to make sulphuric acid. This is some stuff that is seriously bad for your engine. Your oil has special ingredients in it called buffers to neutralize acids. Finally, your engine can get internal build ups of tars, waxes, and other gunk. Your oil has solvents to try to dissolve this stuff and get and keep your engine clean.
Very little sulfur really, regulated to tens of part per million levels, and most of it is burnt in combustion to sulfur oxides that will enter that atmosphere, combine with water, and become 'acid rain'. Little to none passes the piston already reacted with water to sulfuric acid. Most (or all) oils DO NOT have pH buffers, as a pH buffer relies upon an equilibrium between two ionic salts in aqueous solution.

Those tar/wax build ups are break down products from the oils.... Any solvent for these genuinely added would damage the lubrication and temperature/viscosity requirements. The 'solvents' spoken of often are the result of carbon chain breakdown in the engine to lower MW compounds. i.e. a C13 chain cracking to a C8 and a C5 chain. Similar to hydrocracking done to convert long chain heavy fractions to a more gasoline rich feed stream.

I've been through 3-4 refineries, for interviews, process review, plant tour or similar. (Shreveport is a bad neighborhood :eek) It's actually a pretty crude process, and not as sophisticated as the writer believes. There's not really 300 magic voodoo dusts added to motor oil, or any oil.
 
#13 ·
Oil is primarily algae and other micro organisms, but they don't have to accumulate in Mariana trench and get covered in a landslide for oil. Regular old sediment bedding on the continental shelf works fine. Similarly, plant matter is the the source of coal.

All crude oil is organic, not just the aromatic rings. Paraffinic and napthenics are organic too.

His refinery explanation is just wrong. The fractionating column for different splits is the same as 100 years ago. That just gets a cut of the crude, that may be used as is (asphalt bottoms) further refined (gasoline desulfurization units) or reprocessed to return to distillation (hydrocracking to make heavy lube oils cuts more like a high $$$ gas cut).
 
#14 ·
Flash point... no no no no no. Read an MSDS explanation, please. Not when it will burn, when the vapors can ignite in air. Pretty meaningless for oil, just a matter of when the solvents he thinks are added would boil off. Oil burning in an engine is from oil passing the rings to the chamber or similar, not from it flash combusting.

Viscosity part - lots of bad info. Damn.

One chemical better than a mix - absolutely false. A mix allows you to tweak low temp viscosity and high temp viscosity separately, not possible with a single component.
 
#16 ·
Wow. Just fucking wow. The more I read, the more that is a horrible link. Holy shit.

Engine oil is not made from mineral oil like you buy at Walgreen's. It's a refinery cut. They all have a degree of coloration, but they are clearer than crude, darker than gasoline. Synthetic oil is made artificially from refined petroleum by-products (funny, isn't it?). A large refinery doesn't use 20 million gallons of MEK a day for their production.
 
#19 ·
Okay, so your oil loses all the additives by 750 miles, and as such has to be replaced by 1000-1500 miles no matter what. Missing additives is all that's wrong, nothing else. But adding the same additives in a bottle bought from AMSoil or other oil company is snake oil and will do nothing good or helpful for your engine. Right.


Also claims that no 10W-30 oil can meet JASO-MA or be wet clutch safe. AMSoil sells one. I only picked AMSoil to check because they have a more informative website, I'm sure just about everyone makes a 10W-30 JASO MA.
 
#21 · (Edited)
david, could you perhaps make some bullet points suitable for laymen to read, so i can edit the first post as a disclaimer, so people will read the article with those points in mind? remember... LAYMEN. :giggity
 
#31 ·
Bear in mind the Author is an electrical engineer/circuit board guy that basically had one work week of research total before writing any of this.
- He has limited understanding of chemistry, separation process technology, thermodynamics.
- No understanding of actual refinery processes. Little has actually changed, just new processes added to meet efficiency, regulatory, or other requirements.
- Sulfur in fuel does not dump sulfuric acid in the oil.
- Oil does not burn from engine temp - motor oil flash point is 450-490F. If the motor oil is that hot, you probably have other worries.
- Oil does not have additives for it's ability to neutralize acid - that is a function of the mixture chemistry, and especially of double bonds in napthenic chains.
- Tar and wax build ups come from the oil in break down and conglomeration, not from the engine block metal. Solvent added to dissolve waxes would boil off the first engine cycle.
- The paleologic origins of oil are inaccurate, but it is indeed from aquatic microorganism accumulations.
- Engine oil is not made from Walgreen's mineral oil, it's a fractionating column cut from crude oil.
- One chemical better than a mix - absolutely false. A mix allows you to tweak low temp viscosity and high temp viscosity separately, not possible with a single component.


LAYMEN PORTION
- Additives are not the end all be all of motor oil. If they were, oil additive bottles would let you never change you oil again.
- JASO-MA is needed for safe use on wet clutches. This is the opposite of "energy conserving" oil.
- Oil collects fine particulates from the engine as things wear, including the dust from the clutch plates. Not all of this will be collected in the filter, so regular changes are needed.
- As the oil is crushed in tiny clearances, heat cycled, pumped, and sheared, the viscosity drops as the carbon chains are broken down. As such, it needs replaced from time to time.
- When to replace oil? Check your maintenance schedule. The article writers every 1000 miles seems more frequent than needed.
- What weight? Manual specs, a notch lower if you're Canadian and like to ride cold.
- If there is some water in the oil a good heat cycle will boil it and any other light weight solvents off. Water touching oil doesn't mean it's trash.



PERSONAL NOTES FROM REFINERY VISITS
- There is enough fume in the air at a sour crude refinery to leave a light coating on your clothes. When you walk into an airport later, like Shreveport Regional, their bomb sniffer will go off. You will be escorted behind a blast proof shield for a pat down, no strip search. They will search any luggage you have, everything from your pockets, etc; all of it will be swabbed and bomb tested. They will swab your clothes, pockets, and skin for trace explosives. You will spend a good 4 hours to get through security. Expect considerable questioning.
- If they make a batch of gasoline or diesel with sulfur content below the regulatory limit, they will blend it with sour (high sulfur) fuel to just barely pass. Removing sulfur is expensive, so they work hard to just barely pass government inspection.
- Old motor oil and other oil waste is filtered for coarse junk/sand/etc, and dumped right back in with the crude at the start of the fractionating column.
 
#36 ·
because if it's on the Internet, it must be true....

"Bonjour!"
 
#41 ·
Great link, got a couple paragraphs into it but don't have the time to finish it now. Thanks for sharing :thumbup
 
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