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Photo by Marc Gibaud,
Clouds on Tres Cerros and
Mount Fitzroy, Argentinian Patagonia



 
 
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Old 8 Jun 2009
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Join Date: May 2009
Location: Cornwall, England
Posts: 40
Quote:
Originally Posted by Caminando View Post
Thanks for posting all this very interesting info. I, for one, appreciate it.

My Honda asks for a minimum SG quality oil. I found a 10/40 supermarket semisynthetic motorcycle oil which is rated SJ - which is above this minimum. This oil costs 4 euros (£3-ish) a litre. But I don't know if it contains the ideal additives mentioned by the Silkolene man. He suggests a semisynth, but of quality. How do I know it's quality? It seems the answer is cost.

I'd better start hunting for another oil? Do we get value for money from the big names, or are they cashing in on a name?

Problems problems!!!!
Well, with oil you get what you pay for and it's what's not in the oil that matters as addative packs vary in quality too. Many oils are made to a budget because in many applications it does not matter, afterall "any oil is better than no oil".

The problems tend to start with wet clutches and many cheaper oils (mainly car ones as opposed to proper bike ones) do not contain the correct additive pack and may contain friction modifiers which may cause slippage in the wet clutch.

If your bike has a wet clutch go for a bike oil that carries the correct JASO spec as it's designed for Japanese Motorbikes.

Four-Stroke Motorcycle Engine Oils
Most Japanese as well as some European motorcycles make additional demands on engine oils. Many of these motorcycles have unit powerplants in which the same oil is used for the engine, gearbox and “wet” clutch. Engine oils specifically developed for cars can cause clutch slipping. Furthermore, as the shearing forces in gearboxes are considerably higher than in engines, these powerplants need highly shear-stable oils. The JASO T903 specification was introduced in 1999 which was based on API (SE, SF, SG, SH and SJ) or ACEA (A1, A2, A3) and laid-down additional characteristics for four-stroke motorcycle oils. Depending on the friction characteristics in clutches, the classifications are JASO MA or JASO MB
with JASO MA having the higher coefficient of friction than JASO MB.


These are Japanese and International stanadards for Japanese bikes, I would personally always use a proper bike oil, more stable and contains the correct ingredients.


A semi-synthetic for ordinary road use and a fully synthetic if modified, used hard or off the road.

Cheers
Simon


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Last edited by oilman; 11 Jun 2009 at 13:51.
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