whats the right oil?

[mikey c]

what oil do i need to use in CBR600 F1, four stroke, wet clutch, in the book it says 10w-40 but does this have to be special stuff, or will car engine oil do, and if car engine oil is put in, will it do any damage ?

mike

[craigT19]

Please do not use car oil, bike oil is specifically desighned to operate at the temperatures that a bike does, car oil will be too thick and i've been told will not protect your engine properly.

I can highly recommend castrol GPS most of the guys i know use it, and i don't know anybody who has had a problem yet. And it isn't that expensive.


regards
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Bikes owned :- 2001 nsr125, 1999 zx6r, 2006 yzf-r1, 2009 xmax 250, 2012 yzf-r1, 2015 MT-07
Current bike : - 2016 MT-10
BCF member pops. sadly missed 1945-2003

[dainesefreak]

Did you buy the bike from a dealer? If so and you intend on getting it serviced there it may well be worth while asking what oil they use and recommend. Then you can stick to using the same stuff as them.

[carvell]

Go to Halfords and pick up some bog standard 10w-40 4-stroke motorcycle oil - they always have loads, it's cheap and works fine!
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Yamaha TDM 850

[mikey c]

ok cheers, i did put car oil in but its only been started for a couple of minutes since then, so hopefully no damage! i didn't buy it from a dealer nor is it in a bike, its a project i've just aquired

where can i buy bike stuff then? where do you guys get it from? dealers, motor factors, halfrauds, specialist bike places? and where can i get a good oil filter from?

thanks for the help!

mike



edit: i take too long to post, i guess its a trip to halfords then!

[Hex]

Halfrauds will sell it, just get a semi-synthetic.

The car oil wont of damaged the engine, as in essance it will have the same basic properties, so don't worry about that since its only been ran a short amount.
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[carvell]

[Ste]

Best place to get your bike oil from is any good motorcyle shop . Or you can order from any online shop type place like www.demon-tweeks.com or any of the ones listed in the links section.

I would advice against using car oil, as cars do not have wet clutches, and so the aditives in the car oil damage the clutch plates. I put some in my ZX6R once just to top it up as it was low, and within about 10 minutes the clutch was worn out.

Expect to pay about £20-35 for four litres of oil, and about £8 for a decent K&N oil filter.

If it's been in the bike ten minutes, I wouldn't be suprised if it has already soaked into the clutch plates.

[Robby]

It all depends on the oil used and the vehice it was used in. I used car oil in my VX for the last 2000 miles and had no problems. This was bog standard 15W40 mineral oil, it worked fine.

Car oils don't attack clutches, they can over lubricated clutches and make them slip, but it won't matter if its mineral oil. A 10W40 mineral oil is a 10W40 mineral oil. It contains no additives, so is suitable for cars and bikes.

[monkeyman]

Noob question.

What do the numbers stand for?
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Im not the best, but im in the top one
RM 250, Husky TE610, K1 GSXR 750

[Kickstart]

Hi

I use car oil in the bikes most of the time. Not yet had a problem with the clutch. The original Bandit engine did over 30000 miles on car oil with no sign of clutch slip. A friend has an FZ750 with over 70000 on it which has happily run on semi synthetic car oil through most of its life. On the other hand, even if it did then changing the clutch plates on an FZ750 is a fairly fast job .

Bike engines will kill oil quicker, basically due to sharing the oil between the engine and the gearbox. The gearbox does a good job of chopping up the oil. A bike engine does not necessarily run any hotter than a car engine.

The numbers in the oil rating describe the viscosity. A 10W40 oil behaves as a 10 weight oil when cold and a 40 weight oil when hot (this does not mean that the oil gets thicker as it heats up, just that it does not thin out as quickly). The W stands for winter.

Mineral oils DO contain additives. Indeed they contain more viscosity enhancing additives than synthetic oils. As it is these additives that break down (so what was a 10W40 oil when new degrades to a 20W30) and synthetic oils rely on them less it is often said that you can stretch out oil change intervals for longer on synthetic oils.

It is probably best to avoid the highest spec car oils. The highest grades (eg, the bit that says SF, SG, SH, etc) are designed for modern catalysed cars. Some of the most efficient additives to protect engines also happen to damage catalytic converters when burnt (and some oil will always be burnt). Therefore the newest grades have a limit on how much of these additives they can use. Think that refers to SJ spec oil.

All the best

Keith
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[Mr C]

Also, conventional wisdon seems to be to avoid fully synthetic oils in newish big bikes as it stops the rings bedding in

not sure about that but "they" also say that it can affect clutch performance on more powerful models


I stick with Silkolene semi synth 10W40
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187.3bhp = 201mph

[andrew]

[Stew]

No, not exacly the same.
The car oils usually have additives such as friction inhibitors which some people say will have an effect on the bikes clutch performance (but then some people also say the same about fully synthetic bike oils too). Doubt it would have a massive effect though and as Keith says, many people use car oil with no problems. Personally I still use bike oil for the bike and car oil for the car.
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"Unlike public school you don't need to have your arse up and your head down to go a long way...."

[Ste]

Different car oils will have different additives. It was Texaco Havoline 10w40 which I used in the ZX6R and killed the clutch. Basically, I think it is just a case of finding out which is ok with wet clutches, and which isn't. Texaco Havoline isn't

[Mr C]

so for the sake of saving a tenner every six months why not just buy some decent bike oil
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187.3bhp = 201mph

[Kickstart]

Hi

I buy it in 20 litre drums. Semi synthetic costs around £45 like that. Buying bike oil would cost me probably £30 a 5 litre can, so around £120. Oil and filter change every 3 months or so on the commuter bike, plus all the other vehicles (oil shopping gets expensive when we tend to buy around 60 litres at a time), especially when the £75 difference in cost of buying that much oil is 10% of the value of the Divvy.

Yes the Bimota gets bike oil, but the mileage is also tiny. For the bikes doing a high mileage then I just use car oil, and not had a problem with it.

All the best

Keith
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[Ste]