Ironhead synthetic oil?

[Iron Joker]

Originally Posted by Daddio

I'll stick with dino, I change oil often enough that all I'll see from syn is a smaller bank account.

That's all you have to do, it's all basically the same. Where synth shines is in cold weather.

I run synth in my truck so I can change to oil less often. Mobil 1 with their filters were shown to be the best but that may have changed.

[brucstoudt]

if synthetic oil was so superior,there wouldn't be any damage to those camshaft's,regardless of start-up,or cornering,tendencies.

[mikethebike61]

Originally Posted by brucstoudt

if synthetic oil was so superior,there wouldn't be any damage to those camshaft's,regardless of start-up,or cornering,tendencies.

Really? Then why does BMW limit the rpm of their 'M' series engines until the oil is up to temp? Same with M-B, Ferrari and others. Do this...every morning for the new 30,000 or so miles, start your car and go against the rev limiter just as soon as the engine starts. Continue to do this in all gears and see how long your engine lasts. Those pictures don't prove WHAT caused the camshaft failures...only that they failed.

Are you old enough to have seen NEW 454 CID Corvettes back in the early 70's? One of my best friends was the top Corvette mechanic here in Greenville back then and due to owners not adhering to the proper break-in procedures every 454 Vette sold at that dealership had to have engines replaced under warranty due to rings not seating properly. Now, is THAT an oil failure, a ring failure, or is that abuse by the owner? Looking at the oil consumption and performance you might conclude an oil failure....until you question how the engine was treated. Same thing happened to a friend of mine years back with an FX. He couldn't stay off the throttle until the rings properly seated and after 3 top-ends the dealer told him the next one was on the owner.

And if Synthetic is NOT superior.....why are jet engines NOT using dino? I will be the first to say, and if you read my other posts an this subject you would know this, that in most cases ANY name brand oil that meets specs is good enough. But if you experience extreme heat/cold conditions the synthetic sill save your engine. It does not reduce friction, find leaks, prevent ring seating, or kill roller bearings. It does flow better when cold, withstand much higher temps, will go up to 15,000 miles between changes. The last time is based on all those extremely expensive European cars oil monitoring systems allowing for that many miles. Now, I know there are guys on this forum who are much more intelligent, more highly educated and have exceedingly more experience with high performance engines than do the engineers at Porsche, Ferrari, M-B, BMW, Audi, Maserati, Lamborghini, Bugatti, GM, Ford, Fiat and all those Japanese manufacturers, but I persist in believing that the latter just MIGHT have the advantage over us. If not, we should be the ones making all those big salaries and driving around those test track in all those high dollar cars on someone else dime.

As I said..you can do anything you want with your engine. Just don't expect for me to believe that Mobil-1 is not better than Quaker State.

[mikethebike61]

Originally Posted by Iron Joker

That's all you have to do, it's all basically the same. Where synth shines is in cold weather.

I run synth in my truck so I can change to oil less often. Mobil 1 with their filters were shown to be the best but that may have changed.

Remember the Mobil-1 commercial where they cooked the oil? The dino quit around 325 and the Mobil-1 was still OIL at 500+. How hot does your iron head get in traffic, in the summer, in.....say...Phoenix? I can tell you that SC at 60 mph and 90 degrees with the Lockhart cooler covered mine hit 280 and uncovered it dropped to around 240. How high do you think hit gets when in traffic? Plus, the evaporation rate is somewhat lower so you need to add less between changes. In my 2000 Honda Accord 4-cyl I will use 1 qt in 1500 miles with 10-30 GTX and 1 qt in 5000 with Mobil-1. I change it once a year (about 10k) and I use Purolator Pure-1 filters.

[iNSaNeSHaNe]

as I said before personally I use synthetics and attribute their use to the high mileage of my vehicles. I change the oil once a year in my cars change the filter twice. in my newer bikes I run synthetic but my iron head don't like it. I'm looking at trying AmsOils new strait 60 for air cooled engines if it stays quiet it will stay in it.

sorry again for going off on this subject it's just the break-in is most critical and the oil manufacturers don't tell the public everything. they started putting the break-in oils on the market primarily because the EPA is mandating removal of zinc and bromates from oils which are important to the annealing of the metal in break-in.
once again I use and love synthetics and soon I'll be stocking up on ZDDP to add to oil simply because the zinc is needed.

[wagoneer12]

I took the OP's question as being Ironhead Specific. It was posted in the Ironhead Section. I don't beleive he wanted to know if you were running synthetic in your Nightster.

Now, the question at hand. Synthetic vs. Dino in an Ironhead (not even brand specific, I believe this was the intent)

I am using straight 50W in Wisconsin in a recently rebuilt 1967 Ironhead Engine. If you experience warmer temps, maybe a 60W or even 70W way down south in summer would be appropriate, I don't know.

I can't see myself ever putting Synthetic in the Ironhead. Not gonna study it in depth and get into a huge debate about it. ha ha. Nothing against Synthetic, I do run it in my 2004.

There are a lot of people over on JockeyJournal running 20w50 in their Shovels. May be something to look into further.

No matter what, run good oil and change it often, and all should be fine.

[bobber58]

A TRUE synthetic (and I don't mean what you will find at Autozone) will reduce friction quite substantially. I have seen many chassis dyno runs on race cars, and actual timeslips, where nothing but changing to syn increased rear wheel power by reducing friction.

[davixlrtt]

Does it matter about guys like me with an XLCH and no oil filter, I heard something about different oils that hold metal particles in suspension and how they are designed to be used with a filter (maybe it`s the other way round) making it unsuitable for non filter engines, has any one got any views on this?.........Davi.

[wagoneer12]

Originally Posted by davixlrtt

Does it matter about guys like me with an XLCH and no oil filter, I heard something about different oils that hold metal particles in suspension and how they are designed to be used with a filter (maybe it`s the other way round) making it unsuitable for non filter engines, has any one got any views on this?.........Davi.

as much as these bikes leak...who needs a filter..lol. constantly replacing oil.

Seriously, though. You bring up a good question. IF running synthetic....which generally allows for longer and longer times between changes...maybe you wouldn't want to run the extended intervals and instead keep changing the oil at a more frequent pace ($$$)

[ezmerf]

In my FSM it's for 70 to 75 part# 99484-75 pg.3-2 under checking and changing oil it says Oil mileage normally varies from 250 to 500 miles per quart .