Synthetic oil in the bottom end?

[soldsoul4foos]

Ok,

Was wondering what kind of oil people are running in the low end. Standard 10w-40? Synthetic? etc. A friend of mine had mentioned in his street bike that he switched to synthetic oil (4 stroke but it lubes the clutch and I assume the clutch in the kdx220 '03 is also lubed as well) instead of standard 10w-40 and his shifting got much smoother. Sorry if this is a repost, I did a search but only came up with mixing threads. Thanks.

 

[KDX CRAZY]

I use Belray Gear Saver , there is a lot of different oils that are good , check with a bike shop .

 

[kdennan]

I run Golden Spectro 4, 10w-40 Seems good. I do miss shift from time to time from 1st to 2nd. I think it is more me, but if anyone suggests any better oil than I'm all ears. I run Bel-Ray gear saver 75w in my 90' KTM 300 and Honda Gn4 10w-40 in my XR. Both work good.

 

[craig_enid]

50/50 silkolene and ATF.

 

[prk03]

I use 10w40 Castrol. Change it after every enduro or 50 to 75 miles. Never a problem. Cheap at 1.75 per qt. I just changed my clutch but not because it was slipping just wanted to. 01 200kdx. Also run 3/4 qt because a full qt just doesn't feel right while shifting.

 

[COMBEN]

For what it's worth here are thoughts.
At the moment I'm using Silkone synthetic 10/40 gear oil and honestly there is no difference I can feel whatsoever in the gear change or clutch feel quality..I'm only using the Silkolene as I have a bottle that has been sitting on my shelf unused for a while :) ! Once this is used up I will go back to using normal 10w40 but something with a API SH or above rating, 'above' meaning a later letter. This SAE rating will be on the bottle. The manual says SE or above but I think you would hard pushed to find a SE rated oil for sale nowadays as this was more a 80's spec' motor oil. If you really want to use Synthetic (sounds very sexy!) it sure won't hurt anything more than your wallet :nod:

.....I personally feel (and the manual agrees) that it's fine to use a 'name brand' mineral motor oil.... I know that oil all comes out of a hole in the ground but you do get what you pay for, the msot importnt thing is to just change it very often...the manual says every 600 miles but I prefer to change it far more often, say every 2 hours.
When you drop the old oil you can see normally see a shiny silvery slick floating on and in the used oil, this is generally from the aluminum clutch components as they wear contaminating the oil - especially if you like a lot of 'clutch lever fanning' - and you don't want that nastyness floating around the gearbox too long it can't be too good for your internals!

hope this helps

Richard

 

[kdennan]

I agree with COMBEN. Run what the manufacturer recommends in the way of viscosity. Use a moto-specific, high quality brand name and change every other ride. I too run close to a full quart to diminish any sounds that may make you nervy.

 

[gurt]

I run mobile 1 synthetic and that works well for me.

 

[80elkster]

I change mine every third ride (~60-70 miles) and use a full quart of Mobil 1, 20-50 (93 KDX200).
My son uses Castrol Syntec 10-40 and is happy with that (05 KDX200).

 

[Yamadad]

I've used Delovac synthetic diesel oil. Cheap, easy to find and chemically (supposedly) the same as the motorcycle specific oils.

 

[80elkster]

I've also used Delovac 15-40 in my Honda Quads with great success. I've tried it in my KDX but the shifting became notchy. I've also tried straight ATF and various mixtures with petroleum oils. The clutch action was great with the ATF but the shifting was terrible, I hit neutral nearly every time I went from first to second and dumped the bike a couple of times because of it. I searched this site and found some folks were having great success with the Mobil 1 20-50w synthetic so I tried it and am having great success also. Other folks have 2 identical KDXs of the same year model and ended up using different oils in them to get the best clutch and shift action. There is one thing common to all comments and threads and that is to change the oil every two or three rides. I would try using 10-40w name brand petroleum oils first then step up to the synthetics if the others don't smooth out both the clutch action and the shifting. Good luck!!!
Oh yeah P.S. DO NOT USE 5-30w or 10-30w because they have friction modifiers that are not compatable with your clutch. Look on the back of the bottle and if you see "Energy Saving" or something like that Don't use it!! :cool:

 

[Jaybird]

Oh yeah P.S. DO NOT USE 5-30w or 10-30w because they have friction modifiers that are not compatable with your clutch. Look on the back of the bottle and if you see "Energy Saving" or something like that Don't use it!!

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've read this warning.:(

For the "feel good" factor you can steer away from the EC (energy conserving) rated oils.
BUT...you could use just about any EC rated oil and have no problems whatsoever.
EC oil only means that it has a lower level of phosphorus because it can possibly clog up a car's catylitic converter with the higher levels of the older oils.
When the oil mfg reduced the phosphorus to meet the specification, he needed something to take up the slack. There are many types...repeat many types of addtitives that can do this. And the oil mfgs use a vast array of them.

The EC scare was started because many oil mfgs will use molebdenum (moly) as a replacement for the reduced phos.
And yes, a certain form of moly can cause problems with wet-clutch applications, but the type of moly that can be a problem isn't even what is being used by the oil mfgs to begin with.

Basically this whole myth was started by folks who really didn't know what they were talking about...and it has spread like wildfire throughout the motorsport world...including manuals.
But, it is for the most part completely unfounded, and a track myth. A myth that gets repeated countless times....

And it is also false that you get what you pay for, in the world of motor oils.
There are plenty of good oils available that will work just fine, and protect your parts just as well, if not better, than the high dollar moto specific oils.

I use typeF atf in all two stroke trannys. It is made for just such an application. I imagine craig_enid sees a smoother shift in his bike by adding the motor oil. ATF is in fact oil, and mixing the two is fine.

As far as synthetic is concerned, there are definate advantages that synthetic oils have over dino oils, but with the frequency of change that we need, the benefits of synthetic just may not be of any advantage in the two-stroke bike unless you are very hard on the clutch, then syntehtic is a good idea.
You probably won't notice any difference shifting and clutch wise between using synthetic or dino.

Just be sure you pick a fluid that isn't so expensive that it keeps you from changing as often as you should.

Exxon/Mobil Superflow 20w50 or 10w40 are probably as good as any, and would be great choices for the KDX tranny. Plenty cheap pricewise too.

 

[COMBEN]

excellent post :worship:

Richard