Engine Oils!

[Anthony]

I. Oil Additives

What STP oil treatment did you add..??? Is it the red bottle that has the gooey stuff that I used to identify as regular old STP...???

The reason I ask is that the last time I looked that stuff did not have any ZDP in it at all.... If you read the bottle it claims to "improve wear resistance" by "increasing the oil film thickness thus keeping the parts farther apart". That stuff is simply an oil thickener or "viscosity improver" and is the LAST thing that I would put in a bike engine, a system with a wet clutch....or ANYTHING for that matter. Unless there is an STP oil product that I don't know about I have never seen any of their stuff that had ZDP in it. ZDP is just too expensive for much, if any, of it to be in that stuff for what it costs.

If you want additional ZDP then use the GM EOS. Forget STP. I would put half a pint in the oil change and add the other half pint halfway thru the oil change interval to spike the ZDP... Personally, I don't think the Rotella needs more ZDP if you are sticking to recommended oil change intervals. Just my opinion. I don't add any EOS to the oil in my bike. I just mentioned the EOS in case someone does want to add extra ZDP for some reason. It is a far better source of ZDP than STP...LOL...I just don't think a healthy FJR engine needs that much ZDP if you are using a quality oil like Rotella or Delvac.

The EOS is helpful as an assembly lube and/or a breakin additive for a new engine assembly. It is also recommended any time a degraded lubrication situation occurs to help protect the engine from any additional wear and/or the wear or scuffing that has occurred from snowballing into a catostrophic failure. Most scuffs or scores due to degraded lubrication will "heal" as the wear spot burnishes from continual contact if the scuffing or scoring can be halted. ZDP does that. In the case of an engine that blows a head gasket or intake gasket and injests a lot of coolant into the crankcase the lubrication is degraded. When the repair is made there is a good chance the engine can be saved by putting fresh oil and a can of EOS into the crankcase to prevent further scuffing or scoring and hoping that any damage will burnish and recover with continued operation. I have seen this demonstrated many times so I know it works and works well. A healthy motorcycle engine really doesn't need this unless you wanted to do it for breakin or something.... New engines at the factory are assembled with a ZDP rich assembly lube on critical parts and surfaces so as to protect those areas at startup and then the assembly lube washes into the oil and spikes the oil with ZDP for additional protection during breakin. So...new factory engines (GM engines, anyway) have conventional oil in them as factory fill but the oil is spiked by the assembly lube. So..it is true that the factory fill oil is both "regular" oil and "special" breakin oil....LOL

Let me know if I am in error but I specifically looked at a can of STP after I saw your similar comments in another post and confirmed that they make no mention of any additional anti-wear protection other than the "thicker oil film" due to the added viscosity of the "Scientifically Treated Petroleum"....i.e...snakeoil.

“ Would it benefit me to add ZDP, to try to prolong oil life between changing, as I don’t care about possibly damaging the catalytic converter? “

You are correct in your assumptions regarding the ZDP...if you were to ad more ZDP and even if it did poison the cat to some extent it really wouldn't matter....but....there is just really no need for it. It would be a waste of time and money to add more ZDP or spike the oil with EOS to accomplish this. If you are really paranoid, use one of the heavy duty diesel oils such as the Delvac or Delo or Rotella. Those are not energy conserving oils with the friction modifiers so there is a slight penalty in fuel economy if you use them...but the engine really doesn't need them at all.

AutoRx....LOL LOL LOL More snake oil to spend your money on. If you had a 1962 chevy that you though was sludged up form never having an oil change you might make a case for AutoRx....maybe. In a recent model car run on current oil technology....???.....LOL LOL The best cleaner, if you want to clean the engine inside, is fresh GF4 oil....forget any thought of putting AutoRx in your Ecotec. Harmful "Carbon" and "varnish" just don't happen with modern oils. If you take a 150,000 mile engine that lived in Phoenix, Arizona all it's life apart there is going to be a golden "coating" or hue to all the internal parts due to the long term operating temperatures of that environment. Not that anything is overheating but it is hot all the time. That is normal, expected and is what I call "varnish" to some extent. It is NOT on any moving/mating surfaces nor will it cause any problems. It is not something to consider AutoRx or ANY solvent to remove.

J. Breaking In Engines

I have read some of the recommended break in procedures and such and tend to agree with the "hard and fast" approach as being OK....but.....there are some caveats as usual.

Current engine technology leaves precious little in the engine to "break in" per se. Finishes on materials and metalurgy have improved dramatically over the years as well as the precision and fit of components. All this leads up to little to no required "break in" per se.

I have also torn down a lot of car engines that were broken in in different fashions and , to be honest, there is little or no difference in them. The engines all live fine and look great whether they were run hard initially or run easy.

I think the thing that has changed mostly is that the engines will live thru a harsh, WOT break-in with no problem these days so the idea of having to "break them in" a certain way is pretty much moot. You are probably not gaining much with the harsher break-in and it isn't hurting anything either.

The reason I bring this up is to make sure everyone is aware of one specific issue during break-in. Most all engines will bypass the oil filter to some extent at high RPM when the oil pump is pumping the greatest amount. This depends on the engine and the situation but, it is almost impossible to make an oil filter large enough to flow enough oil to provide 100% filtration at max RPM and max oil flow. Take this fact with the fact that what debris is going to be generated by the engine internally is going to be generated during break-in....primarily material scraped off the cylinder walls by the rings. Cast iron bores, particularly, will leave lots of ferrous material in the oil from the cylinder walls for the first few minutes of operation to be filtered out by the filter. Point being, if you run the engine to redline during this period of time and cause the oil filter to bypass the ferrous material will be dumped into the bearings which is not a good thing.

So....the only reservation I have about flogging the motor hard during break-in is to make sure the oil is hot to minimize filter pressure drop and bypassing and to limit RPM to some extent to limit possible bypassing. If the motor gets some miles on it (even 10 or 20) at low RPM then most all of the material is filtered out by then so it is not a big deal. Just an awareness issue as most people think that the filter is a 100% filtration deal all the time...which it isn't. Many automotive engines will bypass 40 or 50 % of the oil at max RPM.... Since this is a rare event and not something that can be done for extended periods of time it is not a big deal, except if you press the situation by trying to run a heavy duty breakin schedule when totally green. Most cars have enough break-in just on the assembly line and on and off the haul-a-way trucks to get past this but a green bike engine out of the crate it traveled in might be different.