mboe794

The Amsoil 20w-50 is the only thing that gets put in mine.

98ILVTR

Royal Purple 10w-40, I will never use anything else ever again!

super duper hawk

Lubrication Engineers 15-W40 is the best and would not use anything else because it has proprietary additives nobody else has and is far superior to anything else on the market and guaranteed.

www.le-inc.com

RK1

I love hearing from VTR owning oil experts! This **** is hilarious! Some oils seem to result in smoother shifting on the VTR. In my opinion whether or not they are synthetic has nothing to do with it.

Synthetic oil retains its viscosity a bit longer than mineral oil. That means longer oil change intervals. If you've got a car or truck where the oil lubes the engine and nothing else, and you don't like changing or paying to have your oil changed, paying three or five times as much for "synthetic" might be the way to go.

Bikes like the VTR run the oil through the clutch and trans as well as the engine. That means the miles per oil change interval advantage of synthetic is very much reduced.

Transmissions beat the **** out of oil.

If you want to spend 5 to 10 times as much on oil to get a 50% increase in OCI, be my guest.

98ILVTR

I would rather put full synthetic in any of my vehicles, no matter what application. Call me un-educated, or whatever you wish; but its my opinion. I can say that I can feel a difference in how hot my bike runs, and how smooth the shifts are, compared to other oils, especially blends.

Now the title wasn't, "What oil to choose"; it was about Synthetic Oils.

RK1

1) Whatever oil you want to put in your vehicles is OK with me.

2) Redone's title and first post assumes that synthetic automatically produces better shifts than mineral based oil. I challenge that assumption.

I've used several different Mobil 1 and Rotella syn oils in my VTR and in my case at least the shifting quality was inferior to Castrol 4T or the 15w40 mineral "diesel" oils I've used.

The only real advantage I see to synthetic is that it holds its viscosity rating a bit longer, but an oil which costs 5 times as much to go 50% longer doesn't make sense to me.

You also pay a big fat ******* premium if its got a picture of a motorcycle on the bottle.

If your goal is to stretch out oil changes as far as possible and you don't care what it costs, MC synthetic makes sense.

If you're willing to change your oil every 2k miles and like to save money, MC specific synthetic is a waste of money. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Redone

Thanks for that info. I had heard synthetic was better for shifting, and it made sense, but your experience is interesting.

One last time. All I'm interested in is the effect on shifting. Thank you.

Circuit_Burner

It really matters when you get to look at the insides of engines torn down with the various lube regimens.
Even more when you actually take measurements of bores and bearing clearances.
Bell shaped cylinders and 30 thousandths of an inch of slop in the lower end bearings make you say hmmmmmm.
Plasti-guage must have been my deciding factor, LOL.

Redone

Based on this, and some other stuff, I thought the arguments for diesel oils seemed sound. Was going to get Rotella, but they had a special, 5 quarts of any Mobil 1 synthetic + a Mobil 1 filter for $30. So I got Mobil 1 diesel.

Shifts a whole lot better (1-2 was getting to be a grind instead of a clunk), but that could just be new clean oil replacing 3000 mile Mobil 1 car oil. We'll see.

Stevebis1

Synthetic Rotella and a Wally's fiter would have been less that $25

You are going to get better shifting EVERY time you change your oil. I won't join this disussion other than to say there is nothing better than the first 250 miles after any oil change.
Takes 10 minutes and $15 - $25 w/filter for dino or Syn Rotella. If you like the Mobil 1 fine - Just CHANGE IT! 1500m with dino, 2250m with syn. You will continuously have the best shifting bike

chickenstrip

I keep reading the title of this thread as 'synthetic shifters.' It's all downhill from here, folks.

j shizzy wizzy

What about adding a "shift kit" to improve performance?