Follower scar oil tests (2018)

AHA, the advantage of NOT having an oil pressure gauge or an oil temperature gauge is that there is no information being presented to have to worry about!

comnoz said:

In the past my best experiences have been with using Mobil 1 V-twin.

But I also think that an oil with lower friction and greater load carrying capacity would be a good move toward durability under extreme conditions.

One other thing I wanted to mention.
When I changed from the Mobil 1 to Royal Purple I noticed a drop in engine temperature at highway speed. I was never real sure what the reason was but know I think I know....

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Hi Jim,
Approx. how many degrees cooler was it?

Ed

APRRSV said:

Hi Jim,
Approx. how many degrees cooler was it?

Ed

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Well, I never logged it for exact results but the barrel temp gage that is on my bike was calibrated to read straight up at normal 80 mph cruise.
I noticed after the change that it was staying one mark lower most of the time. One mark would be around 10 to 15 degrees.

As I have been testing more oils, both in my film strength tester and in the spintron, one thing has become obvious.

Some oils contain friction modifiers making them no good for an application with a wet clutch. But, these oils can run in my tester and in the spintron with little or no cooling needed. They don't produce much heat.

Other oils, including all the motorcycle specific oils tested so far, do need cooling as the friction is much higher. Some more than others.

A few of them have been impossible to keep cool in my tester even though they handled very high follower pressure and temperature without breakdown.

These same oils caused the temperature of my spintron to rise quickly which required a serious blast of air cooling to keep the temperature safe. [and the spintron doesn't even have pistons or gasoline adding to the heat.]

I do not think these high friction oils are a good choice in a Norton and I will be noting the oils that produce a lot of heat and also noting the oils that are, in my opinion, good choices in a Norton. Jim

That is a proper good find Jim!

Is the location of your temp sensor the most important place to know the temperature? There is cylinder temp, head temp(s), exhaust gas temp, oil tank temp. Im not an expert, not doubting you just asking.

Onder said:

Is the location of your temp sensor the most important place to know the temperature? There is cylinder temp, head temp(s), exhaust gas temp, oil tank temp. Im not an expert, not doubting you just asking.

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I have several temp sensors on my bike. The one I normally monitor on my dash gage is the temp at the junction of the barrel and head, between the cylinders.
It will respond if something is out out of tune, but not as fast as an EGT gage would be.
The problem with egt monitors is they don't last very long.

I also have an oil temp sensor in the oil tank. By the time it indicated trouble the engine would be melted.

Jim, what temps do you usually see in your tank?

rvich said:

Jim, what temps do you usually see in your tank?

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Depends on the ambient temp. ~160 to 180 on a cool day. 220 on a hot day running 80+.

250+ after an hour stuck in stop and go traffic, about like my head temp.....not the Norton's head....

comnoz said:

I do not think these high friction oils are a good choice in a Norton and I will be noting the oils that produce a lot of heat and also noting the oils that are, in my opinion, good choices in a Norton. Jim

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Do the oil clearly state they have friction modifiers or do you interpret that by the ones that create excess heat? The nice thing about the Norton is the clutch doesn't use engine oil. Although some users do use it in the primary.

comnoz said:

In the past my best experiences have been with using Mobil 1 V-twin.

But I also think that an oil with lower friction and greater load carrying capacity would be a good move toward durability under extreme conditions.

One other thing I wanted to mention.
When I changed from the Mobil 1 to Royal Purple I noticed a drop in engine temperature at highway speed. I was never real sure what the reason was but know I think I know....

Click to expand...

So, if you could only buy two oils, M1 V-twin or RP XPR, you would run the M1?

gortnipper said:

So, if you could only buy two oils, M1 V-twin or RP XPR, you would run the M1?

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Out of those two I would use the Royal Purple. It creates less heat from friction and will carry a heavier load.

Of course I have tested another oil that tops them both. It will be up soon.

I have a 9200 watt emergency generator, 500cc air cooled OHV engine. Here in Florida a power outage can last as much as a week. After reading your oil testing results, it’s Royal Purple XPR 20W-50 for the gennie. Bit pricey, +$18 per quart at O’Reilly’s. Much cheaper than a replacement engine, though. My Cub Cadet mower is now luxuriating in Royal Purple, too.

This http://www.nortonclub.com/docs/OilTemp.pdf is an informative test, as well.
Jim, I’m rather surprised that you use Mobil 1 in your road cars. Some years ago I had a conversation with the owner of Web Cams. She despised Mobil 1.

swooshdave said:

Do the oil clearly state they have friction modifiers or do you interpret that by the ones that create excess heat? The nice thing about the Norton is the clutch doesn't use engine oil. Although some users do use it in the primary.

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Some state that they do. Motorcycle specific oils do not have very much if any.

It becomes evident immediately by watching the friction meter on my tester. Some will stay low until late in the test. Others will peg the friction meter with very little load.

JimC said:

This http://www.nortonclub.com/docs/OilTemp.pdf is an informative test, as well.
Jim, I’m rather surprised that you use Mobil 1 in your road cars. Some years ago I had a conversation with the owner of Web Cams. She despised Mobil 1.

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Mobil 1 car oil is not an oil I would use with non-roller followers in a pushrod motor. I would suspect that is where Laurie got her dislike.

But then I don't know of any emissions compliant car oils that would be ok with a pushrod motor without roller followers for very long.

comnoz said:

But then I don't know of any emissions compliant car oils that would be ok with a pushrod motor without roller followers for very long.

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I hope folk are paying attention to this thread, that’s a rather profound statement Jim, and all those who just buy whatever they can get easily from Walmart / Halfords / etc take note !

Although I have never used Mobil 1 in a motorcycle, we used Mobil 1 in all the performance V8 engines we built - most of them were flat tappet motors. We switched from dino oil to Mobil 1 when we discovered "free HP" due to the reduced friction of the synthetic oil. We also found less bearing wear at the same mileage/use than with standard oils. At that time, Mobil 1 was the first synthetic oil commonly available. Admittedly, this was many years ago, when flat tappet engines were the standard in US v-8s. I'm sure Mobil 1 of that era had more zinc/phosphorus than today's "normal" oils. I ran my own Mopar 340 motor (flat tappet) for 20 years on 30 wt Mobil 1!

I have used Mobil 1 0W40 for many years in a 1989 Ferrari 328. Of course, that is a DOHC motor. The valve train loads are not comparable to an OHV engine due to far less weight and correspondingly lighter springs.

FWIW, as I have mentioned before, I personally know (and so does Jim) a gentleman who finds all this oil stuff absurd and who puts more miles on bikes in a year than many bikers do in 10. He has raced at Daytona and has a LOT of experience on motorcycles. He buys oils from anywhere on the road and pays no attention to the brand, mixing them with no concern at all. None of his bikes, including his two Nortons have ever shown any issues with such "terrible" treatment. I personally do not agree with that level of oil "non-concern" but his experience makes it impossible to convince him that he should be buying $25/qt oil instead of $3/qt oil.

I remember having a conversation with a bloke in his 90s who’d smoked 20 a day since he was 14 and was convinced it proved that smoking didn’t damage health...

We’ll always get stories like your oil man Mike, and I’m not disputing his claim at all, but I’d suggest he is an ‘outlier’ and Jim’s onbjective evidence is more likely to be more helpful to others.

Well, as the old saying goes, "I feel strongly both ways!"

I absolutely do not believe that there is any functional benefit in spending 25 bucks/qt to put Ravenol in my Norton Commando; at the same time I do not buy $3/qt grocery store oil either!

Think of how boring this is all going to become when electric-powered vehicles become the norm and worrying about oil, cams, tappets, lifters, bearings, etc will go the way of worrying about where to dig the new privy in the back yard.