Hmm, more additives.
dump it all in and let us know.

 

I am not a big believer in additives. Kawasaki gives specs for oil, gas and coolant and that is what I follow. I run full synthetic oil (my preference), 94 octane gas (to avoid ethanol) and ethyl glycol coolant. There is many differing opinions on this topic but I am just putting in my 2 cents.

 

that's why i asked, i've never delved deep into bike maintenance before so its all new to me. But hey 185, wants to flame every post i make without offering any sort of coherent reply..whatever.

I've been working on cars and trucks since i could hold a wrench, bikes i assume are somewhat the same but i would imagine have different requirements due to the higher rpm ranges. I'm trying to educate myself.

 

you come in here brand new and all you talk about is lucas oil, red line, and seafoam.:rolleyes

Wouldn't it be better to ask about regular maintenance than just throwing every additive on the shelf into your bike?

 

regular maintenance is farily simple. The learning process is me removing parts and exploring with a manual in hand. I've had a wrench in my hand since i could lift one. Im not an ase certified tech or anything just learned as i go when something needed fixed. I cant imagine a bike is any different than any other motor, except smaller. Replacing a spark plug is the same on any engine. The difference being the type and gap for each application.

would me replacing the oil, radiator fluid and other fluids not be considered general maintenance? I'm just wondering what peoples opinions of those fluids are in a bike, considering i have not owned a bike in almost 10 years, i am certain things are different. Considering the High performance and high rpm nature of a bike why not use the best products i know of? I certainly do not use royal purple in my pickup, but it gets good stuff and regular maintenance.

I've read the owners manual pdf for the bike i bought and when i can get a hold of a chiltons/ haynes type manual i will add that to my bookshelf.

Why bother to ask how to change my oil when i know i can do it? why not ask instead wht kind of oil you recommend? perhaps what you think of the oil i already bought or will buy? It seems a waste of time to ask questions i already know the answers to.

@185ez I'm sure your a cool guy, and if you ever happen by my neck of the woods i'd love to ride with ya. Do not think of me as the average squid that just bought his first set of store brand wrenches at pep boys. If you think of me that way, so so be it. but there's no need to flame my posts when you don't know me. I'm not a pro with a bike and the inner workings like you may be, but once i have the fairings off and the gas tank out of my way i'm rather sure the parts behind those things are going to be the same as i have handled in the past years of my life under the shade tree with the hood up. Half the fun of owning a car, bike, boat etc is learning to work on it. Bikes are new again after 10 years of not riding, but a piston is still a piston and a spark plug is still a spark plug...and chrome muffler bearings still are things of myth and legend.

 

@185ez I'm sure your a cool guy, .

:afro
OK, fine. you win.
Royal purple is crap.
At least that's what the Amsoil guy says.
I use Mobil 1 r4t. get it anywhere off the shelf for less than $10 a quart.
Mobil has the synthetic media in their filters for synthetic oil. M1-108 is the small and if you have room, use the longer version M1-110.
or KN-303 is good.
Other than that, I don't use additives, period.
Can you tell?:rolleyes

 

I love this shit.

 

Motor oil and fuel are loaded to the teeth with additives as it is.
Dumping in more off-the-shelf magic potion really doesn't do any good. Especially if your bike is practically new.
Use the recommended oil for your bike, follow the recommended change intervals and if at all possible, try to find non-ethanol fuel. Naturally, run the minimum recommended octane, which is probably 91 for your bike. Doesn't matter if it's 91, 92, 93, 94, it won't change anything but the price. But some higher octane fuels are non-ethanol.
99.9% of the additives on the shelves are snake oil. Many folks know this. Many folks don't know any different and just use the stuff because they think it might do something and it makes them feel better. Some folks claim real results and swear by the stuff (I've never personally seen any real benefit to any of these products). Also, it's been talked about ad nauseum on this and every other gearhead forum you can find. So, expect a little razzin'.
Welcome to the forums, happy ridin'.

 

I use lead substitute in the tank of my '66 Galaxie convertible because the valves and seats are softer than more modern parts which are designed to work with unleaded fuel. I bought one bottle seven or eight years ago and it's still in the trunk of the car, half-full. I guess it works because the engine still runs fine despite having ingested many gallons of the swill that passes for modern fuel.

 

i use lucas stuff in my truck. I know with the fuel treatment it would be less than 1oz per tank, but can i use lucas fuel treatment in my bike?
any thoughts on the lucas oil additive in the oil?
also i am considering royal purple for all other fluids, wanted opinions on what you all think. Perhaps red line water wetter in the radiator.

If you've been using it, you just wasted a bunch of money. You didn't even read the directions. Unless you have less than a 5 gallon tank in your truck.
Recommended dosage is 2-3 ounces of Fuel Treatment per 10 gallons of fuel

Why would anyone add anything to oil? is there a problem? Fix it.
Do you know that an additive fixes or controls something beyond the oil that's in the bike? no
Quit reading the labels.

Water wetter? is your bike overheating? you just bought it. You don't even know yet what the water temp is. Why does everyone want to try and cool things down before they even know what's going on? And every motor today is designed to run hotter for more power and fuel efficiency. So why phuk up what the engineers designed what the motor was made to do.

 

as to the fuel treatment i guess i misspoke. I was referring to the amount i would be putting in a bike. In a car or truck tank you almost always use the entire bottle. My bad for not explaining it accurately. But the concern here is many of the ingredients are similar to diesel
The lucas oil treatment make the oil more "Sticky" essentialy what it does is allow the oil to stick to the upper parts better so you end up with less "dry starts." Which in any vehicle would be beneficial.

water wetter is designed to be a way to improve heat transfer and reduce cylinder head temps. Less heat can lead to less wear and more performance. Same idea as why many drag race cars used to use "cool cans" to chill the gasoline before it entered the cylinder head. Colder temps make for bigger explosions. But more than anything i have always used it for the corrosion protection it offers and not preventing any risk of overheating.

as for royal purple oil, i've used it and it's heat co efficents are fairly attractive. I.e. it does not break down like other synthetics. Idk if it is accurate or not, but on their website they have a video showing a dyno test where all they did was change from one oil to the royal purple and they dyno shows an 8hp gain. But i have seen royal purple used in my vehicles go almost 8k miles before it started to get nasty and be needing changed. I know full synthetic can go 5k miles easily in my pickup. But i use the valvoline next gen in my pickup.
http://royalpurpleconsumer.com/product-categories/motorcycle/#!max-cycle-motorcycle-engine-oil


watch the video, which is likely a sales pitch as much as informational, still good info.

royal purple also makes one hell of a chain lube.

 

I currently have 28,000 miles on my 07 zx6r that I bought new. For the exception of the break in period, I change oil every 5,000 miles with silkolene pro4t and use a KN oil filter (the 17mm nut at the end really helps with install). I am doing a valve adjustment at the moment. 7 valves were still in spec. and 9 were just barely out of spec. After all the use my bike has been through, I expected worse. The first 15,000 mile valve clearance check all valves were in spec. I believe a good oil is essential! I never popped any additives in my fuel or engine except a stabilizer for storage. Hell, I'm still using the factory battery yet. When I pulled the valve cover off for the valve adjustment, the head looked like it had been run through a parts washer! Ultra clean. That lucas additive is bogus. I will post pictures of how clean my cyl head is from 28,000 miles of full syn. silkoloene oil. My bike runs like the day I bought it. If you read about synthetic oil, it says its designed to penetrate the metal in your engine deeper. This is why my motor is so damn clean with 28,000 on her. Some people experience leaks after going to full syn. because it cleans out the engine. Sort of the way you described sea foam does.

 

BTW, if you research oil. Royal purple has terrible ratings. I believe the fact that when you pour it and it comes out purple.... People just get excited about it. Silkolene comes out red........... LOL

 

So you´re willing a quieter engine using that 5w30 synthetic ...
I´ve tried a lot of additives. Had no problem with any. Liked ZZDP. Today, I´m only putting something inert in the pan to not upset the equilibrium of the fine additives package in a synthetic (PAO only I´m not using pure esters anymore, because they´re a great base oil but very critic and don´t like anything added) or mineral. I´ve using solid lube sub-micron particles, not PTFE (that´s for frying pans, imo), but pure graphite. I miss ARCO! And those buckyballs nanodiamons are too expensive and inviable to throw in recycle bins.
Limit graphit up until 4% in volume or the clutch could slip at really hard drag racing.

 

lucas makes an additive for motorcycle/atv oil i wont use it amsoil is plenty for me

 

They don't sell here. Send me a case and I'll review it fo ya.

 

The viscosity of lucas really turns me off to it. It reminds me of honey so most of the motorheads I know who bave tried it call it motor honey. The only people I know who had a use for lucas poured it in engines with the rods pecking in them to quiet them up so they could sell them . It just seems like a shady product with a shady use to me. I will stick with normal oil changes and if I have a problem I will just use a different type of oil . Motorcycle oil changes already cost a lot if you buy the good stuff so why add more cost ?

 

I think there actually was a product called "Motor Honey" out there at one time. Same type of thing-gooey crap used to quiet rattly old motors.

 

This thread is a win

 

I use Startron in my bikes, only because I don't ride them often. Although, even though I started using it as a fuel stabilizer, I have noticed all three of our bikes run better with an ounce in every tank than they did without. Smoother, peppyer, and marginally better mileage. Not enough of any of those to make me pay for it if I rode more often though. If I ever go back to commuting on the bike, I'll drop that bottle like a bad habit.

 

Living in a place that minimum temperature is about rare 60 F and medium is a bout 75-86, but summer at noon gets around 100F, I don't bother to use thick oil. A 15W40 is good for startup here, even at winter mornings (at 65F). I use 5w40 but I don't need a 5w ... a 15w is enough, no harm, from low oil flow.

No fuel additives for me. It gets already a clean burn here, with lots of ethanol.

You know that a full (100%) ethanol engine vehicle don't produce soot/varnish/sludge accumulation at pan, not even at 200k miles... Just gasoline engines produce soot/varnish/sludge and other black crap. Those crap ruins engines.