If you'd like to help us find the REAL best oil for use in a ZX-14, send a sample of your favorite oil to Blackstone Labs and post your results here.

Blackstone will send you a free oil collecting kit if you request one. You can put your oil sample in that and send it back with $22.50 for the regular oil analysis.

When you get the results back, you can post a message in this thread. Please specify name and weight of oil used, mileage on the oil when you pulled the sample, and then upload an image of the Blackstone report.

I'll start with a Rotella sample in a week or 2.

This should be interesting as we start getting several reports in... -bg

Thanks for the sticky BG, I think this is a first on any of the forums and will be hugely informative. I will post up both of Phil H's reports using the Rotella 5W40 synthetic. I'm as interested as everyone else in getting to the truth and $22.50 is a small price to pay. I'll be sending in at my next change.

Kruz

BG, if you would like I could post a tutorial on how to read these UOAs. To most, they're just a lot of numbers until you learn what each means. Some, like wear metals aluminum, iron and copper and silicon contaminants you want to read zero or as close to zero as posible and others, like your zinc anti-wear additives, you want to read very high, in the thousands. Anyway, if you'd like I could throw something together and post it here.

Kruz

if you would like I could post a tutorial on how to read these UOAs.

That's a FANTASTIC idea! Just what we need. Go ahead and start a new thread with something like "How to Interpret a Blackstone Labs UOA" as a title, and we'll make it a sticky thread.

Thanks, Kruz! -bg

No Problem BG, I'll try to keep it simple.

Kruz

I'll try to keep it simple.

Greatly appreciated. Many of us have simple minds. I know I do... -bg

OK here is oil analysis interpretation for dummies. First is limitations. One sample by itself is not particulary useful.

It is much better to sample at regular intervals to establish a baseline for your engine. Each engine type will be different and will establish it's own wear patterns in service.

Engines of the same type will show different wear rates depending upon useage, oil type, drain intervals, type of oil and air filter etc. It is best to establish a wear pattern for your engine over time. Wear rates will typically increase during break in, level off for an extended period and then increase again at the end of the engine life so comparisons between an engine with say 2000 miles and 40,000 miles will not be very useful.

Excessive fuel dilution or ingress of silicon (dirt) can rapidly accelerate wear rates.

I will include Phil H's initial lab report here as part of the discussion as it shows a good wearing engine.

The first six metals are the important wear metals and show how your engine is holding up. Aluminum, Iron, Chromium, Copper, Lead and Tin are the big ones you'll want to pay attention to as they make up the bulk of your engines construction i.e. pistons, rings, cylinder walls, bushings, bearings, shafts, pins, valves, gears,clutch plates etc.

Basically, you want these six wear metals to always read zero or near zero. In the real world you will almost always have some wear so don't get excited if you see some numbers that are above zero here. Comapare to the Universal Averages column that is compiled for your engine. In this sample the wear metals are roughly 25 to 30% of the Universal Averages so that is really good especially since the drain interval is longer than average. If you see a number that is larger than Universal, don't panic. If the engine is in break in mode those numbers will normally come down as you accumulate some miles. Also one example can be skewed for various reasons so it's best to resample at the next oil change interval. The numbers may look good now, if they're still high you may have an issue.

The next metal is Molybdenum. Molybdenum is an oil additive used to combat friction. A little is good but too much can cause clutch slippage in an engine with common gearbox and oil bathed clutch. The basic rule here is anything below 200 ppm and you're good.If the oil has the energy conserving seal on the can, avoid it like the plague as it will undoubtedly contain large amounts of molybdenum and can cause clutch slippage. The energy conserving oils are below SAE 40 i.e. 0W30, 5W30, 0W20, 10W30 etc.

The next four metals, Nickel, Manganese, Silver and Titanium typically have limited use in our ZX-14 engines and should be zero or near zero. Some types of engines do contain these metals especially titanium valves on some of the higher revving liter and 600 size sport bikes.

Next is Potassium, large amounts indicate a possible coolant leak i.e. head gasket leak as it is a common additive in antifreeze.

Boron is a common oil additive, don't worry about it.

Silicon is a contaminant and can come for either dirt penetration of the airfilter or from silicon based sealant.Ideally this one should read zero though it rarely does. If it reads consistently high, throw away that K&N racing filter and go back to a stock one. Also for you '06/'07 owners, check your plastic air filter cover for warpage.

Sodium is a contaminant from high pressure spray washers or salt water ingress. Usually not an issue.

Calcium and Magnesium are detergent oil additives or dispersants. They are used to buffer nitric and sulfuric acid and prevent internal engine corrosion. High calcium means you have plenty of acid fighting capability left, if the levels are low then your additive package is depleted and you could get internal corrosion. The old Rotella formulation had low magnesium while the newer has much more. This is normal and one of the big changes made to that oil.

Phosphorous and Zinc are extreme pressure lubricant additives designed to prevent metal to metal contact under high engine loads in the form of ZDDP. These numbers should be relatively large, again compare to the Universal Averages.

Last of the metals is Barium. This is an oil additive used as a demulsifyng agent. Again, no worries.

Viscosity will be meausured in Saybolt Universal Seconds or cSt centiStokes at 210 degrees F. This is the oils resistance to flow through a calibrated orifice and is related to oil film strength. Compare the Tested Value to Value Should Be column to see how well the oil is staying in grade. In this sample, the measured viscosity is just slightly below the cutoff for an SAE 40 oil, more like an SAE 38. Don't get excited by this number unless it is very low as all oils experience shear down and loss of viscosity in use. Shared transmission/clutch applications are typically very hard on oils and another reason not to get carried away with extreme drain intervals on our engines.

Fuel, antifreeze and water dilution should be ideally zero. In reaality, all motorcycle engines have some fuel dilution. You can minimize this effect by a thorough engine warm up before sampling your oil. as long as it is below the Value Should Be limit you have no worries.

Solubles is the amount of crispy critters, carbon in your oil and is a measure of how well your oil filter is performing its job and also the amount of ring blowby. Excessive combustion gas blow by past the piston rings will burn the oil on the cylinder wall forming carbides and carboids, little hard chunks of carbon. You want this number to be as low as possible.

OK now, for your homework, go back and look at the first and second report and see if you can spot any differences. The first sample was the old Rotella 5W40 formulation and the second is the new version. The additive package changed fairly dramatically. Notice how Shell increased the additives Magnesium, Boron and Molybdenum and decreased Calcium. The switch from Calcium detergent to Magnesium was to reduce the amount of sulfated ash. This helped Shell pass the JASO-MA rating for the new Rotella. The amount of Molybdenum added is still very small and will have no effect on our wet clutch. Zinc and Phosphorous are about the same which is a very good thing as those are your extreme pressure EP anti-wear additives.
The second report shows slightly higher rates of wear metals but still very good overall. The first sample is about as perfect as it gets.

Kruz

* Last updated by: Kruz on 8/14/2009 @ 2:18 PM *

nice one man, this is gonna come in really handy after i send in a sample of mine, thnx

One sample by itself is not particulary useful.

If we are going to approach this like a test group, someone should set down the parameters for submittals so as to maintain consistency and avoid wild cards. There may even need to be categories of bike like drag bike or street and backroad. And the change interval would have to be tight unless we used some sort of correction factor, so there is comparisons of apples to apples. I could elaborate on this if anyone is interested.

If the oil has the energy conserving seal on the can, avoid it like the plague as it will undoubtedly contain large amounts of molybdenum and can cause clutch slippage. The energy conserving oils are below SAE 40 i.e. 0W30, 5W30, 0W20, 10W30 etc.

* Last updated by: Sharkey on 8/17/2009 @ 7:42 PM *

Sharkey, if it has this seal on the can, don't use it in a wet clutch motorcycle. It will contain large amounts of Molybdenum, sure death for an oil bathed clutch.

This seal will not appear on the cans of motorcycle specific oils meeting JASO-MA and that includes heavy duty turbodiesel oils like Shell Rotella. To pass JASO-MA you must pass the wet clutch test and the energy conserving oils will not do this. As a general rule, the energy conserving seal is only on the newer, low viscosity automotive oils 30 weight or lower. No 10W40 or 5W40 automotive oils that I am aware of are energy conserving.

You have brought up one of the difficulties of testing oils and that is the incredible number of variables involved. I think for the sake of simplicity, when a submitter posts his sample he can make a brief statement as to what type of riding he does i.e. primarily drag racing, club riding, track days or a mix. Well use the KISS principle here: Keep It Simple Stupid!

Kruz

* Last updated by: Kruz on 8/18/2009 @ 8:06 AM *

Yea thanks Kruz, I figured it was something like that.
I do tend to get very analytical on things. Engineers can get caught up in the detyails.
I was thinking, to start with, two basic categories. Bikes that raced (during that oil change) and ones that didn't.
For making direct evaluations and comparisons, I also think it would be a fair assumption to simply divide the number of miles the oil was in use into the accumulations of the various metals and/or by products, or depletion of additives as the case may be. This mileage factor could be directly compared with any two oils. For instance oil X had oil with 2500 miles and an accumulation of 5 units of aluminum.(I don't know what those, or any of the units should be. that's +.002 units per mile. oil Y has 2700 miles and 10 units of Al. That's +.0037 units per mile. From this you can say oil Y allowed 54% more wear (per mile) than oil X. I'm sure that some of the elements there have greater significance than others in determining critical degeneration of an engine but It would take someone with your knowledge, Kruz, to say if there needs to be a final critical wear weighted evaluation to put the evaluation into a fair and usable perspective. It would be nice to have a bottom linewhich said something more than "Hooray for our numbers."
The other suggestion I would make is to have sub-categories of accumulated mileage. Like Group A is bikes with <15000Miles, group B would be 15,000-30,000 miles, group C up to 50,000 and so on. You will start getting more wear per mile on a higher mileage bike. You might also determine in this manner, which oil works best on older bikes.

I got really frustrated when, after studying the reports and info on a couple of threads, I came to the conclusion to buy some Rotella oil. I scored a case, (3- 1 gallon jugs) of 5w-40w. ($75) Then another thread comes along with numerous negative comments on Rotella.

This posting system will allow fair comparisons, free of prejudice or bias.

Sharkey you make some interesting points and I agree with your mileage weighted formula. Some of the guys might be intimidated by all the number crunching, that's why I was hoping to keep it user friendly. We should be able to come up with a simplified format though that gets the job done without scaring the mathematically challenged off. Racing is definitely harder on an engine than sport riding or touring and that needs to be factored in.

got really frustrated when, after studying the reports and info on a couple of threads, I came to the conclusion to buy some Rotella oil. I scored a case, (3- 1 gallon jugs) of 5w-40w. ($75) Then another thread comes along with numerous negative comments on Rotella.

The only negative commentaries I have ever heard regarding Rotella products have come from the same two people on this forum. Read what they have said, one commented he put synthetic 5W40 in a high mileage vehicle and then complained about overnight lifter bleed down...gimme a break! The other commentary came from someone who never has anything good to say about anything...period! I'll let you figure out who that was! Outside this forum I have read literally hundreds of positive commentaries and no negative. Do a Google search yourself by typing Rotella Motorcycle Oil into your web browser and draw your own conclusions.

http://www.google.com/search?q=rotella+motorcycle+oil&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ADBR

Kruz

* Last updated by: Kruz on 9/9/2009 @ 3:03 PM *

I can dig it. The main thing will be just to get everyone to post and record accurate mileage. We can always play with the numbers later down the line. I'm anxious to have my oil analized, makes me wish I was due for an oil change.

Read what they have said, one commented he put synthetic 5W40 in a high mileage vehicle and then complained about overnight lifter bleed down...gimme a break!

* Last updated by: Steven14 on 8/19/2009 @ 2:04 PM *

I can only speculate here Steven. You replaced it with a 50 weight oil. 50 weight is considerably thicker than a 40 weight and would resist bleeding down better. The clatter you describe sounds like that associated with lifter bleed down, why this happened I don't know. There could very well have been a transient mechanical issue that resolved itself. Think of it this way, one morning your daughter went to start the car and it sounded normal, the next morning it made a terrible mechanical racket. Maybe your oil suffered catastrophic viscosity break down overnight from gremlin attack or maybe space aliens. Pardon the humour but it just doesn't make any sense that you had an oil problem, much more likely a mechanical issue of some kind, like a failed anti-drainback valve. I would contact Shell at their WestHollow Research Center in Houston and ask to speak with an engineer like I did. Describe the symptoms you had and all the other particulars and see what his take is on it. If you need the contact information, I will be more than happy to supply it to you.

Kruz

Here's my first Blackstone test result based upon 2,436 miles on Rotella T Synthetic 5W/40. I switched to AMSOIL for the next 2,500 miles or so and will run another test.

-bg

I posted these guys close together so it's easy to see any differences. Viscosity is virtually identical to Phil's sample, just out of the SAE 40 range. Silicon (dirt) is low and there is very little fuel dilution. All the numbers look pretty decent, tin is up a bit but thats just a surface teatment on your bearings to facilitate break in. I have to agree this is a good wearing engine so far.

Will be intersting to see what the Amsoil looks like.

Kruz

* Last updated by: Kruz on 9/11/2009 @ 8:57 AM *

Here's my blackstone report finally after switching to rotella-t. I changed the oil at about 1300 miles just to be sure to get the old oil out of the system, i was using spectro golden 10w40 prior to the switch the next change will be at 2000 miles

the only problem is that i have no idea how to post pictures on this, could use some help lol

* Last updated by: rcflyer1388 on 9/25/2009 @ 4:51 PM *

rcflyer1388:

If you want to email the pdf that you got from Blackstone to me (admin at zx14ninjaforum.com), I'll put it up for you. -bg

cool thnx, i just sent it to u

RCflyer I think BG cut out of here. Send me the .pdf file at johnybravofly@hotmail.com and I'll post her for you.

Kruz

i sent it, thnx a bunch

Hi RCflyer, I did get your Blackstone Report but I'm having a little troubel getting the .pdf file converted over to Jpeg format. I used to have a converter utility for doing this but it has expired. I'll see what I can do this morning.

Kruz

Here ya go RCFlyer, sorry about the watermarks on there, they wanted $39.95 for a licensed version of the file converter and I guess i'm just a cheapskate! LOL!

Numbers look fine, your engine is still breaking in. I would check another sample at around 10K miles.

Kruz

* Last updated by: Kruz on 10/8/2009 @ 7:20 AM *