• 4 Stroke Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Italy - About 1989 to 2014
     TE = 4st Enduro & TC = 4st Cross

  • Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

Lets talk oil

Josh Renzi

Josh Renzi

Husqvarna
Okay so I know there are many of threads reguarding oil but I havent found one to give me a solid answer to a question I have ( I do know alot of is personal opinion).


Recently picked up an 2009 smr510 with 1000 miles (first husky) and the manual clearly states use 10w60 motor oil recomends motorx. I have changed the oil every 300 miles with full synethic motorx 10w60 and filter every oil change too. Does anyone use 10w50/ 20w50 full synethic or even 10w40 ect.. for this bike is the 10w50/ 20w50 and 10w60 really make a huge difference in engine life or performance? Just wondering what you guys use and what you have experienced
 
Josh Renzi said:
Okay so I know there are many of threads reguarding oil but I havent found one to give me a solid answer to a question I have ( I do know alot of is personal opinion).


Recently picked up an 2009 smr510 with 1000 miles (first husky) and the manual clearly states use 10w60 motor oil recomends motorx. I have changed the oil every 300 miles with full synethic motorx 10w60 and filter every oil change too. Does anyone use 10w50/ 20w50 full synethic or even 10w40 ect.. for this bike is the 10w50/ 20w50 and 10w60 really make a huge difference in engine life or performance? Just wondering what you guys use and what you have experienced
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If your motorcycle manufacture recommends 60 weight oil, then 60 weight oil @ 302°F makes a film thickness to match your clearances inside your engine. These clearances are usually based upon mineral oil. Because synthetic has a stronger tinsel strength than mineral oil, a lower weight oil may be used, but only one weight down.

So for your particular case, if your manufacture recommends a 60 weight mineral oil, you may use a synthetic 50 weight oil or a 60 weight oil.There is nothing wrong with 40 weight oil, but it is too far out of specification for you to use safely.

To answer your question on engine life, most wear on engines happens at start-up. The first number on your grade will determine your flow when cold. A lower first number will flow better when cold than a high number. For example, a 0w60 grade oil will have a much higher flow rate when cold than a 20w60 grade oil (0w is actually 250 times thinner than 20w when cold, but has an actual viscosity of 40 and not zero).
The higher the flow at start-up will determine the wear amount. When your engine is at normal operating temperatures, there is absolutely no difference between a 0w60 grade and a 20w60 grade, they are both 60 weight oil.


OlderHuskyRider said:
I have used Mobil1 15w50 and I have almost 11,000 miles on my 450. I change about every 1000 miles. I would not use a 40 weight oil in my 450, only 50 weight, and I would only use a synthetic.
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Mobil1 15w50 is an excellent oil. I have read the MSDS specs on it and the viscosity indexes of Mobil1 are as good or better than even the next grade up.
(note: 2010 te450 specifies 10w-50 synthetic, therefor 15w-50 matches perfectly to the manufacture recommendation)

Hope this helps. :)
 
I like most have had many different vehicles and bikes. My 310 has seen hard trail use since day 1. I have used Motul 10w40 fully synthetic and changed it regularly. Motor is in excellent condition with 5500km on odo.
These dry sump, high output high compression motors are very efficient at squeezing power out of relatively small cc's, the result is the litre and a half or so of oil gets well and truly put through its paces . The oil is all that separates >10,000 rpm of metal to metal contact. Use good oil of the right grade and type and change it regularly. Don’t use car oil!

BTW fuel/gas quality also has a big effect. Low octane fuel is just that, but also the low octane blends are also in general lower quality - water, dirt, additives etc. Every ml of fuel you burn you leave behind the deposits/crap that was in the fuel. This crud often ends up in your oil, on your injector/carb etc. It can change the pH of your oil, make it corrosive and add particulates, abrasives and films of sludge to your motor. If you use crap fuel and crap oil expect crap reliability and crap performance.
 
Tinken said:
Why not?
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Regular automotive oil may have additives (friction modifiers) like phosphorus, graphite, moly or teflon. These will plate out on wet clucth plates and cause them to slip. Most automotive oils don't have the same shear resistance that mortorcycle oils have so they don't hold up well when being used to lube the gearbox. Some are OK but in general it's better to use motorcycle specific oil.
 
rajobigguy said:
Regular automotive oil may have additives (friction modifiers) like phosphorus, graphite, moly or teflon. These will plate out on wet clucth plates and cause them to slip. Most automotive oils don't have the same shear resistance that mortorcycle oils have so they don't hold up well when being used to lube the gearbox. Some are OK but in general it's better to use motorcycle specific oil.
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That's a very nice explanation rajobigguy, thank you.
Mobile 1 is safe for use in motorcycles, it does not contain any of the above friction modifiers and has the highest shear resistance I have seen on specification data sheets so far. (Amsoil and Pennzoil Ultra are very close)
 
Tinken said:
That's a very nice explanation rajobigguy, thank you.
Mobile 1 is safe for use in motorcycles, it does not contain any of the above friction modifiers and has the highest shear resistance I have seen on specification data sheets so far. (Amsoil and Pennzoil Ultra are very close)
Click to expand...
Not disagreeing with you on the mobile 1 but I have first hand experience with car oil in my bikes back in my younger days. I went threw 5 clutches on a dr 650 back in 94" and all I ran was Racing valvoline 20-50 and castrol 20-50 , awesome oil but even with a Barnett heavy duty clutch kit only 1500 miles she would start slipping on the pavement, learned why years later. I had to test the friction modifier theory again this time in 2001 with my 1200 Suzuki Bandit decided to throw in some GTX 20-50 before a 360 mile trip to Santa Rosa, bike had about 5k miles on it and never noticed a slipping clutch untill 200 miles into the ride and got my proof. ..... MotorX makes the best oil on the planet for bikes ! No no no on the car oil ! :)
 
My last oil change in my 511 was a blend because I'm cheap. MotorX 10-50full syn and motorX 20-60 full syn , absolutely amazing how much better the clutch and tranny action has improved !
 
Tinken said:
Why not?
Click to expand...

Most motorcycles share the same oil between the top/bottom end with their clutch and gearboxes. The main problems come with glazing the friction plates due to additives like friction modifiers and it will end up slipping and maybe burn out. I understand the car oil actually breaks down in the gearbox also.
 
Racing motor oils are not good for motorcycles, they are usually non-detergent and have heavy friction modifiers in them. You can use any motor oil that has the Jaso-ma (Japanese Automotive Standards Organization) rating on the reverse side. Many heavy duty diesel motor oils now show the Jaso-ma/ma2 certification. Mobil Delvac is also another favorite of many husky riders and also is safe in motorcycles.

And how did you blend two different grades with less than a quart of oil?
 
I'm using Shell Rotella T6 synth, 5W-40. It carries a JASO-ma rating, is relatively inexpensive, and available at Wallymart. I change the oil every 15 hours.
 
Aaron8 said:
I'm using Shell Rotella T6 synth, 5W-40. It carries a JASO-ma rating, is relatively inexpensive, and available at Wallymart. I change the oil every 15 hours.
Click to expand...
that oil is awesome, i run it in all of my 4 strokes. I have a 07 triumph daytona 675 track bike that has almost 18,000 mile abuse at 14,000 rpms and that oil never let me down in that, i change it every two track days for 300 track miles. it has a very low ash content and is reccomended by the crfsonly forums for use in the 450's and 250f's.
 
I am also a T and T6 Rotela fan. I switched to it 5 years ago based on reading and other recommendations. Like most members I have lots of bikes and other vehicles at home. Buying the T in the 20L pails makes life simple. I run the T in the transmissions and the low HP bikes and the T6 in the high HP bike engines. It has served me well although I don't race anymore so I can't say that I give the oil a workout. My CRF450 is a single track bike so it does spend a lot of time in 1st gear at boil-over temps. The T6 will go in my 630 as soon as it is nicely broken in. Cam.
 
Tinken said:
Racing motor oils are not good for motorcycles, they are usually non-detergent and have heavy friction modifiers in them. You can use any motor oil that has the Jaso-ma (Japanese Automotive Standards Organization) rating on the reverse side. Many heavy duty diesel motor oils now show the Jaso-ma/ma2 certification. Mobil Delvac is also another favorite of many husky riders and also is safe in motorcycles.

And how did you blend two different grades with less than a quart of oil?
Click to expand...
I did have 50k miles (hard miles :) ) on the DR when I sold it and it ran really strong , the GTX and valvo racing believe it or not held up really well, I changed oil every 600 miles and the oil was never broken down like the synthetics of the day, I tried a bunch of them and when I dumped it at 600 the stuff was really spent feeling and looking.
Not to mention 15-40 Delo and Rotela T I have used and are great substitutes in wet bath clutch motors.....
I use a ratio rite cup and measure 500cc 10-50 and 500cc 20-60, it's my first blend with these two products, the 20-60 is $25 a quart :) ... These days Synthetics hold up way better in my riding environment , on the trails where temps are higher.
 
hi i've just bought my first husky(2007 te450) and me and my friend have ordered a case of elf 10/50w synth between us he runs his ktm(is this swearing?) on this grade with no probs and just wanted to know would this be good for my bike too? has anyone else used this brand? thanks, sean
 
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