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Thread: Anybody use oil additives in their bikes?

  1. #16
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    Thankyou for your input Motu.

    But to call us "fuckwits" and "morons" just cause we relate our feelings/experiences about a product from a different point of view to yours is a bit over the top.
    Yes you have a vast more experience in the mechanical area than most of us,, but that does not make you GOD of all things mechanic.
    And even if you were God,,,,, God puts up with "fuckwits" and "morons" with a darn sight more grace than you have mustered!
    So There!




    Your probably quite right though.

  2. #17
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    Apologies for calling people names
    But if a company showed a car or engine running with no oil in and their product effectively protecting it from destruction.....what relevance does that have to us?????
    I prefer to put my engine in the hands of oil engineers from Mobil, Shell, Motul et al who spend millions of dollars a year on making better oils and gathering information from racing engines etc, than a couple of blokes at Wynns or Motorup who have used the exact same product for decades.....
    If these products were any good, wouldn't the big manufacturers be selling them under their own name????
    Any oil additive is just a waste of money, all engines will wear out, just use the best oil you can buy and when the engine needs a rebuild.....just do it.

    Heres some light reading:
    Slick 50 and other engine oil additives supposedly reduce engine wear and increase fuel efficiency.

    You may have heard the commercial or seen the ad:

    Multiple tests by independent laboratories have shown that when properly applied to an automotive engine, Slick 50 Engine Formula reduces wear on engine parts. Test results have shown that Slick 50 treated engines sustained 50 percent less wear than test engines run with premium motor oil alone.

    There are about 50 other products on the market which make similar claims, many of them being just duplicate products under different names from the same company. The price for a pint or quart of these engine oil additives runs from a few dollars to more than $20. Do these products do any good? Not much. Do they do any harm. Sometimes.

    What's in these miracle lubricants, anyway? If they're so wonderful, why don't car manufacturers recommend their usage? Why don't oil companies get into the additive business? Where are these studies mentioned by Petrolon (Slick 50)? Probably in the same file cabinet as the tobacco company studies proving the health benefits of smoking.

    The basic ingredient is the same in most of these additives: 50 weight engine oil with standard additives. The magic ingredient in Slick 50, Liquid Ring, Matrix, QM1 and T-Plus from K-Mart is Polytetrafluoroethylene. Don't try to pronounce it: call it PTFE. But don't call it Teflon, which is what it is, because that is a registered trademark. Dupont, who invented Teflon, claims that "Teflon is not useful as an ingredient in oil additives or oils used for internal combustion engines." But what do they know? They haven't seen the secret studies done by Petrolon (Slick 50).

    PTFE is a solid which is added to engine oil and coats the moving parts of the engine.

    However, such solids seem even more inclined to coat non-moving parts, like oil passages and filters. After all, if it can build up under the pressures and friction exerted on a cylinder wall, then it stands to reason it should build up even better in places with low pressures and virtually no friction.

    This conclusion seems to be borne out by tests on oil additives containing PTFE conducted by the NASA Lewis Research Center, which said in their report, "In the types of bearing surface contact we have looked at, we have seen no benefit. In some cases we have seen detrimental effect. The solids in the oil tend to accumulate at inlets and act as a dam, which simply blocks the oil from entering. Instead of helping, it is actually depriving parts of lubricant" (Rau).

    In defense of Slick 50, tests done on a Chevy 6 cylinder engine by the University of Utah Engineering Experiment Station found that after treatment with the PTFE additive the test engine's friction was reduced by 13.1 percent, the output horsepower increased from 5.3 percent to 8.1 percent, and fuel economy improved as well. Unfortunately, the same tests concluded that "There was a pressure drop across the oil filter resulting from possible clogging of small passageways." Oil analysis showed that iron contamination doubled after the treatment, indicating that engine wear increased (Rau).

    the FTC and Slick 50

    In 1997, three subsidiaries of Quaker State Corp. (the makers of Slick 50) settled Federal Trade Commission charges that ads for Quaker State's Slick 50 Engine Treatment were false and unsubstantiated. According to the FTC complaint, claims such as the following made in Slick 50 ads falsely represented that without Slick 50, auto engines generally have little or no protection from wear at start-up and commonly experience premature failure caused by wear:

    "Every time you cold start your car without Slick 50 protection, metal grinds against metal in your engine."

    "With each turn of the ignition you do unseen damage, because at cold start-up most of the oil is down in the pan. But Slick 50's unique chemistry bonds to engine parts. It reduces wear up to 50% for 50,000 miles."

    "What makes Slick 50 Automotive Engine Formula different is an advanced chemical support package designed to bond a specially activated PTFE to the metal in your engine."

    In fact, the FTC said, "most automobile engines are adequately protected from wear at start-up when they use motor oil as recommended in the owner's manual. Moreover, it is uncommon for engines to experience premature failure caused by wear, whether they have been treated with Slick 50 or not."

    zinc: good for the common cold & your car's engine

    Another type of additive is zinc dialkyldithiophosphate. Zinc-d is found in Mechanics Brand Engine Tune Up, K Mart Super Oil Treatment, and STP Engine Treatment With XEP2, among others. The touting of zinc-d as a special ingredient in engine oil additives is a little like the Shell ads which touted "Platformate." (Most gasoline has similar additives but under different names.) Zinc-d is an additive in most, if not all, major oil brands. The wonder oils just put more of the stuff in a 50 weight engine oil. It would be useful if your engine were ever operated under extremely abnormal conditions where metal contacts metal: "the zinc compounds react with the metal to prevent scuffing, particularly between cylinder bores and piston rings....unless you plan on spending a couple of hours dragging your knee at Laguna Seca, adding extra zinc compounds to your oil is usually a waste.... Also, keep in mind that high zinc content can lead to deposit formation on your valves, and spark plug fouling" (Rau).

    If zinc-d is so good for your engine, why haven't oil manufacturers been putting more of it in their standard mix of oil and additives? Actually, oil companies have been decreasing the amount of zinc-d because the evidence indicates that zinc-d causes deterioration of catalytic converters.

    The bottom line is that outside of the testimonials of happy and satisfied customers and the guarantees of company executives about the wonderful effects that studies have shown will follow the use of their products, there isn't much support for using oil additives. Of course, there are those millions of customers who buy the stuff: aren't they proof that these things really work? Not really. They're proof that this stuff really sells!

    cleansed, not coated

    On the other side of the engine block are those additives which will cleanse your engine, not coat it. Stuff like Bardahl, Rislone and Marvel Mystery Oil claim they can make your engine run quieter and smoother, and reduce oil burning. These are products which contain solvents or detergents such as kerosene, naphthalene, xylene, acetone or isopropanol. If used properly, I suppose these products will strip off your Teflon and zinc protective coatings! But unless you have a really old and abused car, you probably have no need of stripping away sludge and deposits from your engine. Thus, you probably have no need for these wonder cleaners. If you overuse such products you can damage your engine by promoting metal to metal contact.

    If you use a synthetic oil, such as Mobil 1, you are advised not to use any engine treatments or additives. Mobil claims that

    The use of an engine oil additive is not recommended, either by Mobil or by virtually any vehicle manufacturer. In fact, it may void your new-car warranty.

    Finally, you may have seen the commercial where two engines are allowed to run without any oil in them and the one which had the special oil additive keeps on ticking after the other engine has conked out. This may be appealing to the car owner who never changes his or her oil or who runs his or her car without oil, but it should be of little interest to the person who knows how to take care of their automobile.

    Should you invest in something like Tufoil? It is touted as being "a super-suspension of micro-miniature PTFE particles and soluble Molybdenum, permanently suspended in oil." And, it will not clog filters or oil openings, according to the manufacturer. Or, how about Lubrilon, which contain a nylon polymer that will coat your metal parts? Or Bishop's Original Permafused Lubrication™, which also coats your metal parts with an anti-wear lubricant film? It's your money, but I think you'd be better off if you just changed your oil and oil filter regularly. And don't forget to change the fuel and air filters at the recommended intervals. We can't say for sure that these new products do no good, but what good they might do is probably not necessary or of much value for the average vehicle owner who takes proper care of the vehicle.
    Viva La Figa

  3. #18
    I saw all the test years ago and was suitably impressed - but I was working on machinery at the time,and I still think all this shit is good in gear and chain drives in equipment.Then when I was in Aust I met a guy who worked in the testing dept at Holden in Melbourne - they were doing slomo filming of valve gear deflection at high speeds on the old 202.When they finished they thought they'd destruction test it with no oil at WOT - it lasted 45mins! Ever since then I've taken such claims with a grain of salt,and come across other stories of similar results...without snake oil.

  4. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Motu
    I saw all the test years ago and was suitably impressed - but I was working on machinery at the time,and I still think all this shit is good in gear and chain drives in equipment.Then when I was in Aust I met a guy who worked in the testing dept at Holden in Melbourne - they were doing slomo filming of valve gear deflection at high speeds on the old 202.When they finished they thought they'd destruction test it with no oil at WOT - it lasted 45mins! Ever since then I've taken such claims with a grain of salt,and come across other stories of similar results...without snake oil.
    Ah, so you were impressed with your urban myths were you.
    Quote Originally Posted by Tank
    You say "no one wants to fuck with some large bloke on a really angry sounding bike" but the truth of the matter is that you are a balding middle-aged ice-cream seller from Edgecume who wears a hello kitty t-shirt (in your profile pic) and your angry sounding bike is a fucken hyoshit - not some big assed harley with a human skull on the front.

  5. #20
    30 years ago - yes.I've learnt a fair bit since then about oils,and I will continue to learn,change my way of thinking...again and again and again.So we grow...close your mind and you die.

  6. #21
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    I have found molyslip type products to be useful in transmissions. But not bike ones, because of the clutch.The engineers who decided that it was a good idea to use a common oil supply fopr gearbox, primary drive, and motor should be taken out and flogged. If I ever designed a bike it would have at least five separate oil supplies, using different oils. Engine bottom end, engine top end, gearbox, clutch, final drive. All different lubrication requirements.

    I am sceptical about the brilliance of the wonderful chemists at the big oil companies. For all their work, I do not believe that any better lubricant (as far as pure lubrication goes) has been found than pure castor oil. For both engines and trnsmissions. Of course, you do not get the detergents etc. Most of the research effort is put into reducing cost and adding detergency, low temperature "thinness" to assist starting in cold climates etc.
    Quote Originally Posted by skidmark
    This world has lost it's drive, everybody just wants to fit in the be the norm as it were.
    Quote Originally Posted by Phil Vincent
    The manufacturers go to a lot of trouble to find out what the average rider prefers, because the maker who guesses closest to the average preference gets the largest sales. But the average rider is mainly interested in silly (as opposed to useful) “goodies” to try to kid the public that he is riding a racer

  7. #22
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    I admire your dedication to perferction Ixion, but I would hazard a guess that instead of increasing the reliabilty as I'm guessing is your goal, all you'll do is add complexity and weight, thus increasing the points of failure. An all in one lubrication system is quite simple, and more than enough if the longevity of hypersportsbikes is anything to go by.

  8. #23
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    The fundamental thing is that bearings & pistons should all be riding on a film of oil. That is how they work or they would weld themselves together. If the oil pressure failed then that is likely after the oil wears off.

    Remember seeing some test ages ago, at an old trade fair (remember those?) & a lever bore pressure down on a spinning piece of metal, which got dug into when had only oil on it but survived with wonder treatment x.
    I many years later read that this is a common test to show snake oil, but works equally well with just about anything approaching grease & is totally unlike any condition inside an engine.

    DuPont make Tefelon & sold it to Slick50 - there was some silly legal battle where Slick50 sued them for saying that it couldn’t do what they said it could & being the US they won. Pah.

    Usually all aimed at the desperate end of the market.

    Which reminds me some of you still haven’t invested in my new bolt on turbo fan exhaust extension, Roll up Roll up!

    ++ Limited stocks are still available of my BlackCat oil additive guaranteed to make you lucky (to get where you are going). But this is a limited offer, as the cat is getting old & she gets a bit testy when I put a bedpan underneath her & expect results.
    Don't you look at my accountant.
    He's the only one I've got.

  9. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by SimJen
    Dupont, who invented Teflon, claims that "Teflon is not useful as an ingredient in oil additives or oils used for internal combustion engines." But what do they know?
    Didn't they have to back up the bus on that statement eventually?

  10. #25
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    As stated above US legal case as it was considered detrimental to their sales & some US judge put it through. Only in America as they say.
    Don't you look at my accountant.
    He's the only one I've got.

  11. #26
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    Anyone use oil additives in their bike?

    Motu and others are right.

    And from another perspective, why would the makers/suppliers of lubricants promote and sell an inferior product and leave others to claim and trade on the basis that they can do better. There's oil and there's snake oil - stick to the oil.

  12. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by rogson
    And from another perspective, why would the makers/suppliers of lubricants promote and sell an inferior product and leave others to claim and trade on the basis that they can do better. There's oil and there's snake oil - stick to the oil.
    And Shell has this great new ingredient it puts into its 91 and 95 petrol that improves your economy...
    "Standing on your mother's corpse you told me that you'd wait forever." [Bryan Adams: Summer of 69]

  13. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by Motu
    I should go into the additive market with a ''NEW!'' product that will double your HP and increase fuel econnomy - with fuckwits like you guys around I'd make a fortune.

    MBL8 is full of copper and lead (did you notice how heavy the bottle is) and makes your engine quiet because the soft metals cushion the blow - and you want to pay the money and put it in your engine? Yes,I use it to quieten noisy engines,but I tell the customer I have done nothing but disguise the symtom.Pay the money for a quality oil,dino or synth...it doesn't matter,and change it at recomended intervals - you need do nothing more to make you engine perform to max and give long life.

    Jeez,what morons - like,how much did your bike cost?
    I THINK YOUR RIGHT MOTU I DONT BELIEVE IN ADDITIVES MYSELF,BUT.....I HAD A BIKE HAT WAS IN A HUGE ACCIDENT , IT ENDED UP DOWN A BANK IN THE BUSH WITH A BUSTED ALTERNATOR COVER THE FIREMEN HOSED IT DOWN FILLING THE MOTOR WITH WATER , I PUT A NEW COVER ON PUT OIL IN IT THE OIL EMULSIFIED IMMEDIATELY WHICH I EXPECTD AFTER 4 MORE OIL CHANGES I WAS GETTING NOWHERE IT WAS STILL EMULSIFYING EVEN WITH HOT RUNS THE GUY AT TREADS SAID TRY CERABASE , I DID IT WORKED IT KILLED THE FOAMY EMULSION STRAIGHTAWAY

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hitcher
    And Shell has this great new ingredient it puts into its 91 and 95 petrol that improves your economy...
    Yes, a wonderfull product that
    increases wallet comsumption

  15. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by imdying
    ,,. An all in one lubrication system is quite simple, and more than enough if the longevity of hypersportsbikes is anything to go by.

    You jest? apart from BMW (who do not use common lubrication) and maybe Moto Guzzi, I think you'd be hard to find many that can go even 250000 kilometres without engine work.
    Quote Originally Posted by skidmark
    This world has lost it's drive, everybody just wants to fit in the be the norm as it were.
    Quote Originally Posted by Phil Vincent
    The manufacturers go to a lot of trouble to find out what the average rider prefers, because the maker who guesses closest to the average preference gets the largest sales. But the average rider is mainly interested in silly (as opposed to useful) “goodies” to try to kid the public that he is riding a racer

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