Castrol TTS - Supercheap

[arj127]

140% ?????????? Heck we never made that much on oil. And how many motorcycle dealers do you see living in the lap of luxury?

Yeah, i guess i was working my 1l prices out wrong. I used to purchase my 4t oil directly from the importer via my workplace in 20l containers, and the equated cost would be 140percent less than buying 20l in 1l containers via a motorcycle dealer. However, i'm sure they still make a good crisp on it.

[Reckless]

Well no, there are many issues such as boundary lubrication etc etc. In a 2 stroke cheap premix oil makes no sense because you end up throwing rebuild parts such as piston kits and rod bearings at them with higher frequency. Plus increased decoke frequency for the ''dirty burn'' brands. False economy. Or cheap ends up costing you more.
140% ?????????? Heck we never made that much on oil. And how many motorcycle dealers do you see living in the lap of luxury?

So are you telling us that Castrol TTS will increase our maintenance by 140% and we'll have heaps more slag to decoke on the power valves etc???

[green machine]

I think he was questioning an earlier post talking about a 140% mark up on Castrol Oil

[arj127]

nup 140 on motul

[arj127]

its good to have robert taylor here, he knows his stuff and is prepared to give advice. Thanx

[Reckless]

I think he was questioning an earlier post talking about a 140% mark up on Castrol Oil

Oh OK just hard to believe using a named brand oil with a long history and a good reputation would dramatically increase maintenance for the type of nana riding we do! I used TTS in my kart before motul was even thought of in NZ and had no failures that I can remember?

nup 140 on motul

Captive market here in NZ. 140% stinks!! Good reason to use TTS that is! LOL!!
Take this for a scenario: Spa pool heater busted. Here you can only buy a complete unit for $500-00 oddNZD. In the USA its $100-00USD for the same 240v unit and $39-95USD for just the element?? Go figure!!
I'll support kiwi business to a point but for cryin out load i'm not getting ripped!!!

[IIIRII]

Rob, whats the flash point of castor oil vs motul ?

[Robert Taylor]

Oh OK just hard to believe using a named brand oil with a long history and a good reputation would dramatically increase maintenance for the type of nana riding we do! I used TTS in my kart before motul was even thought of in NZ and had no failures that I can remember?



Captive market here in NZ. 140% stinks!! Good reason to use TTS that is! LOL!!
Take this for a scenario: Spa pool heater busted. Here you can only buy a complete unit for $500-00 oddNZD. In the USA its $100-00USD for the same 240v unit and $39-95USD for just the element?? Go figure!!
I'll support kiwi business to a point but for cryin out load i'm not getting ripped!!!

I never said TTS was a bad oil! I said that in my experience with many engines over a long period Motul was better. I in fact made mention of an oil that was not so good and why. Castrol is one of the better oils but, their marketing has contempt for motorcycle and auto dealers. Those guys are the experts, not the chain discounters and their checkout floosies.
And yes I have figured out the disparity re $US prices and ours, its called supply and demand. Distributors here cannot match the buying power of big American chain stores, who also happen to operate on very slender margins and high ( very high ) volume because they have thousands of customers and line products. They also dont have to freight their small volume of product many thousands of miles. On top of that there is a whole raft of clearance charges, edr fees, gst on those plus on the value of the goods. One off private imports very often dont attract these charges and the declared value is very often understated ( fraud ) Not a level playing field and certainly a good case for import licensing TO PROTECT KIWI JOBS.
The net profit that most businesses make in this country is certainly not stunning and you are not getting ripped.

[Robert Taylor]

Rob, whats the flash point of castor oil vs motul ?

Not without research but frankly I dont know of too many people who still run vegetable / castor base oil except perhaps in some classic racing. These oils are a very good lubricant but the gumming problems, seperation in premix ( often requiring a blending agent ) kind of renders them out of date and not so user friendly in a world that more and more has embraced that.

[noobi]

what i gather from this thread is that castrol is a fine oil to use if you just nana around like most of us on here do
and Robert Taylor is talking about better life of an engine thats run at 11/10ths all the time, ie race engines in sport bikes and karts that are stripped down and rebuilt in between meets and run on the power at the top of the rev range all the time
so the difference between motul 800 and castrol tts to us nana riders is not really any at all

but i could be wrong

[Robert Taylor]

what i gather from this thread is that castrol is a fine oil to use if you just nana around like most of us on here do
and Robert Taylor is talking about better life of an engine thats run at 11/10ths all the time, ie race engines in sport bikes and karts that are stripped down and rebuilt in between meets and run on the power at the top of the rev range all the time
so the difference between motul 800 and castrol tts to us nana riders is not really any at all

but i could be wrong

90% of my Motul 800 / Castrol TTS experience was in fact with MX bikes. Hurley ran stickers on his Yamahas but we didnt run that oil because the coke build up on the powervalves within a very short period was silly. We ran 800 at 40 to 1 in both the 125s and 250s, longer crank life and much much less coke buildup in the motors and exhaust systems.
RM125s are notorious for short crankshaft life, if I was running one of them Id be using the very best premix oil to save money!

[IIIRII]

Pretty well known stuff....


CASTOR OIL
By Bert Striegler.


Back in 1983 there was quite a controversy in magazines about the tests that were necessary to measure the "lubricity" of various oils that might be useful in engines. Castor oil was used as the benchmark, but it was obvious no one knew why this was so. They apparently got a lot of info on various industry tests of lubricants, but these were really designed for other purposes. This was my answer. I will remind you that I was a lubrication engineer and not a chemist, but I drew my chemical info from Bob Durr, the most experienced lubricant scientist in the labs at Conoco.

Bob worked with my group on many product development projects and I can tell you that he is one smart hombre! Small changes were made in the text, but surprisingly very little has really changed since this was originally written. Here goes with the answer:

"I thought I would answer your plea for more information on castor oil and its "film strength", which can be a very misleading term. I have never really seen a satisfactory way to measure the film strength of an oil like castor oil. We routinely use tests like the Falex test, the Timken test or the Shell 4-ball test, but these are primarily designed to measure the effect of chemical extreme pressure agents such as are used in gear oils. These "EP" agents have no function in an IC engine, particularly the two-stroke model engine types.

You really have to go back to the basics of lubrication to get a better handle on what happens in a engine. For any fluid to act as a lubricant, it must first be "polar" enough to wet the moving surfaces. Next, it must have a high resistance to surface boiling and vaporization at the temperatures encountered. Ideally the fluid should have "oiliness", which is difficult to measure but generally requires a rather large molecular structure. Even water can be a good lubricant under the right conditions.

Castor oil meets these rather simple requirements in an engine, with only one really severe drawback in that it is thermally unstable. This unusual instability is the thing that lets castor oil lubricate at temperatures well beyond those at which most synthetics will work.

Castor oil is roughly 87% triglyceride of ricinoleic acid, [ (CH3(CH2)5CH(OH)CH2CH=CH(CH2)7COO)3(OC)3H5 ], which is unique because there is a double bond in the 9th position and a hydroxyl in the 11th position. As the temperature goes up, it loses one molecule of water and becomes a "drying" oil. Another look at the molecule. Castor oil has excellent storage stability at room temperatures, but it polymerizes rapidly as the temperature goes up. As it polymerizes, it forms ever-heavier "oils" that are rich in esters. These esters do not even begin to decompose until the temperature hits about 650 degrees F (343 deg C). Castor oil forms huge molecular structures at these elevated temperatures - in other words, as the temperature goes up, the castor oil exposed to these temperatures responds by becoming an even better lubricant!

Unfortunately, the end byproduct of this process is what we refer to as "varnish." So, you can't have everything, but you can come close by running a mixture of castor oil with polyalkylene glycol like Union Carbide's UCON, or their MA 731. This mixture has some synergistic properties, or better properties than either product had alone. As an interesting sidelight, castor oil can be stabilized to a degree by the addition of Vitamin E (Tocopherol) in small quantities, but if you make it too stable it would no longer offer the unusual high temperature protection that it did before.

Castor oil is not normally soluble in ordinary petroleum oils, but if you polymerize it for several hours at 300 degrees F (149 deg C), the polymerized oil becomes soluble. Hydrogenation achieves somewhat the same effect.

Castor oil has other unique properties. It is highly polar and has a great affinity for metal surfaces.

It has a flash point of only 445 degrees F (229 deg C), but its fire point is about 840 degrees F (449 deg C)! This is very unusual behavior if you consider that polyalkylene glycols flash at about 350-400 degrees F (176-204 deg C)and have a fire point of only about 550 degrees F (288 deg C), or slightly higher.

Nearly all of the common synthetics that we use burn in the combustion chamber if you get off too lean.

Castor oil does not, because it is busily forming more and more complex polymers as the temperature goes up. Most synthetics boil on the cylinder walls at temperatures slightly above their flash point. The same activity can take place in the wrist pin area, depending on engine design.

Synthetics also have another interesting feature - they would like to return to the materials from which they were made, usually things like ethylene oxide, complex alcohols, or other less suitable lubricants. This happens very rapidly when a critical temperature is reached. We call this phenomena "unzippering" for obvious reasons.

So, you have a choice. Run the engine too lean and it gets too hot. The synthetic burns or simply vaporizes, but castor oil decomposes into a soft varnish and a series of ester groups that still have powerful lubricity.

Good reason for a mix of the two lubricants! ( " 927 " is a mix as described here!)

In spite of all this, the synthetics are still excellent lubricants if you know their limitations and work within those limits. Used properly, engine life will be good with either product. Cooked on a lean run, castor oil will win every time. A mix of the two can give the best of both worlds.

Like most things in this old life, lubricants are always a compromise of good and bad properties. Synthetics yield a clean engine, while castor oil yields a dirty engine, but at least now you know why! "

Bert Striegler

Bert was the Sr. Research Eng'r. (ret.) at Conoco Oil Co.

[B0000M]

to put my stance on tts out there.

ive been using TTS in MX bikes since 1995
CR80
CR80
CR80bw
CR125
CR250

the majority of my mates over this time have also used TTS.

over this time im not aware of any of us having mechanical failure in relation to lubrication or lack there of

TTS is sold to repco for roughly $80. they cannot even match supercheap's shelf price of $85 to sell to the public

for supercheap to sell at $63, either they buy significantly cheaper than repco, or this product becomes a loss leader in their 25% sales, which only seem to happen once a year.

motul may be a slightly better product, but its also significantly more expensive.

to me, i have used it so far without issue, why would i change?

for clarification, the usage my bikes have recieved over this time has ranged from playing around paddocks, national top 10 level mx, full noise beach racing, flat paddock racing, trail rides, enduros.... pretty much you name it.

ive never had a problem with coking on any of my bikes, even when ridden at learner speeds for prolonged periods of times.

TTS also over the years has been successful for me in a yamaha job scooter and numerous jetskis.

allthough castrol isnt nice towards the dealers, from my experience most dealers arent very nice to me, so i have no pity for them. there are exceptions to this rule, including mr motorcycles who i cant say enough good things about.

as a shopper, i will shop wherever suits my wallet & convenience best, and if thats a chain store, thats where i will go.

[Robert Taylor]

I never said TTS was a bad oil and my long empirical experience ( including castor oils and castor / synthetic blends such as Castrol A747 ) has well proven that Motul 800 is right up there. There are oils that burn a lot dirtier than Castrol TTS but there are those including Motul 800 that burn more cleanly with less coke formation and yet have a reassuring oily film and low wear when you tear down the engine. Having tested a lot of oils and many of those with wild claims I believe I am qualified to comment.
It is my instinct to support people with product knowledge, as much as possible. Chain stores perpetuate more and more the ''progression'' of workers into serfs. But thats another heady subject, at least some of us are actually thinking about that!

[barty5]

90% of my Motul 800 / Castrol TTS experience was in fact with MX bikes. Hurley ran stickers on his Yamahas but we didnt run that oil because the coke build up on the powervalves within a very short period was silly. We ran 800 at 40 to 1 in both the 125s and 250s, longer crank life and much much less coke buildup in the motors and exhaust systems.
RM125s are notorious for short crankshaft life, if I was running one of them Id be using the very best premix oil to save money!

that would be like with the aussie v8s bib sponers like mobil on the sides of the cars yet most of them use to run a valnoline oil.