20-50 is 20-50, use the cheapest oil autozone has on the shelf. Haha

 

Amsoil in engine and Redline in tranny works great for me. Besides with all the muffler noise,.......who can hear the engine.

 

I used amzoil in my older bike and it worked great. HD syn 3 ran hotter than I wanted . I am now using mobil 1 v twin 20/50 since i can get it at the local auto store. Best bike oil I have used to date. Just so you know dirty oil means the oil is doing its job cleaning all the crud out of your motor. Amzoil got darker sooner because it cleans more crap out . As another poster suggested more detergent in there oil.

 

The Amsoil website says HD syn is made by Sunoco.
http://www.nooilchange.com/amsoil/harley-davidson.htm

 

I travel a lot with my bike, so will use/mix HD & Mobil 1 in the engine. As for the primary & trans; HD oil (nearly 1000 dealers in North America)...many vehicles and many many miles under my butt; never wasted too much time fretting over oils; never had an oil related failure in anything either...

 

Sunoco used to blend and package HD oil, however when Sunoco got out of the PCMO (passenger car motor oil) market they stopped suppling HD.

It is now made by Citgo and had been for many years.

Ken

 

This is all good but you left off one very important step.

After you change your oil, re start the bike and let it run for 10 minutes or so to pump the new oil thru out the engine and into the lifters.

If you don't do this last step, you really didn't do any thing except put new oil in the sump, the engine still has old oil in it.

And yes, for those with seasonal lay up, change the oil before you put the bike away and then go ride in the spring.

Ken

 

Yep, over the years I've used all sorts of different oils in my bikes, from dirt bikes up to now with my glide. Never ever had a breakdown due to an oiling problem. Back then they didn't have synthetic oil, at least not for public use. Now they do. And along the way they have figured out the worst thing for most any motor is heat, high heat which causes regular dyno oil to breakdown and stop doing what its intended to do, that being to carry the heat away from those hot spots plus lubricate the motor. We all know how bad HD motors tend to heat up too. During this time they developed synthetic oil and with most of them you will see that 'breakdown (temp) point' has risen quite a bit. Its called 'thermal breakdown'. Now they still have dyno oils as well as partial synthetics like Syn3. These still have a much lower temp at which the oil breaks down. Seems to be a pretty important point to me....but anyway considering most full synthetics like Mobil 1 V Twin, or Redline, or Amsoil (just to name a few) now have the highest temp at which the oil will breakdown it seems a no brainer, imho, on which oils are best to use. Course they cost more and if that's a problem dyno oil still works. Ever notice that the Moco recommends you only fill the crankcase up to a point where its still a 1/2 qt low with Syn3? I read its because that oil tends to foam up during useage and will increase the level in the crankcase by about a 1/2 a qt. But when you fill with a full syn you can fill to the full mark without it ever foaming up. Plus its been known that Citgo oils come from Venezuala, home of Chavez and the like.....yep Chavez is dead...lol.

So when I got my glide I opted for Mobil1 VTwin but was still getting a bit of noise, or so I thought, and last year I saw the local parts store carries Amsoil, so I figured I'd try it. Its about the same price as the Mobil1. It might be a bit quieter, maybe not, but I did some long hard rides last summer in some extreme heat and had the motor temp checked on one of those 100 degree days and the guy couldn't believe how much cooler my motor was than most he checked that day. That was at what was the old 'Cement City' Harley in Cement City, Michigan just south of Jackson.

I know its not any kind of technical oil analyzation thing, but I'm going to stick with Amsoil in my glide anyway. But that's just me.

 

You make an interesting point about the "frothing", makes sense, when I did my first oil change from factory stuff to Mobil1 I noticed that the level from hot and cold stayed the same where as the factory dino did what the dip stick said it should. had me worried for awhile but just left it one notch from the top and its been fine.

 

Don't mean to pick nits but the proper term for oil from the ground is Dino oil, not Dyno oil. Just remember Dino from the Flintstones 'cause that's where our oil comes from. Decayed dinosaurs.
Yaba Daba Dooooooo!!!!!!