more oil magic! who's using used McD french fry oil? I hear it makes hogs run fatter!

 

Been using synthetic oil since the 70's in everything I own right down to lawn mower.Never had any oil leak issues.My Harleys have always had a steady diet of Amsoil 20/50,the big motored bike runs 50 weight Amsoil.I have always built my own motors,reading about the Evo and Twincam it is of most importance that these motors are assembled correctly and warm up cycles performed after rebuild or gasket issue could arise. You may have something else going on with your gasket issue.

 

Castrol 20/50, change every 3K with an HD 77A filter and you will be good to go for a long time.

D

 

$200 bux for a reusable oil fiflter? Now that's rich!! I do not want to go through all the hassle to clean an oil filter to use it again. I just use a Klearforce http://www.klearforce.com/whatis.htm that Removes 99% of ferrous metals, and metal contaminants from your engine oil. That seems to be a "more user friendly" product than does the pure power reusable filter. It's only $29.95 or 39.95 and either one work just fine and are on and off your oil filer in about 2 seconds.

 

Castrol 20/50

 

Synthetic oil sometimes causes leaks in older engines because it has more detergent properties. When some old buildup around a gasket gets removed, you've got a leak. Other than that, syn oil is as good as dino oil.
It's too expensive, though, and overkill for a Harley. I use Kendall 20w50.

 

Magnets for removing ferrous particles from oil have been studied for a long time and from what I understand no proof has been found that it extends engine life if oil is already being filtered and replaced at the mfg specified intervals.

The way I understand it, any ferrous particulates caught by the magnet would be smaller than the filtering capacity of the oil filter. For the evo that is 20 microns, which has been determined by the mfg. that particles that small will not harm and wear the engine enough over the life of a regular oil change interval to be concerned. So any ferrous particles 20 micron and larger are already captured by the filter. And anything smaller and caught by the magnet should not be concern to cause wear over an oil change interval.

If you are getting ferrous particulates that means you are already having wear and you would want to know about it. If you have a magnetic drain plug you can inspect there. If not, it seems like it would make more sense to have a magnet in a place where you can inspect it for particles.

I do not have the magnetic drain plug. Is anyone using a magnet in the oil bag or some other place so that you can inspect it regularly?

For the record, right now I am using the standard harley dino multigrade oil and change every 2500.

I ran the HD multigrade from 12k to 45k, then mobile1 15/50 from 45k to 100k, did the harley engine reman program since my cases needed to be replaced due to mfg defect at the seal pressed into the case. Now HD dino from 100k-155k.

 

I've used both petroleum and Amsoil in mine with no issues. Currently have petroleum in there following a top end rebuild. Petroleum is required for ring break-in (or so I've been told), so I used petroleum for the first 500 miles and also at the 500 mile oil change. But I will be going back to Amsoil at my next oil change. I have all new Cometic base and head gaskets.

 

Well your the first to mention Amsoil, I had a chance to run up and talk to the local Harley mechanic and he said he didn't know of any bikes in our city running amsoil other than me which made me feel real special.I'm thinking what has been mentioned maybe true about using petroleum rather than synthetic for the first 500 mile breakin, although my buddies 87 fxr we rebuilt is running the SE syn oil for the 500 mile breakin without so much as a sweat.
Its been so darn cold here and my shift work hasn't permitted me to get back out for a long ride to see if I'm going to get anymore gasket leak but I will soon. I also got the new cylinder studs and bolts along with Harley head gasket and james base gasket if it does leeak.

 

I don't know about the Klearforce unit - but it looks like it's just a magnet that goes around the filter. Kind of hard to believe that an external unit could remove 99% of the ferrous metal passing through the filter it surrounds.

I have a Pure Power SS reusable filter, and love it. If you read the literature, the PP filter passes all of the oil THROUGH the SS mesh in the filter, instead of just across a paper element, as virtually all normal paper filters do. If you think about it, passing all of the oil through a SS mesh seems like a much better way to filter oil than passing it across a pleated paper element. The SS mesh also has almost no resistance to the flow of oil, in contrast to a paper filter element. The PP filter also has two magnets in it to grab ferrous particles from the oil, and I have to believe that these magnets right there in the oil flow would be able to hold onto ferrous particles much better than any magnets placed outside of a regular filter. And, the outer cover of the PP filter also has heat dispersion fins machined into it, to cool the oil as it goes through the filter.

Cleaning the PP filter is not difficult nor time-consuming. You just take the SS mesh element and swish it around in parts cleaner or soapy water, then blow it out and let it dry. Takes all of 10 minutes total, and most of that time is soaking and drying.

Yes, the PP filter is expensive, but it's much much better than a paper filter at filtering all of the oil that goes through it. It puts almost no drag on the engine, because the engine doesn't have to work to force oil through the filter... it flows through the filter nearly effortlessly. You can blow right through the SS mesh.

A few years ago, one of the biker mags did an independent dyno test, and after they put the PP filter and new oil in, their test bagger showed a 9 HP and 7-8 ft/lb torque increase over the previous dyno run using a paper filter. I didn't buy the PP filter for any potential HP/torque gains though - I bought it because I want my engine oil filtered using the best technology available, and I think the PP filter is that.

Paper filters are ancient 1940's technology that is still used on modern, high-performance, and demanding air-cooled H-D engines. That just doesn't make much sense to me. PurePower makes filters for all kinds of heavy-duty vehicles - including aircraft, that have far more demanding performance standards than land-based vehicles do - and they know what they are doing.