okay the past 2 months I've tried a couple different oils
started with motul 3000 dino oil...  shifts were pretty smooth.
went to rotella-t 15w-40.  it wasn't nearly as smooth to shift, and the motor seemed... louder..  especially at idle.  almost rattle-ish sounding.

I could deal with the hard shifts (and infrequent mis-shifts).  the motor being more noisy i did not like.

so.. i went to motul 5100 (semi synthetic)..  wow.  10x better than rotella, and a bit better than the motul 3000.... shifts are butter smooth...

my opinion,  they are all a waste of money.  this motor was designed back in the 70's (as a 250 but basicly the same) and they designed it to run on the oils that they had available then.   crappy dino juice.

It may be the clutch ... since synthetic will reduce friction between plates it will disengage at a earlier point ... so a clutch that's fully disengaging with synthetic, may need a extra turn of tightening with regular ... of course the problem if its on the engaging side ... you may have to loosen it a shade with synthetic ... AKA ... re set clutch after oil change ... especially with drastic changes in oil type etc ...
Cool.
Srinath.

Quote from: seshadri_srinathIt may be the clutch ... since synthetic will reduce friction between plates it will disengage at a earlier point ... so a clutch that's fully disengaging with synthetic, may need a extra turn of tightening with regular ... of course the problem if its on the engaging side ... you may have to loosen it a shade with synthetic ... AKA ... re set clutch after oil change ... especially with drastic changes in oil type etc ...
Cool.
Srinath.

well I went from dino -> dino -> synthetic...

biggest change was from MC dino to rotella-t...

I'm about to put Castrol GTX 10W-40 into the bike for her first oil change. What comes in the bike, synthetic or non-synth? I am pretty sure GTX is not synthetic, so will I be changing a lot by putting that in? Or is it non-syn to begin with in the bike and I'm cool?

Dave  

2005 .. you are cool


Bike is factory shipped w/ 10w40 Dino You can go 15W40 or 15w50.. etc.. My dealer just put 20W50 in mine.. he said it was better for the summer temps.. However I think my next change I am going back to 10w40. It will operate fine in out heat here in PA not like its gonna be 110 here any time soon.

10W40 is better ... lower viscosity means better penetration into parts and therefore better lubrication and better heat absorption.
Cool.
Srinath.