synthetic oil vs non synthetic oil in your saw

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witch do you do use

  • non synthetic

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smokinj

Minister of Fire
Aug 11, 2008
15,980
Anderson, Indiana
what are you useing in your saw?
 
i run Husquvarno low smoke oil...no idea if it is synethetic or not though
 
Adirondackwoodburner said:
i run Husquvarno low smoke oil...no idea if it is synethetic or not though
if it doesnt say synthetic is "non-synthetic"
 
yeha I am sure, never really looked at it too closely..I know in everything else I ahve, Husquvarna 10.5HP snowblower, and lawnmores all run synethetic
 
non-synthetic, in everything.
 
I started to use synthetic in my truck last year. I put about 8k miles a year on it so with the synthetic I change it twice a year. I believe that synthetic is better in cold weather and my truck stays outside all winter. I am considering using synthetic in my lawn mower. Any comments.

As far as the saw, no I don't, but I would consider it.
 
I use synthetic in all my 4 cycle air cooled engines. I use Castrol oil mix for 2 cycle engines. I use dino oil in water cooled engines.
 
I use Stihl HP Ultra in the pre-mix bottles.
 
Cheap dino-juice in the 2 stroke motors and air cooled 4 strokes. Mobil 1 synthetic in the truck and the Audi.

No problems with any of them.
 
You should redo the poll, w/ added options for 'unsure', 'varies', and 'depends (on the engine)'

I've been using the Stihl "orange bottle" one-shots in my two-strokes, which I believe is Dino, but the bottle doesn't say. However, I am going to Echo synthetic one-shots on the next gallon of gas, and plan to stick with synthetics after that.

4-stroke OPE engines get cheap dino, either straight 30, or 10-40 / 10-30 depending on what I have on hand, and what the engine calls for.

The bikes get semi-synth.

The GF's Caravan gets dino, I think...

Gooserider
 
Now that the titel specifies "in your saw" I have always used sythetic 2-stroke oil for all of my premix. It doesn't hardly smoke at all and smells good.

I use gallons of non-synthetic two stroke oil in my powerstroke diesel at about a 100:1 ratio with excellent results.
 
smokinj said:
what are you useing in your saw?


Right now I'm using Royal Purple TCW3 but that's just a fluke (it works great, BTW). But usually I use whatever is in my dirtbike gas can which is usually Klotz R50 or Mobil MX2T.
 
This is the perennial budweiser/miller, ford/chevy, husky/stihl debate...
go to AS and ask for gary !

Anyway, I have moved to Amsoil sabre professional synthetic in all my two cycle stuff. Burns clean, and $10/qt instead of $11/pint for other brands, or $8 for 6 smal stihl 1 gallon bottles, yikes. However, I preload the Amsoil into the small one gallon stihl premix bottles for easier use in the woods.

OPE: 50:1 in 92 unleaded, no ethanol
air cooled trials motorcycles 60:1, 92 + 1/3 race gas
water cooled trials motorcycles 80:1, 92+ half race gas
4 cycles small engines: mobil 1 synthetic
cars. staight petroelum oil, except one iwthout a block heater, then syntetic in the winter.
 
Had an interesting chat w/ the guy from Amsoil this morning at the Woodsman show up in Bangor... Says they really do say to run it at 100:1, but even he goes a bit rich from that.

However what I he said that I hadn't heard from others, which made a certain amount of sense, is that if going from dino to synth, regardless of brand, in an engine that's been used for a fair while on dino, you should do a slow transition, rather than a "cold turkey" switch. I.e get a gallon of each blend, and alternate them, or do a couple tanks of half synth / half dino...

His reason is that he said the synth is a good high detergent cleaner by it's nature, and that it WILL remove any carbon buildup in the combustion chamber... However if you do a rapid switchover, it will do the decarboning in a very short interval, with the potential of knocking loose big chunks that could get into the rings and such before the normal combustion process could clean them out. By doing a more gradual switchover, you also get a slower and safer decarboning... Don't know that it would make a huge difference in a newer engine, but can't see that it would hurt.

Gooserider
 
Gooserider said:
Had an interesting chat w/ the guy from Amsoil this morning at the Woodsman show up in Bangor... Says they really do say to run it at 100:1, but even he goes a bit rich from that.

However what I he said that I hadn't heard from others, which made a certain amount of sense, is that if going from dino to synth, regardless of brand, in an engine that's been used for a fair while on dino, you should do a slow transition, rather than a "cold turkey" switch. I.e get a gallon of each blend, and alternate them, or do a couple tanks of half synth / half dino...

His reason is that he said the synth is a good high detergent cleaner by it's nature, and that it WILL remove any carbon buildup in the combustion chamber... However if you do a rapid switchover, it will do the decarboning in a very short interval, with the potential of knocking loose big chunks that could get into the rings and such before the normal combustion process could clean them out. By doing a more gradual switchover, you also get a slower and safer decarboning... Don't know that it would make a huge difference in a newer engine, but can't see that it would hurt.

Gooserider

Amsoil makes half a dozen or more premix oils (all outstanding), and only one of them is 100:1 recommended. In fact, it's called "100:1."
 
goose:
I had exactly that experience about 1980 or so when synthetics first came out. My BIL switched a Yamaha RD350 about 6 years old, to full synth. We took off on a freeway trip and within an hour losing power, overheating, would not pull reves, etc. After checking and rechecking all the usual symptoms of fuel delivery (mostly) and spark, with no success, we pulled the muffler baffles on a whim. Instant cure. The front half of the exhaust was very clean and tan minimal deposits, the rear had not only the old accumulation of carbon and mung, but also the stuff from the front had migrated backwards and almost totally blocked the baffles. Scraped and cooked in a campfire and life was fine until we got home and did it properly with the acetylene torch.

what struck me strange was that the gunk did not 'burn out' really, it just loosened and moved backwards. I would have thought sustained high load speed adn exh temps would have 'cleaned out the exhaust' as it were.


Probably not really applicable to saws, with the short, hot open exhaust path, but I think it would be good idea to do what you wrote and move it in slowly.
I alternated a few tanks when I switched to synth. Changing brands of synth, I did not, just dumped and refilled.

I know Sabre is advertised at 100:1, but to me no mechanical engine should run all day on one shot glass of oil, so I go 50:`.
Some of the club trials riders run one ounce per gallon or 128:1 (or 127:1 being technically correct for the purist mathmeticians). Not sustained high rpm, but it still sounds just scary to me.

k
 
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