Chainsaw 2 Cycle Oil Poll

[Lionsfan]

I said my say, I'll just challenge you to find a truck somewhere that has a radiator and an oil cooler, yet doesn't have an oil pan and sump. That being said, I can show you lots and lots of trucks that have no oil cooler whatsoever, and they rely entirely upon the oil pan. Face it: the oil pan is the first heat dissipation device, then the oil gets pumped off to the oil cooler.

I'll let you contend with this quote from another source:

"Engine oil cooling is indeed primarily facilitated by the oil pan rather than the oil coolers. While oil coolers play a significant role in maintaining optimal oil temperatures, the oil pan's design and placement contribute significantly to the overall cooling process. Here's the breakdown of why the oil pan is crucial for oil cooling:​

1. Heat Dissipation through Surface Area: The oil pan is in direct contact with the bottom of the engine block, which acts as a massive heat sink. As the engine runs, generating heat, this heat is conducted to the oil pan. The larger surface area of the oil pan allows for more effective dissipation of heat into the surrounding air.
2. Oil Reservoir and Heat Absorption: The oil pan holds the majority of the engine oil. As the engine operates, the hot oil returns to the oil pan after circulating through various engine components. The oil pan's design allows for greater contact between the hot oil and the pan itself, enabling heat transfer from the oil to the metal of the pan. This heat absorption process aids in cooling the oil.
3. Natural Convection and Cooling: The oil in the pan, after absorbing heat, tends to rise due to its lower density when heated. As the hotter oil rises, it comes in contact with the cooler sections of the oil pan and the surrounding air, leading to natural convection currents that aid in cooling the oil.
4. Oil Cooler Assistance: While oil coolers play a crucial role, especially in high-performance or heavy-duty engines, they primarily assist in situations of excessive heat. Oil coolers are often used in conjunction with the oil pan to further lower oil temperatures, especially in conditions where the engine is under heavy load or extreme operating temperatures.
5. Temperature Regulation: The oil pan, due to its proximity to the engine and its ability to absorb and dissipate heat, helps in regulating the overall temperature of the engine oil. This regulation is crucial for maintaining the oil's viscosity and lubricating properties, ensuring optimal engine performance and longevity.

In essence, while oil coolers are significant components in managing oil temperatures, the oil pan's design, position, and function as a reservoir for oil and a heat sink play a primary role in the cooling process. The combination of both the oil pan and oil coolers works synergistically to ensure the engine oil remains at the ideal operating temperature for efficient engine performance.

Pickup trucks, sure. Heavy duty trucks, could you show us some?

 

[pdqdl]

Idk what you think you're trying to prove, but you're most certainly wrong about oil pan being much of any cooling factor in liquid cooled engines.

I have five trucks on my lot right now. Only two of them have oil coolers. I wonder how that oil is getting cooled?

 

[pdqdl]

Pickup trucks, sure. Heavy duty trucks, could you show us some?

"Heavy duty" is too subjective. All the makers of pickup trucks think they are making "heavy duty" versions, yet I don't consider any of them in that class. My GMC 7000 with the 15,000lb knuckle-boom crane on it certainly is a heavy duty truck. There is no oil cooler, though. I'm pretty sure my old Ford L8000 with the Caterpillar 3208 had no oil cooler, either. With the 44,000lb rear tandem axle, it was definitely heavy duty.

A strong argument can be made, however, for any liquid cooled engine to be relying upon the coolant passages to be exchanging heat with the oil passages, thereby having a "built-in" liquid to liquid oil cooler.

Look guys, this is very simple. The oil pan catches the hottest oil, fresh from the engine. That is where the cooling begins. That is first in line, and qualifies as the primary cooling. When that hot oil gets pumped elsewhere, that is the second source of cooling, and by definition, not the primary cooling device.

If you wish to argue that the oil coolers are "primary" because they are more effective, or dissipate more kilo-calories of engine heat than the oil pan does, I'm ok with that argument. Have at it! So far, I've not found any studies anywhere that attempt to identify this arcane consideration, but I'll bet there are indeed statistics in some engineering journal somewhere.

This oil cooler vs oil pan issue is a commonly argued topic though.

https://www.google.com/search?q=oil...QIRgWGB4YHeIDBBgBIEGIBgE&sclient=gws-wiz-serp​

​

EDIT: If the oil pan isn't the "primary" oil cooling device, why are so many oil coolers fulfilling the secondary role of cooling only when the oil gets too hot? After all, the best oil coolers are thermostatically regulated. What's doing the cooling until the oil gets hot enough for the thermostat to open to flow through the cooler?​

 

[pdqdl]

Ah, but my point is valid, you must admit.

Indeed! 'Twas an exceptionally valid red herring.

 

[jellyroll]

Likely you Egr. valve recycling or slightly worn valve guides which only emit smoke on start up , the 5.3 was even worse .

It doesn't smoke on start up so idk.

 

[pdqdl]

You are correct on that. My oil test did show quite a bit of soot in suspension. However, soot is basically just colloidal graphite. It may actually act as a lubricant. ...

You might wish to read up on that statement. Here's a good place to start:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0043164817308244​

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31917890/​

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11331994/​

​

Soot is carbon, not graphite. Precisely the opposite of a lubricant.

While you are sort of correct, you didn't recognize that graphite is 100% carbon. But then again, so are diamonds. I don't think anyone would ever advocate adding diamonds to any engine to reduce friction, and you damn sure better not buy a wedding ring with just some black soot attached. They are all carbon-12.

Diamonds are formed with strong sp3 hybridised sigma covalent bonds. So strong is the bonding, that no other material holds together as strongly.
Graphite, the other major crystalline allotrope of carbon, has sp2 hybridised covalent bonds with a free electron in every bond. Graphite bonding causes it to form sheets of carbon molecules that have very little cross-linking, so the individual sheets slide very well against each other. Furthermore, it is a very stable molecule, and resists very high temperatures.

 

[bwalker]

I do like Amsoil Dominator, and to a lesser extent, terminator....errr.. interceptor in dirt bikes. About 17 years or so ago I spent a lot of time and some money getting my kids' dirt bikes set up and tuned as perfectly as I could (my bikes suffered a bit as a result, haha).

I used elf, yamalube, honda HP1?, Amsoil dominator and interceptor, motul 7 and 800, and a couple of others. I was trying to get as much fuel (and oil) thru them as possible while still burning cleanly. After a couple of months of making changes, I settled on dominator. It was the only oil (aside from the elf, which I preferred, but it was hard to find in my area) that I could jet down to around 32:1 without spooging. I like the silencer tip mid, maybe light brown and almost dry. Just a bit darker than a good plug.

A couple of those bikes are still with my one son. He finally just rebuilt the full motor of his very well used 200xc. Probably 3-350 hours on that one bottom end alone. We both felt the rod and such, and looked at the whole works that we could see with a good magnifying glass. It still felt good, there could have been a tiny bit of thrust washer wear is all, almost inconceivable at that point, we thought. Everything still rolled around as smooth as glass. The powervalve had never gunked, etc, etc. We had been checking thru many top end changes all along, of course. There was always residual oil, a nice piston wash, and overall good signs of adequate lubrication with a nice burn. Anyway, that motor had huge hours on it with lots of mx racing and offroad racing and general riding at a high-mid pack to sometimes very fast local expert level. The motor was still tight. He did the full motor anyway. My son got that bike as a young teenager and rode and raced it until he was a young man. From 140lbs to 195lbs. With tons and tons of deep sand riding on one of his practice tracks right here on the farm.

Now it is his wife's, all mechanically rebuilt nearly as new again.

The CR125 (ahem, 144) he still races from time to time has never been split, all the same products tested early on and maintenance done the same way thru the years. Tho not as many hours on it with a far tighter maintenance schedule.
There's a couple of other runners laying around of similar vintage with low hours (100-200) that have never been split either.

I ran lots of amsoil thru saws over the years too. Lately it's been lucas in the saws. Almost out of that. Good. Never again. It stinks badly for sawing and it doesn't perform as well as I'd like. It seems to form some carbon, for one thing. I bought it on a whim and didn't do any research. It's not a great oil, methinks.

I thought the dominator, and perhaps to a lesser extent the interceptor performed well over the years. It's also a testament to the durability of these particular bikes, which were chosen carefully for just that. As all my sons' racing buddies' 4 strokes broke down and had to be rebuilt, or were sold before they broke, the 2 strokes just kept on going like energizer bunnies.

I don't mind Amsoil Dominator at all.

Spooge is is 90% from jetting. Some bikes are more forgiving of rich jetting than others, however.
Guys that use dominator in bikes have co planned of corrosion issues, which is a real problem in straight ester oils.
Kevin L says it works well in saws and I believe him as he sees many saws pass through his shop.
I won't use Amsoil because I despise the company and it's deceptive marketing practices. That and it's not certified.
The KTM 200XC has a damn near bullet proof engine. I had one that I road hard in deep sand almost exclusively and never went inside the engine. My brother road it for three more years without touching the motor. When we finally tore it down its was perfect inside. The piston still had machine marks on it. This was with Yam 2r.
CR500 are another engine that will tolerate phenomenal abuse.
Kawi and Suzuki 2 strokes are at the other end of the spectrum,lol.

 

[bwalker]

No, no direct load, it needs high exhaust temps which leads to higher oil temps in and round the head. More heat, more the oil breaks down. You know, vicious cycle.

I could see where your statement is true in regards to being hard on the oil given the extra fuel dumped into the engine during the regen cycle. That shouldn't lead to higher soot loading in the oil however, unless I am missing something?

 

[bwalker]

You might wish to read up on that statement. Here's a good place to start:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0043164817308244​

​

While you are sort of correct, you didn't recognize that graphite is 100% carbon. But then again, so are diamonds. I don't think anyone would ever advocate adding diamonds to any engine to reduce friction, and you damn sure better not buy a wedding ring with just some black soot attached. They are all carbon-12.

Diamonds are formed with strong sp3 hybridised sigma covalent bonds. So strong is the bonding, that no other material holds together as strongly.
Graphite, the other major crystalline allotrope of carbon, has sp2 hybridised covalent bonds with a free electron in every bond. Graphite bonding causes it to form sheets of carbon molecules that have very little cross-linking, so the individual sheets slide very well against each other. Furthermore, it is a very stable molecule, and resists very high temperatures.

Soot for certain has abrasive properties. You would think an engineer would know this...

 

[bwalker]

It is not my field, so I concede you are more qualified than I on the subject. But I am at a loss to explain why you cannot recognize valid scientific testing when it is not the same as, say SAE tests. There is always more than one way to get useful, valid data. And I would say, categorically, that any wear test applied equally to a variety of oils will be a valid way of determining which oils have the best lubricity, even if the tests do not duplicate SAE tests or actual engine operating conditions.

Because said testing is neither valid or scientific.

 

[bwalker]

Soot is carbon, not graphite. Precisely the opposite of a lubricant.



This is contrary to my understanding of how oil works. The idea is that metal surfaces only actually touch each other briefly during startup, and then ride on a cushion of oil between them, like a hovercraft on air. This only happens if there's sufficient volume of oil to actually get between the metal bits and provide that cushion, no matter what special formulas or potions are in place. If the film strength and anti wear additives come into play after startup and during normal operation, the oil or oil system has already failed.

Different engine designs with tighter tolerances, which need less oil to maintain that oil cushion between bearings, and oil injection might get us there. Some oils claim that competitors contain dillutants, stabilizers, dyes, etc. which reduce the amount of actual lubricant that's in an ounce of two stroke oil, and by reducing those other components, the amount of lubricant in an ounce of oil can be maximized, allowing a leaner ratio to provide the same protection, and maybe there's some truth to this.

I suspect that going seriously below 50:1 oil ratios will be a race to see whether better engine technology or battery electric technology takes over the saw market first.

I'm both cynical of corporations, and a salesman by trade. Why would any of them want to sell LESS oil?

One very important factor to think about as it pertains to two cycle lubrication is migration time. As load and RPM increase migration time lessens. As such its your margin of error decreases with load and RPM. This leads to excursions where metal to metal contact happens and wear occurs. Bearings tend to get beat up first, which is counter intuitive, but I've seen it enough to know this happens. Especially in modern strato engines.
If you use 100:1 in a modern strato engine you are significantly shortening its life. Guys get away with this because they don't put enough hours on their machines to know the differance.

 

[bwalker]

Large volumes of oil , certainly do have potential for reducing oil operating temperatures & oil degradation . However , without supplemental oil coolers or exotic metal to better dissapate interal heat & integral cooling fins , sump pans are marginal within effective heat retention abatement , within todays heavy equipment engine designs that i have seen . Engines today stress cooling & lubrication systems more than ever , due to their inherent design & environmental emmission add ons .

The other thing is that as your sump capacity goes up so does the amount of additives which control things like TBN, wear metals etc.
Same principle as running more oil in a two stroke to an extent.

 

[Lionsfan]

"Heavy duty" is too subjective. All the makers of pickup trucks think they are making "heavy duty" versions, yet I don't consider any of them in that class. My GMC 7000 with the 15,000lb knuckle-boom crane on it certainly is a heavy duty truck. There is no oil cooler, though. I'm pretty sure my old Ford L8000 with the Caterpillar 3208 had no oil cooler, either. With the 44,000lb rear tandem axle, it was definitely heavy duty.

A strong argument can be made, however, for any liquid cooled engine to be relying upon the coolant passages to be exchanging heat with the oil passages, thereby having a "built-in" liquid to liquid oil cooler.

Look guys, this is very simple. The oil pan catches the hottest oil, fresh from the engine. That is where the cooling begins. That is first in line, and qualifies as the primary cooling. When that hot oil gets pumped elsewhere, that is the second source of cooling, and by definition, not the primary cooling device.

If you wish to argue that the oil coolers are "primary" because they are more effective, or dissipate more kilo-calories of engine heat than the oil pan does, I'm ok with that argument. Have at it! So far, I've not found any studies anywhere that attempt to identify this arcane consideration, but I'll bet there are indeed statistics in some engineering journal somewhere.

This oil cooler vs oil pan issue is a commonly argued topic though.

https://www.google.com/search?q=oil...QIRgWGB4YHeIDBBgBIEGIBgE&sclient=gws-wiz-serp​

​

EDIT: If the oil pan isn't the "primary" oil cooling device, why are so many oil coolers fulfilling the secondary role of cooling only when the oil gets too hot? After all, the best oil coolers are thermostatically regulated. What's doing the cooling until the oil gets hot enough for the thermostat to open to flow through the cooler?​

I would damn near guarantee that 3208 had an oil cooler. We have MTU, Detroit Diesel and Yanmar main engines in our fleet, all have oil coolers and all are free flowing and completely unregulated by any sort of thermostat.

 

[Lionsfan]

Soot for certain has abrasive properties. You would think an engineer would know this...

That's a fact. It's no accident that our engines with the longest oil change intervals have a centrifuge on them to spin out the extra soot.

 

[pdqdl]

That's a fact. It's no accident that our engines with the longest oil change intervals have a centrifuge on them to spin out the extra soot.

I always wanted one of those. They catch metal and minerals a lot faster than soot, though. With a centrifuge, it's all about density.

 

[Lionsfan]

I always wanted one of those. They catch metal and minerals a lot faster than soot, though. With a centrifuge, it's all about density.

Don't think so, but you seem to be the expert, so I'll leave you to it.

 

[Riverrail]

Sorry zero amsoil products have been tested by jaso. Any claims it has, are fraudulent.
https://www.jalos.or.jp/onfile/jaso_e-1.htmBottom link is the official list of jaso approved oils and their classifications.

That is exactly what the pictures are saying, if you read the fine print.

 

[jellyroll]

Oil may say it meets FD but won't be on the official list take lucas 2 cycle for instance but that oil is not fit for anything except door hinges.
Consult Ben on the matter ^^

 

[OM617YOTA]

Oil may say it meets FD but won't be on the official list take lucas 2 cycle for instance but that oil is not fit for anything except door hinges.
Consult Ben on the matter ^^

I like how you put stuff, that was great. I'm going to remember door hinges.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

That one has a Deutz diesel: air cooled. No water present to cool with.

Deutz, air/oil cooled,

5 qt. sump and it never overheats, no huge oil cooler on it either.

SR