Clutch slip and synthetic oil.

[jasonp]

I put some synthetic oil in my four wheeler about a month ago. I got some Artic cat 0-40w "wet clutch safe" fully synthetic stuff.
I ride almost every weekend and I was racing around today and took it down the road. I found that when I started to shift quickly and really started to get hard on the clutch that the would rev down quickly and then be fully engaged. So it took that extra second to fully engage and the shift or the clutch didn't lockup as quick, feels spongy basically. I am disappointed for sure. I have the extra clutch plate in and Barnett HD clutch springs (I think they told me 10 percent heaver then stock)that you can feel the clutch is harder to pull. I don't think my clutch is worn out as I had it apart just previous to this and was held great with the yamalube and JD 30w torq gard stuff.

 

[jasonp]

basically before with straight weight oil or the yamalube stuff it would just lock up as soon as you let the clutch out. If you dumped it the clutch would basically pull the engine down just as quick. Now when letting out the clutch quickly, it just slowly brings the engine down. Well not slowly just not as quick as before. There is a slight delay before the clutch locks totally up. Just for clarification.

 

[griff]

Your metal plates are probably polished good Jason, and they tend to polish the fibers a bit as well.

Easy fix is to wet-sand the metal plates (not the fibers!) with 400-600 grit. Doesnt need much at all. A light roughing on both sides will usually do the trick. Thoroughly clean, and re-install. They'll bed in fine again, even with synthetic oil. Otherwise, get fresh clutch plates all around.

If you remember some of our previous conversations, I believe the whole wet-clutch safe (JASO MA) is a big scam. A friend of mine just had the same problem on his '97 GSXR, and he was pissed after spending a wad of cash on Motul full synth. He's putting in new plates now.

 

[jasonp]

Your metal plates are probably polished good Jason, and they tend to polish the fibers a bit as well.

Easy fix is to wet-sand the metal plates (not the fibers!) with 400-600 grit. Doesnt need much at all. A light roughing on both sides will usually do the trick. Thoroughly clean, and re-install. They'll bed in fine again, even with synthetic oil. Otherwise, get fresh clutch plates all around.

If you remember some of our previous conversations, I believe the whole wet-clutch safe (JASO MA) is a big scam. A friend of mine just had the same problem on his '97 GSXR, and he was pissed after spending a wad of cash on Motul full synth. He's putting in new plates now.

Yeah, I'm pretty blue about it. I know I'm getting a little more performance from the oil and that makes me happy.
I'll switch the oils first and see what happens and the problem goes away.
I know the steels are starting to get smoother. Last time I checked them they still had a little bit of patteren on them but deffentally not new.

 

[dave76]

Wow I'll have to let ya's know when I go the Amsoil route.

 

[jasonp]

I switched oil and the clutch slip went away. I also looked up in the manual what would cause clutch slipage. "To light of an engine oil".
Since I have run yamalube which is syn and have had no problems I thought that was interesting that I was getting clutch slip with this oil. Now I know why. To light. Nothing to do with it being syn.

 

[griff]

That makes perfect sense Jason. I hadnt known any one to run an oil with a cold 0w base in a quad or dirt-bike, lowest most people try is 5w-something. On my off-road stuff I usually stick with 10w-something.

0w is pretty much like water at startup (I use 0w20 in my truck and car).

When you had the AC 0w40 in there, did the clutch slip seem to go away a little when it warmed up good?

 

[jasonp]

That makes perfect sense Jason. I hadnt known any one to run an oil with a cold 0w base in a quad or dirt-bike, lowest most people try is 5w-something. On my off-road stuff I usually stick with 10w-something.

0w is pretty much like water at startup (I use 0w20 in my truck and car).

When you had the AC 0w40 in there, did the clutch slip seem to go away a little when it warmed up good?

It would slip all the time, hot or cold. Interesting that AC recomends this oil in most of there line up.
Yeah the oil looked like water for how it would run out of the bottle.
Personally from now on I am going to use what weight oil the manufacture recomends in there products.

 

[hatfield44]

Personally from now on I am going to use what weight oil the manufacture recomends in there products.

It's hard to out think paid engineers. It does happen from time to time though.