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CRANK'N my 06 900

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I've been running the Polaris blue synthetic blend in my 900 for 3 year snow, and have yet to have my exhaust valves become totally gummed up.

I have cleaned them twice now however, but both times there really weren't that bad. Sled has ~1700 miles on it.

After reading the tests that Yamaha did on mineral Vs. synthetic in actual lubricity tests (bearing to bearing contact, etc) I've come to the conclusion that a synthetic blend is the best combination of film strength and lubricity as far as protecting parts and smoking .... the synthetic oils smoke less, but don't lubricate as well ....

I'm sticking with the Polaris blue synthetic blend ....
 
I've been using the castrol super duper snowmobile oil this season, and I tell ya, I can hill climb like a bat outahell!!!! Must be the oil. On a serious note, I have been using the castrol oil, and it's good stuff. If indy Dan says it will work great, better than Expensive synthetics, that's good enough for me. Doesn't smoke more than everyone else, and it's $18 bucks a jug! Giddi-up!
 
I run Injex from Home of Economy and its great! It doesn't smoke bad and everything has always checked out. Its somewhere around the 20$ mark and advertised in all the major mags so why not!
 
Amazing what you can find on this site. This thread was a GREAT read:beer;:beer;:beer;

I am very glad I found and read the whole thing. My buddy just lost a crank on his '07 600 HO. The sled had about 2500 hard mountain miles on it. He had used VES Gold religiously as instructed by the local dealer. When they pulled the motor apart they found a fair amount of rust. He was told that this definately contributed to the engine failure. Un-knowingly, the dealer attibuted this to his living near a river and the high humidity caused by it. Never mind he lives at 8000 ft in otherwise bone dry SW CO. His new motor is just now being finished up. I called him halfway through my read to fill him in on what I have learned today.

I used to think the synthetics were the way to go. I ran either VES Gold or Amsoil in my Polaris 800's and never lost an engine, but what I read makes sense. If it ever snows this winter I will have a new engine warm up regimine and a new two stroke oil, no more synthetics in 2-strokes for me.
 
Carbon

I know i am going to get flack from Indy Dan on this but the main reason i stopped using petroleum oil is the carbon deposits in the motor. Remember if you have carbon on your power valves it in also in your motor. When you get carbon build up in the exhaust ports some at any time can come off and go back in to the cylinder.
In my years of rebuilding motors i have seen carbon burn though pistons (not just a few but many) so this is a concern to me.
Here i go and now will get more flack here too but since i have been running Amsoil in my sleds i have never had any more crank or top end problems (NO RUST) and my sled is stored out side. I have been running Amsoil for 11 years with less motor wear on my 2000(no bearing replacement on an 800 crank with 5400+ miles and it is now at 7600+ mile and still running) Pistons last longer too. I think the fact that there is more Rods failures is from all the newer motors running higher compression and that is what is so hard on them. I have seen so many of the pol 800 s that the detonation has just beat the rod to death. This is on Ski-doo too but the piston is such a peace of chit it comes apart first.I do agree that Polaris Gold is junk and so is Ski-Doo synthetic.

I am not a fan of petroleum oil at all it is made from carbon and it is not meant to burn and when it does it leaves carbon. I for one will stick to Synthetic.
 
Welp ...

Looks like its probably a crank seal that caused me to sieze up last (and only) ride of the season.

Will know for sure sometime soon, friend who actually is good at this stuff felt sorry for me and is helping me out rebuilding the motor.

Crank rotates so hopefully it's ok.
 
WALMART

i was going to buy the Castrol in bulk as well from the internet..and then one day i went into a gas station and BAM!! it was right there..they charge a little more in person but they ahve it year round too..so nice to have there..

but i have seen the Castrol mainly at gas stations...my NAPA hear does not carry it..

i bought my CITGO at Orielly Auto Parts..they didnt have it in their system so they sold it to me for $2/qrt...i bought like 15 of them..and BIG R sells it too..in gallon jugs..so i might stick with it for now..until i stock up on Castrol more..i bought that afterwards and dont really wanna mix it with the CITGO..but i will eventually be running JUST Castrol..

I bought the Castrol to use in the wifes 06 700 cause i ran AMSOIL in the sleds before that..and never changed hers...will start using it this season in hers for sure..

If you want to get down to the basics..remember that IndyDan said you can run Walmarts "Super Tech" as well...i know a guy thats been using that in his 900 for 2000miles and has ZERO issues..!!!

** CAREFUL ** You can run oil from walmart as long as it has a * ( Jaso ) * rating and its FOR snowmobiles TCW 3 outboard oil alone is not good for high RPM's...........its is OK to run in your low RPM outboard.

Walmart use to have a few Jaso rated oils for sleds but I have not see them lately. the super tech outboard oil is not good enough for high RPM sled motors.
 
TTT for great info

Glad I read through to this last post from IndyDan.....

Picked up the Outboard 2 cycle TC-W3 Supertech from Walmart it says "May also be used in lawn mowers, motorcycles, chain saws and snowmobiles" But there was no JASO rating on it or in the MSDS online

Think I'll look for Castrol 2T. Castrol website says local Kragen oops, I mean OReilly can get it.
 
Been putting VES gold in for 1000 miles. Man where they dirty and sticky. Changed to sea and snow 700mls nice hardly dirty at all.The real plus is 48 buck for 4 gal verses 1 gal VES. Altho VES smells good..
 
TTT for great info

Glad I read through to this last post from IndyDan.....

Picked up the Outboard 2 cycle TC-W3 Supertech from Walmart it says "May also be used in lawn mowers, motorcycles, chain saws and snowmobiles" But there was no JASO rating on it or in the MSDS online

Think I'll look for Castrol 2T. Castrol website says local Kragen oops, I mean OReilly can get it.
I saw Castrol 2t at the local Orielly.. its just the regular 2t... is that right?
 
This might help, or just confuse you more..lol

Oils that meet the JASO FC smoke index requirement are judged to meet smoke requirement of this test.
In addition to these performance classifications, the miscibility and fluidity characteristics of oils must be
appropriate to serve in either a premix (lubricant into gasoline) or lubricant injection system. These characteristics
are described in SAE Recommended Practice, "Two-Stroke-Cycle Engine Oil Miscibility/Fluidity Classification —
J1536," which covers four grades of oil: F/M 1 for tropical climates, F/M 2 and 3 for temperate climates, and
F/M 4 for Arctic climates. Fluidity is assessed by its low-temperature Brookfield viscosity, which must be below
certain absolute values for each grade. Miscibility is determined by observing how readily it mixes with gasoline,
compared to a reference oil for each grade. SAE fluidity/miscibility grades and their low-temperature viscosities
are:

SAE Grade Allowable BrookfieldViscosity1 (cP), max

1 ) 3500 at 0 C

2 ) 3500 at -10 C

3 ) 7500 at -25 C

4 ) 17,000 at -40 C

Both miscibility and Brookfield tests must be run.
Results for candidate oil must not exceed those for reference oil by more than 10% to pass miscibility test.
 
I found this intereseing and since you are already reading...

"Ashless" TCW3 vs. "Low Ash" JASO/ISO 2 stroke oil
There have been many posts lately about which type of oil to use. I stumbled on this quote in my collection today and thought it was interesting. Pay particular attention to the final paragraph...it reinforces what I've been saying here for years about which oil to use.

Quote from Spectro oils:

Most of the OEM manufacturers oils are produced by specialty lubricant manufacturers, not the OEM and these formulas are tested and approved by the manufacturer for use in their sleds. The oils are blended according to a formula that has been developed for two-stroke snowmobile engines and this oil is usually given a rating from the American Petroleum Institute (API) of "TC", the Boating Industry Association (BIA) rating of "TC-W", or the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) rating of "TC-W II." All of these formulas were originally developed for outboard engines and were modified to suit the needs of snowmobile engines; however, motorcyclists that used these oils found that their air cooled engines ran the best on the oldest API TC oils. These API TC formulas contained a higher level of bright stock 150, a high density petroleum base stock with a consistency similar to honey, that gave the best protection against piston seizure and bearing failure. To prevent carbon buildup in the piston ring grooves, these TC oils used metal based detergents that were very effective in motorcycle engines but caused some problems in outboard engines when operated at long periods of time at one throttle setting. A whisker-like bridge could form across the sparkplug gap to permanently foul a cylinder under these conditions while the motorcyclist operating his engine at a constantly changing throttle setting never encountered this problem. When the BIA developed the TC-W rating, they excluded the use of these metal-based detergents in favor of organic detergents to eliminate this problem in outboard engines. These TC-W oils (two-cycle, water cooled) also contained lighter base oils without the bright stock 150. For engines operating in the 4,000 rpm to 5,000 rpm range, the absence of the bright stock 150 had no affect on piston and bearing life. However, off-road motorcyclists testing these new TC-W oils were disappointed with the bearing life of their engines operating at 10,000 - 11,000 rpm and quickly returned to using the TC oils.

The need for a clean two-stroke outboard oil was recognized when piston ring groove carbonization was seen as a primary cause for engine failure and a new formula designated TC-W II was developed. While this oil was significantly better for outboard use and was phosphate free, it still was not the optimum two-stroke oil for engines operating above 8,000 rpm. The phosphate free mandate was from a concern raised by environmentalists that realized that outboard engine use could permanently pollute fresh waterways just as the soap industry was beginning to eliminate phosphates from their products for the same reasons. But, snowmobiles, motorcycles and quads do not emit their exhaust directly into the water, as outboards do. Recently, efforts to develop an even cleaner outboard oil have produced the latest NMMA TC-W3 and this oil, although containing no bright stock 150, has produced better levels of lubricity and cleanliness in piston ring groove areas, however, still not nearly as good as a purely 'snowmobile use' developed oil.

The BIA evolved into the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) which works closely with the outboard manufacturers. the NMMA mandated that all oils would contain non-metallic detergent additives, no phosphorus or phosphates, if they were to have the approval of the NMMA and the outboard engine manufacturers agreed to recommend only the NMMA approved oils.

Also, many marine dealers were concerned about the flammability and flash point of out board oils. Since larger engines were now consuming huge amounts of oil they had to stock several hundred cases of oil per season. This amount of oil stored in one location had alerted the fire marshals and insurance companies attention and a solution to this risk was addressed by the NMMA. Higher flash point oil with a flash point over 200 deg. F was what they needed to achieve a category 3B fluid rating, just enough to avoid the hazardous storage and shipping restrictions they were facing with all other two cycle oils. Oil manufacturers were forced to use TC-W3 additives or blends with high flash solvents if they were allowed to keep the NMMA license. The high flash solvents caused all sorts of unburned oil problems in engines, but the insurance carriers were happy.The combination of non-metallic detergents and high flash solvents in the new TC-W 3 oils later caused some severe ring sticking in many engines and Yamaha actually required owners to use a 'ring-free' fuel additive to maintain their warranty, a symptom of being forced by the NMMA to recommend the new oils!

This is almost exactly the same situation that developed with the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the Automobile Manufacturers. They were dealing with legislation that mandated exhaust emission systems to last a certain mileage under warranty and catalytic converter failure was known to be linked to the zinc-phosphorus content in motor oils. The API, in response to the auto makers, soon mandated restricted levels of these additives and is slowly lowering them. The problem was that motorcyclists depended on these zinc-phosphorus additives to protect their higher reving motors from damage and they were a victim of a legislation that did not even apply to them (very few motorcycles have a catalytic converter). Now snowmobilers are victims of this exact same legislative situation, the elimination of phosphorus from two-cycle oils. But they do not need to be! Why? Because motorcyclists and snowmobilers can buy motorcycle oils and snowmobile oils and bypass the restrictions placed on automobiles and outboard boats.

Sea-Doo and Ski-Doo didn't go with the NMMA, they refused to allow their engines to be destroyed and recommended to their owners NOT TO EVER USE TC-W3 oils! Polaris bought the TC-W3 sales pitch at first, recognizing an inventory advantage to having only one two cycle oil to be used in their watercraft, quads and snowmobiles. But they soon discovered the same problems many had already found with the TC-W3 oils when used in a sled. Ring sticking, exhaust port blocking and low temperature flow problems. Suddenly all those advantages of the TC-W3 oils they read about from the additive maker's brochures weren't working out when weighed against all the engine failures! Have you noticed they have gone back to purely snowmobile developed snowmobile oils? Currently there are not any snowmobile OEM's recommending the outboard NMMA TC-W3 oil, and there is a reason for this. They are not acceptable in today's powervalve equipped snowmobiles! Only oil companies with little actual knowledge of snowmobiles and their specific needs continue to try to sell snowmobilers an outboard oil for their snowmobile...and this is because they have a vested interest in doing so...economy of scale by combining several markets into one and selling just one oil. Do not fall for their sales pitch!

In Japan, engine manufacturers have developed a series of strenuous engine tests that can identify poor quality oils if they don’t measure up in performance. They tested over 250 samples of two-stroke oils worldwide and used the survey results to establish these engine tests. This became the JASO classification system. (Japanese automobile standards organization).

The tests include a detergency test, lubricity test, initial torque test, exhaust smoke test and exhaust blocking test. These tests have a much closer connection to actual snowmobile engine applications compared to TC-W3 tests which are all conducted on raw-water cooled outboard engines. And for the first time ever, an oil can fail the test if it smokes too much!

The detergency test evaluates the oil’s ability to maintain the cleanliness of critical engine parts, including exhaust power valves. This is very important on power valve equipped Rotax, Yamaha and Polaris engines. The lubricity test measures two things. First, the engine is run with a load for 50 minutes then the cooling system is disconnected for ten minutes and the resulting drop in horsepower is recorded. This cycle is repeated several times and each drop in power is compared and it must not vary more than a specified amount or be more than a specified amount. Then the engine is run with increasingly leaner oil ratios: 60:1, 100:1 then 150:1. If no seizure occurs and power is maintained within a specified percentage, the oil passes. The initial torque test measures the engine’s startability when cold, an important consideration for 3-cylinder sleds.

The exhaust blocking and smoking tests are run by mixing the test oil at an over-rich 10:1 ratio and running it in a two-stroke portable generator. The exhaust is channeled into a chamber where a photo cell measures the light that can pass through the smoke. It sounds crude but it works! Finally, a real world test to measure exhaust smoke from two-stroke engines! The exhaust blocking test simply examines the pencil sized exhaust outlet for carbon blocking. At a 10:1 ratio, these tests are very hard to pass. The highest JASO rating is FC. Lower ratings are "FB" and "FA." An even higher "FD" rating could be seen in the future. Most TC-W3 oils will not pass any of these tests!

In Europe, European two-cycle engine manufacturers were simultaneously working on two-cycle oil tests to separate the cheap, poor quality oils from the top quality oils. They tested the JASO reference oils in European engines and their top reference oils in Japanese engines. They found that European two-stroke high performance engines needed an oil with a better detergency and higher temperature performance than the best JASO "FC" oils. In April, 1997, they published their ISO global standards for two-stroke oils with two quality level categories: ISO-L-EGB and ISO-L-EGC. The ISO-L-EGB aligns closely with JASO "FB" and the ISO-L-EGC aligns closely with JASO "FC" for minimum test standards. Then, they developed the "GD" detergency test to run hotter and longer (3 hours vs. 1 hour) than the JASO detergency test. Oils passing the new ISO quality level, ISO-L-EGD would be superior to any previous two-stroke oils available! Of course, it didn’t take long for oil manufacturers to develop and test oil formulations that pass this new quality test, and most of them involve using synthetic base oils. Running these tests is a very expensive and time consuming effort but in the end, a bottle of oil with one of these JASO FC/ISO- L-EGD certified ratings means that the oil meets the highest quality tests set by the engine manufacturer in Japan and Europe.

Polaris, had recognized the "all-in-one" advantages of TC-W3 two-stroke oil, and recommended the use of TC-W3 oils in their watercraft, quads and snowmobiles for several years, have recently taken Ski-Doo's position....don't use it! Basically, specially formulated snowmobile oils that pass JASO FC/ISO-L-EGD and do not follow NMMA outboard engine additive restrictions will provide much better protection for higher rpm applications (snowmobiles generally rev higher than 6,000 rpm) and still provide a superior lubricity and detergency than TC-W3 oils at the same cost with less smoke. So, use snowmobile oil in your snowmobile and outboard oil in your outboard engine.
 
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