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Marvel Mystery Oil in my 2002 RT

Agree

A lot of carbon buildup in Oilheads is can be attributed to oil consumption from what I have observed.
The ones that consume larger amounts of oil have higher buildup.
My own has very little carbon (borescope inspection) with a consumption rate of 100ml/1000km.
The real oil slurpers have lots of buildup.

Very true. My '04RT took a couple thousand miles before the rings seated and oil consumption was high at about one quart per thousand miles. During this period of high oil consumption I could hear some pinging from the engine which was no doubt caused by carbon build up. Had a '79 R100T that original piston rings never did seat. Had to have bores ball honed and new rings installed which corrected the problem. Pinging was unbelievable as was the hard carbon build up on the piston heads. Wouldn't recommend ball honing an oilhead with the nikasil cylinder liner.
 
Very true. My '04RT took a couple thousand miles before the rings seated and oil consumption was high at about one quart per thousand miles. During this period of high oil consumption I could hear some pinging from the engine which was no doubt caused by carbon build up. Had a '79 R100T that original piston rings never did seat. Had to have bores ball honed and new rings installed which corrected the problem. Pinging was unbelievable as was the hard carbon build up on the piston heads. Wouldn't recommend ball honing an oilhead with the nikasil cylinder liner.

Be very careful what you wish for. A seldom discussed but critical part of break in is the sealing of the bottom of the rings against the lands between the grooves in the piston. It is precisely a slight build up of gums and varnish in the ring grooves that accomplishes this sealing. The use of a solvent in the oil will both slow and reverse the buildup of varnish precisely where it is needed for good sealing.

MMO, Rislone, CD2 Detergent and other solvents have their place to address specific problems if and only if those problems are present, and real. Keeping a K bike sprag clutch clean is a good example.

But the indiscriminant use of any such solvent just because can have unintended consequences, such as reducing the effectiveness of ring sealing, for example.

My preference for dealing with normal carbon buildup is to run the bike hard and long going down the highway. Or, a bit of Techron Fuel System Cleaner in the fuel every 12K miles or so will address carbon in the top end without putting a detergent everywhere the oil goes.

I recommend you change the oil after dosing the engine with a full tank of fuel with Techron. Thus I time it to be just before a major service at 12K intervals.
 
I agree with you Paul. I do pretty much the same thing with Techron only at 6K oil change. No doubt run 'em hard is the best way to clean up the top end. Somewhere I read a piece about Marvel Mystery Oil and its tendency to foam because of the very high detergent properties. I say just do regular oil/filter changes with good quality oils and go for a ride and never mind the additives. I use pure gas most of the time but will fill with ethanol on occasion when finding pure gas is not super easy. When I do fill with ethanol I use regular grade just because I think it less likely to get old gas than with premium ethanol.

I broke my '94 RSL in fast and hard. Even took it to Big Twin BMW at Boise for 3 pulls to the rev limiter on the dyno when it only had 500 miles on the odometer. She made good power right to the limiter so I was very pleased and I was amazed by how flat the torque curve was and all this on otc Valvoline 20/50 VR-1 racing oil with high ZDDP content.
 
Andy, Don't you think you're living on borrowed time on the in-tank hoses?

Good point, especially being that my livelyhood is sales and use of hydraulic hoses. Something I will address this winter and report.

I will say though, that up here in Wisconsin, I make it a point of not using ethanol blended fuels whenever possible, and I never store the bike unused for any length of time if I do have to fill it with E10.
 
Good point, especially being that my livelyhood is sales and use of hydraulic hoses. Something I will address this winter and report.

I will say though, that up here in Wisconsin, I make it a point of not using ethanol blended fuels whenever possible, and I never store the bike unused for any length of time if I do have to fill it with E10.

The cobblers shoes, eh?

That may be the difference. Here in Mass. my 04 had hoses that were fairly brittle but we're only E10 now.
 
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