I always sneak in a few ounces of Lucas oil stabilizer as well, gennys just have to work really, really hard.
It's not doing anything more useful than thickening the oil, so you'd be as well (usually better) off just picking the next higher weight oil instead.I always sneak in a few ounces of Lucas oil stabilizer as well, gennys just have to work really, really hard.
15W-50 is probably thanks to feedback like those of Cujet on Bobistheoilguy. He has used Mobil 1 15W-50 synthetic in his generators and he lives in Florida, which provides a real world situation in which the conditions are brutal and stressing.I’d also wonder if in B&S’s oil viscosity chart the oils being represented are Briggs oils. If they are, and why wouldn’t they be since the Vanguard is listed by name, then part of B&S’s oil recommendation problem is that B&S oil, outside the Vanguard stuff, is all SJ rated.
I do find it odd that even Briggs’ synthetic is only SJ rated, but looked at the locally available B&S oils this morning (30 wt, syn 5W30, but no Vanguard…outta stock) and all is only SJ rated.
Current API rating is SP, so the SJ rating is waaay obsolete…heck, that’d be oil I wouldn’t put in a 20 year old car. Always wondered why the antiquated oil certs for B&S engines.
I have posted many times on this subject. Having seen (and fixed) many portable generators fail on dino 5-30 I suggest a synthetic of slightly higher viscosity. Florida heat is tough, as is running an entire house on a 11hp generator. Example: my 2 air cooled Honda water pumps failed early with dino oil. 15W-50 M1 resulted in much longer engine life. My Robin 11HP gen set has only seen M1 15W-50 with 50 hour oil changes. It has serious hours on it with 3 hurricanes and home construction, without any problems. The oil is even clean when drained. Contrast that with the many failures (including my co-workers) run on thin dino oil. The engines get ultra hot, the oil gets very thin and the connecting rod bearing (really just an aluminum con rod) fails. Every time. This situation was repeated thousands of times here in hurricane central. Remember that 500 degree cylinder head temps are the norm in air cooled engines under full overload. I have seen 280 crankcase temps with my digital thermometer. Chris
Yea, your probably right, I just feel good seeing it ooze it's way down the funnel.It's not doing anything more useful than thickening the oil, so you'd be as well (usually better) off just picking the next higher weight oil instead.
It's not doing anything more useful than thickening the oil, so you'd be as well (usually better) off just picking the next higher weight oil instead.