Autolube or Premix?

Maintained by mods and admins. but contains all the answers to all those questions that get asked over and over and over . .
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knackeredMk1
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Autolube or Premix?

Post by knackeredMk1 » 05 Nov 2009, 22:05

Mk1s and Mk2s hold the 2 stroke oil in the frame, with the refill cap next to the headstock. I believe they hold just over 1 litre of oil the majority of which is below the lowest level of the 'viewing tube'.

Mk3s and ARs have the 2 stroke in a seperate tank that is filled behind the left hand radiator. These hold about 1.1 litres.

With regard to 2 stroke oil always use synthetic or semi-synthetic oil and make sure the oil pump is correctly adjusted as stated in the manual.

The majority opinion is that autolube is the best way to use 2 stroke oil as there is no messing about with fiddly containers every time you fill up and the engine always gets the correct amount of oil.

There are however others, for whatever reason, that use premix. In this case you should still use a high quality oil and mix at about 40:1. If you do this you will need to up your main jet by 2-3% to be safe ( eg. Main jet of 150 will go up to 154/155). Once you have settled on premix you can fine tune your jetting as appropriate.

Apparently there is a seal that goes into the hole left if you remove the oil pump completely. The part number is 91210-NH3-003, this comes from an NSR250 so is not generally available through Honda dealers so you might need to push a bit to get one.

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L0Ki
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Re: Autolube or Premix?

Post by L0Ki » 06 Nov 2009, 13:34

These are probably common questions as well for most people about the autolube system.

What about the times when im going down a hill and have shut the throttle but the bike is still holding speed, is my autolube system still giving the bike enough oil?

The answer as i see it is, if its a sustained period it best to give the bike a few blips of the throttle to get a little more oil flowing. Peace of mind?

How do I know if my autolube is set to give too much or too little oil?

"As you open the throttle, if the marks line up [on the oil pump] and it overshoots by 2mm, that's too much oil. If it doesn't line up at any point, and stops 2mm before it lines up, that's not enough oil." AlanH

What can go wrong with the oil pump?

For me and I'm very unlucky, the seal that keeps 2 stroke oil from going into the gearbox had failed and was leaking 2 stroke into the gearbox. After have owned the bike for a while its started spewing out a colour of oil i could have sweared was my 2 stroke oil. Well it was coming from the crankcase breather hose because the gearbox had overfilled with oil. Easy fix, buy the seal from LT or its a 9.5mm I.D and 16mm O.D and its 4mm thick if you have a local seal guy. The seal is shown below. BTW this is only for CRM MK models. The AR had an O-ring. Other than this I dont see much else going wrong with the pump other than total failure, but its not a very complex unit.
Image

My premix thoughts...
I ran my bike on premix for a while when i was trying to sort out my 2 stroke pump. It seemed fine but you just had to keep revving it and not letting it sit otherwise it started to get a ruff idle and it bogged for the first couple of revs before clearing its throat.

It is pretty obvious but the oil pipe into the rubber inlet manifold between the carb and the cylinder barrel should be sealed or removed (and the hole sealed) when going to premix.


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