LazyBastard
TY 4 Stroke God
Its ok to wait for the red light. There's no risk to your motor. You can literally wait for the red light, and finish your 500 mile day without worries (as long as you check to make sure you don't have a sharp stick through your tank causing the oil to drain out). The oil light basically means "keep riding but pay attention that serious damage hasn't happened."
4Fighter
TY 4 Stroke God
:shock: That isn't really the way it should be.
Maybe they do things differently in Japan to take away the inconvenience of getting oil on your hands when it's not necessary :lol:
LB, you must realize that the concept of running an engine until the idiot light comes on goes against everything we've been taught about small and large engine maintenance. At least it's not a pressure light.
I see your point though, if the light comes on when you're 1-1/2 to 2 quarts down, then you know how much to add. Something along those lines anyway. Or is it when the gear reduction rattles too loudly at idle?
Maybe they do things differently in Japan to take away the inconvenience of getting oil on your hands when it's not necessary :lol:
LB, you must realize that the concept of running an engine until the idiot light comes on goes against everything we've been taught about small and large engine maintenance. At least it's not a pressure light.
I see your point though, if the light comes on when you're 1-1/2 to 2 quarts down, then you know how much to add. Something along those lines anyway. Or is it when the gear reduction rattles too loudly at idle?
LazyBastard
TY 4 Stroke God
Its not a matter of maintenance. Its dry sump. As long as the "suck" tube is sucking oil, you're fine to drive.
treewhacker
Expert
Lazybastard is right. Just like I was trying to point out. As long as you have enough oil in the tank that the RETURN keeps up and it doesn't suck air, it will keep pumping oil to the engine. The down side of not having the full 3 quarts is that the less oil you have to circulate, the hotter the oil will run because it is cycling more often. In other words, if you had a 5 gallon tank, the oil would run much cooler because it has more time to cool in the lines and reservoir. I still believe that if it goes down from full to 1/4 low, there's no reason it won't keep going down till it eventually runs out. Just my opinion.
SSShop
Newbie
At the start of this year I replaced the Yamahalube with Klotz Synthetic 4 Stroke oil, cool smell, like bananas. In 1200 miles I used a 1/2 quart, I have had to clean a small spot on the filter in the airbox, other than that, no issues...Started fine after a night outside @ -38.
grauser
Extreme
Lazy, Some people on here take the posts on here as gospel, where did you get your information???? Hopefully it was from a reliable source at Yamaha. Not, busting on you, just looking for facts. :wink: :wink: :wink
LazyBastard
TY 4 Stroke God
I never said to run it with the oil can completley EMPTY, it still needs enough oil that it can suck. Its all about how the system is designed. Engine oil level is kept constant by the variable level external oil tank. Just look at the system yourself and you'll see that its truth.
When the oil light goes on, its a warning indicator to the driver that they should take particular interest in the oil level themselves. Its like saying, "I no longer guarantee that there is ANY oil in there, so you'd better check it out for yourself."
When the oil light goes on, its a warning indicator to the driver that they should take particular interest in the oil level themselves. Its like saying, "I no longer guarantee that there is ANY oil in there, so you'd better check it out for yourself."
race24x
TY 4 Stroke Master
Lazy is right the oil light is only attached to a oil level indicator. You PROBABALY could make it back to add some oil or to the next store or whatever. But like he said you should check it to see what the problem is. It would suck to find out it was a line leaking oil out and all you had to do was stop and tighten it. Instead you drive all of the way home to run your engine out of oil. I tipped my machine up on one ski the other day moving out of the way for a groomer and when I started it I found the light on. I shut it off and checked to see if I had spilled it everywhere or what the problem was. It ended up being the float or whatever indicates oil level just hadnt come down to show it was full again. I started it back up and it was fine.
rightarm
TY 4 Stroke Master
Treewhacker even if the oil level shows you're down 1 or 2 quart's it does not mean that the oil temp's will increase because the oil is circulated more.If you've noticed while doing your oil change that the oil is cooled as well. 
LazyBastard
TY 4 Stroke God
The oil is run through an oil cooler, AND it runs through an aluminum (highly conductive) oil can with very large surface area. I doubt that there would be any measurable difference in oil temperature.
YamahaRx-Warrior
Expert
2500 Miles on the warrior changed to ams-oil at 500 miles and not even a half a quart low.
Dads warrior is the same way also useing ams-oil.
Dads warrior is the same way also useing ams-oil.
F1Rocks
Veteran
I would not entirely subscribe to the belief that your oil temperature will not rise appreciably if you are low on oil (let's say a quart and a half) on a three quart total system.
I have a Porsche 911 that uses 11 quarts of oil. It is dry sump with three very large coolers. If I am two quarts low and running consistently in the upper third of the rpm range. The oil will be a lot higher temperature on a track day. That being said most of you are, I hope running synthetic oil which will still have good properties at an elevated temperature but with only three quarts and 10,000 rpm's I wouldn't like to take the chance for very long.
I have a Porsche 911 that uses 11 quarts of oil. It is dry sump with three very large coolers. If I am two quarts low and running consistently in the upper third of the rpm range. The oil will be a lot higher temperature on a track day. That being said most of you are, I hope running synthetic oil which will still have good properties at an elevated temperature but with only three quarts and 10,000 rpm's I wouldn't like to take the chance for very long.
LazyBastard
TY 4 Stroke God
It doesn't make sense to compare this to what is relatively a COW. The way the oil system is set up, heat dispersion rate is constant, not a factor of oil volume. The same volume of oil will flow through the oil cooler, despite the overall volume of oil in the system, and the heat dispersion from the oil tank is based on the surface area of the TANK.
F1Rocks
Veteran
Moooooo.
Not trying to compare, they are different entities as you so politely state, simply trying to say in a dry sump engine I would not want to run at half the designed capacity for extended periods and although you are running the same volume through the oil cooler I would still be concerned that the temperature would be affected. If so we should all run with only enough to keep the suction end filled for weight reduction LOL.
Are the tanks baffled?
Not trying to compare, they are different entities as you so politely state, simply trying to say in a dry sump engine I would not want to run at half the designed capacity for extended periods and although you are running the same volume through the oil cooler I would still be concerned that the temperature would be affected. If so we should all run with only enough to keep the suction end filled for weight reduction LOL.
Are the tanks baffled?
LazyBastard
TY 4 Stroke God
What I'm saying is that there are exactly two places where oil will release heat; the cooler and the tank. The cooler is obviously going to remove the same amount of heat per volume of oil that runs through it regardless of the actual oil level (unless there isn't enough oil to fill the cooler - in which case SHUT DOWN IMMEDIATLY!), and the tank is an aluminum can with two hoses on it. As everybody knows, aluminum is an excellent conductor (of both heat and electricity), aproximately the same conductivity as copper, so regardless of the actual oil quantity in the tank, the limiting factor for removing heat THERE is the AIR around it (which is not affected by oil level).
Now if you are pumping in X watts of heat per time unit, then GRANTED, a lower volume of oil will heat up FASTER, *BUT*, the point where heat dissipated = heat gained is not dependant on the oil level, so the EVENTUAL temperature that the oil reaches will be unchanged.
Ah, something I just noticed... you specifically said "on a track day". You notice higher oil temperatures with lower oil volumes when you are making SHORT RUNS. Yes, that fits. If you run it on the HIGHWAY at both oil levels, you will find that the oil temperature is the same. Unless you are drag racing, snowmobiling is more like highway driving. Now, what about those WOT mile after mile lake runs? Yes, the sled was DESIGNED for those. The oil temperature on a lake run will be the same regardless of oil level.
Now there are places where one should hesitate to run hard with low oil... Asphalt and grass drags come to mind (where there is insufficient cooling to run long)
Now if you are pumping in X watts of heat per time unit, then GRANTED, a lower volume of oil will heat up FASTER, *BUT*, the point where heat dissipated = heat gained is not dependant on the oil level, so the EVENTUAL temperature that the oil reaches will be unchanged.
Ah, something I just noticed... you specifically said "on a track day". You notice higher oil temperatures with lower oil volumes when you are making SHORT RUNS. Yes, that fits. If you run it on the HIGHWAY at both oil levels, you will find that the oil temperature is the same. Unless you are drag racing, snowmobiling is more like highway driving. Now, what about those WOT mile after mile lake runs? Yes, the sled was DESIGNED for those. The oil temperature on a lake run will be the same regardless of oil level.
Now there are places where one should hesitate to run hard with low oil... Asphalt and grass drags come to mind (where there is insufficient cooling to run long)
