Serious Problems With Running Ethanol Blended Gas In Your 2-Stroke Dirt Bike
I’m sure you’ve already seen it at your local gas station: fuel blended with ethanol. It’s becoming more and more common, and it’s getting harder and harder to find gas stations that do not use the blend as their available fuel. According to the EPA, as long as you’re using it in a car or truck that was manufactured in 2001 or later, you should be fine. Unfortunately, some small, 2 stroke...
Octane Rating & How It Will Affect Your Dirt Bike Engine’s Performance
Not all fuel is created equal, and not all vehicles (dirt bikes included) can run on the same type of fuel. As a result, octane ratings were established to classify the different qualities of fuel into distinct performance categories. And it’s this octane rating that ultimately determines what we put into our fuel tanks on a daily basis. Therefore, it’s important you know the ins and outs of what...
Should You Trust The Oil Injection System On Your 2-Stroke Motorcycle?
Ever since the two stroke engine gained mass appeal a few decades ago, debates have been waged in various communities (dirt bike included) over whether the oil injection systems commonly found in two strokes were more of a solution or a disaster waiting to happen. Those debates are just as strong today; however, over the years research and experience have changed some riders’ views on...
What is Oil Film Strength & Why It’s Important To Your Dirt Bike
Film strength. We’ve all heard of it at some point, but most of us aren’t exactly sure what it is, or what it does for our dirt bike engines. We know that it has something to do with oil, but that’s about it. In this article, I'll try to answer the previous questions and take a little bit of the mystery out of the curious little component of oil called oil film strength. The simple answer is that film strength is protection for...
Is Biodegradable Engine Oil Worth The Investment In The Long Run?
In this article, I'm going to give you a brief introduction of what biodegradable oil is, how they're being used in today's performance engines and give you some guidance on whether they're ultimately worth the investment. In today's environmentally conscious society biodegradable resources have become more popular than ever before. And one of the leading pioneers of the biodegradable market...
A Brief Introduction To Castor Motor Oil, One Of The Most Prolific Oils In...
Castor oil was once the undisputed king of motor oils. It proved to be a shining star in a sea of very poor quality crude oils, and was commonly used in not only combustion engines, but transmissions as well. But besides being popular motor oil, do you know much else about this oil that comes from a plant? In this article, we're going to get into castor oil to find out exactly what it is, how it came to...
O-Ring Chain VS Roller Chain: Which Chain Is Better & Which One Will Work...
If you've ever visited a dirt bike, motocross, or other motorcycle-based forum for any significant amount of time, you've more than likely encountered multiple threads where the following question was asked: Which chain should I use - an o-ring chain or a roller chain? This debate has been waging for years, and there will always be those who sit on either side of the fence. I don't seek to give you a definitive...
What Does “Shot Peening” Do & How It Increases Strength In Metals
Shot peening is a process invented in the 1930s specifically for the purpose of increasing the fatigue strength of various metal components that encounter high levels of alternating stress on a regular basis (i.e. motorcycle engines and chains). In other words, it makes shot peened parts on your bike stronger and last for much longer than they normally would. Below you'll find a brief synopsis of shot peening...
