Engine med RX

[FJ29ER]

Anybody use it? Made by yamalube. Was at the dealer the other day returning the CCT i got since I put the MCCT in. Saw a FJ out front and i liked the windscreen so found out who's it was and it was an advisers. Talked to him for a few minutes..he has 25k on his FJ and has had no issues. It is a later 2016 it looks like. Original CCT, Just about to do the valve adjust though.

So he did the sales pitch etc and showed me valves out of another FZ. The intake valve was caked with carbon and the exhaust valve was burnt looking but clean. His pitch was "something too much carbon, lean condition, hot valve=tight" etc idk..tend to kinda tune salesmen out, He says he uses this stuff every time he fuels up and has for the last 20k....

Did say something about fowling the plugs though.

I ended up buying a few bottles lol but think it would hurt to try?

[Cruizin]

1 hour ago, FJ29ER said:

Anybody use it? Made by yamalube. Was at the dealer the other day returning the CCT i got since I put the MCCT in. Saw a FJ out front and i liked the windscreen so found out who's it was and it was an advisers. Talked to him for a few minutes..he has 25k on his FJ and has had no issues. It is a later 2016 it looks like. Original CCT, Just about to do the valve adjust though.

So he did the sales pitch etc and showed me valves out of another FZ. The intake valve was caked with carbon and the exhaust valve was burnt looking but clean. His pitch was "something too much carbon, lean condition, hot valve=tight" etc idk..tend to kinda tune salesmen out, He says he uses this stuff every time he fuels up and has for the last 20k....

Did say something about fowling the plugs though.

I ended up buying a few bottles lol but think it would hurt to try?

Same as the fuel conditioner you can get at Autozone for half the price of a dealer product. I really try to avoid buying anything from dealers. 

[2and3cylinders]

Check out Chevron Techron Concentrate Plus available almost anywhere

 

[Cruizin]

And avoid ethanol gas if you can. Gas station by my house has non ethanol 93 octane and it burns clean. 

[skipperT]

7 hours ago, Cruizin said:

Same as the fuel conditioner you can get at Autozone for half the price of a dealer product. I really try to avoid buying anything from dealers. 

Not true. And unless you’ve pulled apart multiple engines that have used ( Medrx) / Ringfree (which I have) versus no fuel additive, I don’t believe you have enough data to back that up. 

@FJ29ER - formerly known as Ringfree, and also ringfree plus, medrx is a fuel  treatment combined with fuel stabilizer that removes carbon buildup. It does what it says it does, although if you can find Ringfree plus, it’s the old formula (renamed).
Was originally developed by Yamaha for treating carbon buildup on outboard engines, (along with combustion chamber cleaner) it works on any internal combustion engine. You can use it in 2 different doses, shock treating or constant treating. You do need to replace spark plugs and change the engine oil after a shock treatment (not constant treat) because the carbon breaks down and can affect the heat range and condition of the spark plug, and it can dump heavy carbon deposits in the engine oil (after a shock treat)
IME crossplane engine valve lash get tight. I’ve seen it on many cp3’s, and several super 10’s. Yet to do a cp2 fz07, so jury is still out on that one.

imho Carbon buildup causes valve lash to get LOOSE, not tight, because it gets between the valve seat and the valve which in turn causes the valve to be further down in the cylinder head (not tighter again IME) as opposed to sucking further INTO the cylinder head when closed, which would cause tighter valve lash.  
where the service writer lead you astray, was by stating that if you use medrx, your valve lash will be good, which IMO Is a bogus statement. There’s no guarantees for that, all engines wear differently. 
medrx will however decrease and prevent carbon buildup on piston crowns, rings, valve stems and seats, and inside the throttle bodies and intake tract. 

however, there’s also no substitute for running good quality, 91 or better name brand gas as Cruizin mentioned. It burns cleaner and leaves fewer deposits behind. 
Ethanol free fuel is generally thought to be better, but harder to find in some areas. 

-Skip

Edited October 11, 2019 by skipperT

[Cruizin]

3 hours ago, skipperT said:

Not true. And unless you’ve pulled apart multiple engines that have used ( Medrx) / Ringfree (which I have) versus no fuel additive, I don’t believe you have enough data to back that up. 

@FJ29ER - formerly known as Ringfree, and also ringfree plus, medrx is a fuel  treatment combined with fuel stabilizer that removes carbon buildup. It does what it says it does, although if you can find Ringfree plus, it’s the old formula (renamed).
Was originally developed by Yamaha for treating carbon buildup on outboard engines, (along with combustion chamber cleaner) it works on any internal combustion engine. You can use it in 2 different doses, shock treating or constant treating. You do need to replace spark plugs and change the engine oil after a shock treatment (not constant treat) because the carbon breaks down and can affect the heat range and condition of the spark plug, and it can dump heavy carbon deposits in the engine oil (after a shock treat)
IME crossplane engine valve lash get tight. I’ve seen it on many cp3’s, and several super 10’s. Yet to do a cp2 fz07, so jury is still out on that one.

imho Carbon buildup causes valve lash to get LOOSE, not tight, because it gets between the valve seat and the valve which in turn causes the valve to be further down in the cylinder head (not tighter again IME) as opposed to sucking further INTO the cylinder head when closed, which would cause tighter valve lash.  
where the service writer lead you astray, was by stating that if you use medrx, your valve lash will be good, which IMO Is a bogus statement. There’s no guarantees for that, all engines wear differently. 
medrx will however decrease and prevent carbon buildup on piston crowns, rings, valve stems and seats, and inside the throttle bodies and intake tract. 

however, there’s also no substitute for running good quality, 91 or better name brand gas as Cruizin mentioned. It burns cleaner and leaves fewer deposits behind. 
Ethanol free fuel is generally thought to be better, but harder to find in some areas. 

-Skip

Well, I've rebuilt over 15 car engines in my life, both top and bottom ends.  Two stroke dirtbike engines, Four stroke dirtbike engines, and a few streetbike engines. MedRX is no better than the Chevron Techron, the Lucas Oil fuel additives, and most of the 10 other top shelf fuel additives. They all contain the same active ingredient, PEA and anyone who says that their "other" ingredients are superior are basically doing the old snake oil sales techniques.  Ill explain below. 

Yamalube does not manufacture MedRX or Ringfree. Like Honda, they purchase and repackage/white label their oils and additives from petroleum/chemical firms.  The active ingredient in most fuel additives that do the "cleaning" per say is Polyether-amine, or P.E.A. as it is better known. It's a nitrogen based detergent that cleans the top end of engines and fuel injectors and deals with the total crap that is in our gas here in the USA now days. Including Ethanol.  

There are only like 8 companies who actually manufacture fuel additives and oils, and then companies like gumout, royal purple, redline, Honda, Yamaha, Napa etc, etc purchase in bulk and package them under their names. Most all are about the same, with PEA Nitrogen as the active ingredient and some with other additives added in for marketing or fuel stabilization. 

Chevron even patented "Techron" for marketing purposes, but it too is just PEA with their stabilizer added. This allows them to market the superior technology and all that bull. 

PEA is what is used in all fuel additives, sometimes they call it something different but its basically a strong nitrogen formula.  It is the strongest detergent additive available, this is why all fuel additives use it as the main ingredient. 

Any top shelf fuel additive with PEA in it works fine. I premix my dirt, street and snowmobile fuels with non ethanol 93 octane fuel and Royal Purple 10722 additive in five gallon race jugs. I use top end oil for the two strokes. 

I like the Royal purple because it has a strong fuel stabilizer so it can sit over the winter and the fuel won't go bad. But really , to determine the best addiive, dont worry so much about the brand, and just read the labels and pick the one that has the highest % of PEA for the lowest cost. EVerything else is just BS marketing.

It also costs a whole hell of a lot less than anything sold at a USA bike dealership. A lot of the guys I race hare scrambles with use it as well, including the service manager at my local Yamaha Dealership.  😉

[skipperT]

Ok that’s good info, thanks. 

I haven’t compared specific ingredients as I was unsuccessful at getting a breakdown of exactly what is in the Medrx (or Ringfree back in the day) but it’s good to know that there ARE cheaper alternatives that may do the same thing. I do recognize that Yamaha/Honda/( insert manufacturers name here) - do not produce their own chemicals. It obviously doesn’t make sense from a cost standpoint for them to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. 

I would love to do a back-to-back comparison of additives to see which rebranded stuff is the same. 

-S

[betoney]

9 hours ago, Cruizin said:

And avoid ethanol gas if you can. Gas station by my house has non ethanol 93 octane and it burns clean. 

One thing to note about Non-Ethanol fuel - and I am merely repeating this from the source - When I talked to Travis at 2WheelDynoWorks, he told me that they test and develop their fuel maps with Shell or Chevron E10 pump premium.  When I asked about non-ethanol fuel he made a point of stating that it WILL alter the AFR and burn differently (richer) than the fuel map that they created.  Not sure if that change is detectable by the right wrist or if the bike can compensate? or how the bike will run at 10,000' vs sea level?  

[koth442]

Well this has been very informative, thanks Skip and Cruizin.

[FJ29ER]

1 hour ago, skipperT said:

. 

I would love to do a back-to-back comparison of additives to see which rebranded stuff is the same. 

-S

Someone needs to set up a injector cleaning machine and point them at a dirty carbonned up valve with different cleaners and see which valve starts to clean up first. That would be interesting.

 

I Picked up 4 of them for like $8. They are convenient because the size of them mixes with 5 gallons. So just carry one when I go to fill up and throw it away but I am sure if you got some chemical breakdown of them it would be similar .

 

I will probably start investigating better fuel anyways.

Edited October 11, 2019 by FJ29ER

[2and3cylinders]

Like I said Chevron Techron is the easiest to find and you can often get it on sale for a two-for-one dollar per ounce I find it's been the cheapest and most readily available I also use the blue marine stable

[Cruizin]

1 hour ago, FJ29ER said:

Someone needs to set up a injector cleaning machine and point them at a dirty carbonned up valve with different cleaners and see which valve starts to clean up first. That would be interesting.

 

I Picked up 4 of them for like $8. They are convenient because the size of them mixes with 5 gallons. So just carry one when I go to fill up and throw it away but I am sure if you got some chemical breakdown of them it would be similar .

 

I will probably start investigating better fuel anyways.

The Lucas fuel additive has amoung the highest amount of PEA. 

[Cruizin]

Also, I want to add that no cleaner is going to remove the sludge and carbon build up on old clogged up valves in one application. Such test are worthless because when some carbon is removed, it is because the tester was trying 3-4 different brands, and each one of those were actually starting to soften the carbon. When the final test comes and some carbon comes off after adding "brand x" , it isnt because brand x was any better than brand A before it, it was because Brand A, Brand B, Brand m all did their job and softened the carbon and the final test of "brand X' was just when the carbon broke off.

It takes multiple applications to remove carbon deposits. And, what do you think happens to that carbon when it comes off the valves? It goes into the engine, scars up the cylinder walls and rings and everything else. Carbon doesn't just dissipate. So keep that in mind if you have a high mileage engine. There are also instances where carbon is actually doing an old engine a favor by filling in worn out gaps and keeping compression high on a worn out engine. 

The best course of action is to use any brand of fuel additive from day one on new engines so that carbon never does build up in the first place. Any brand of PEA nitrogen fuel additive works fine. 

[skipperT]

3 hours ago, betoney said:

One thing to note about Non-Ethanol fuel - and I am merely repeating this from the source - When I talked to Travis at 2WheelDynoWorks, he told me that they test and develop their fuel maps with Shell or Chevron E10 pump premium.  When I asked about non-ethanol fuel he made a point of stating that it WILL alter the AFR and burn differently (richer) than the fuel map that they created.  Not sure if that change is detectable by the right wrist or if the bike can compensate? or how the bike will run at 10,000' vs sea level?  

Good question, and I don’t know either offhand. 

The only thing that comes to mind is O2 feedback, which most flashes ignore. If the tuner has the AFR tables on the leaner side, then fuel type would help combustion, richer side and you would probably notice a lack of power and fuel mileage decrease. IIRC some engines can make more power either on the rich or the lean side, and this is also rpm dependent, forced induction or NA, compression ratios, temps, etc. lots of variables!

Because most motorcycles don‘t have knock sensors, there’s really no way to tell during normal  riding conditions. As you mentioned, it would probably be “wrist and rider dependent”.

Atmospheric pressure is measured by the ECM and the maps would be adjusted accordingly.

-Skip

[FJ29ER]

1 hour ago, Cruizin said:

Also, I want to add that no cleaner is going to remove the sludge and carbon build up on old clogged up valves in one application. Such test are worthless because when some carbon is removed, it is because the tester was trying 3-4 different brands, and each one of those were actually starting to soften the carbon. When the final test comes and some carbon comes off after adding "brand x" , it isnt because brand x was any better than brand A before it, it was because Brand A, Brand B, Brand m all did their job and softened the carbon and the final test of "brand X' was just when the carbon broke off.

It takes multiple applications to remove carbon deposits. And, what do you think happens to that carbon when it comes off the valves? It goes into the engine, scars up the cylinder walls and rings and everything else. Carbon doesn't just dissipate. So keep that in mind if you have a high mileage engine. There are also instances where carbon is actually doing an old engine a favor by filling in worn out gaps and keeping compression high on a worn out engine. 

The best course of action is to use any brand of fuel additive from day one on new engines so that carbon never does build up in the first place. Any brand of PEA nitrogen fuel additive works fine. 

Was thinking of a injector cleaner machine which can hold up to 8 injectors so you could in theory test 8 different cleaners. 

But anyways I agree with the "from day one". And even using it now/little later/here and there you could in theory keep it from building up to an amount that might effect something.