Any videos or photographs of the oil change process?

 

You don't need to pull bodywork or anything.
What do you need to know?

 

You don't need to pull bodywork or anything.
What do you need to know?

You don't need to pull any bodywork to drain the oil, but there wasn't any way I could get my hands in there to pull the filter, especially with a hot engine.
Two bolts and a few pushpins on the left side gave me enough room to do the filter.

 

You put in regular Kawi Dino oil for the rest of the break in or switch to synthetic? Gotta do my first oil change soon and I have factory Kawi Dino oil and Motul 7100, trying to decide which to use.

 

I'm going regular Kawasaki until well past 600, and at least a track day.

 

I also changed oil including filter around 300 miles, and yep same here, no visible metal. I had to use a strap wrench to break the filter loose, then putting back in I was reaching between the headers. Depending on how difficult the left side fairing is to remove, I may just do that from now on, there is very little room with it in place.

 

Oil filter socket, and a broken back short 3/8 ratchet.

 

What part # is the oil filter? What oil did you use?

 

That dreaded Oil thread

 

It's the same as a very long list of Kawasaki models. 16097- 0008

 

I'm getting ready to do my first service and pleasantly surprised the oil filter is the same between the ZX6 and ZX4. I switched to K&N oil filters on my ZX6 3 years ago because of the location and the top nut. I have a brand new 16097- 0008 oil filter that's been sitting in the garage for a couple of years that I will finally be able to use on the ZX4.

 

Changed oil at 509 miles, it was the cleanest of any break-in oil I've ever seen. Very tiny bit of super fine glitter in the pan but only visible after sitting for a while. Had to stab the filter with a screwdriver to generate enough torque to remove it, why Kawi?

 

Yeah it was definitely not torqued to the 17.5Nm the shop manual calls for.

 

Did my oil change today at 400 miles. Looked pretty cloudy. My filter strap wrench partially crushed the filter. It was tighter than I thought it should be. Filter numbers same as described. Taiwan filter original.

 

First oil change yesterday at 947km.

All the break in was done in August in 35C+ heat, high humidity.

About 1/3 was on the highway. Some stoplight to stoplight here and there, maybe about 70km of city driving total.
The remainder was in the twisties.

First time breaking in a motorcycle, I don't think I was particularly gentle with it. Lots of hard accelerations and decelerations within the first 100km.
When I asked, the mechanic said that relative to a "normal" first oil change, mine had more metal in it.

I suspect that most people here (in Japan) opt for a "gentler" break in, so that might skew the definition of normal.
Based on Japanese online discussion it seems that many people here opt to cruise on the highway in 6th gear at 6k RPM for 1000km. Which doesn't sound particularly good for the piston rings to me.

Curious if your first oil change looked like this.

 

First oil change yesterday at 947km.

ll the break in was done in August in 35C+ heat, high humidity.

About 1/3 was on the highway. Some stoplight to stoplight here and there, maybe about 70km of city driving total.
The remainder was in the twisties.

First time breaking in a motorcycle, I don't think I was particularly gentle with it. Lots of hard accelerations and decelerations within the first 100km.
When I asked, the mechanic said that relative to a "normal" first oil change, mine had more metal in it.

I suspect that most people here opt for a "gentler" break in, so that might skew the definition of normal.
Based on other online discussion it seems that many people here opt to cruise on the highway in 6th gear at 6k RPM for 1000km. Which doesn't sound particularly good for the piston rings to me.

Curious if your first oil change looked like this.

Mine didn’t look like that. That looks a little milky, like there’s some water in there.

 

No matter what the first oil change looks like, the second is more telling. I did the first at 600 miles, putting in non-synthetic oil, and the second at 1000, moving to full synthetic.

The first change should see the vast majority of metal as the engine settles in to operating state. If there's lots of metal or oil discoloration in the second round then you should be a little more concerned.

For the water ingestion, most intake systems have a drainage routes for oil and water which SHOULD get any stray water coming into the system.

 

shouldnt it all evap when the oil is up to temp if it were rain? coolant is a lot harder to cook off

 

In theory it's a closed system so the water wouldn't boil out.

 

The water will boil out of the crankcase vent when it gets hot enough and get ingested into the airbox, into the engine and out the tailpipe.

There is a path for water to evaporate and escape.

Oil takes a lot longer to get to temp than coolant, and it has to be sustained around 180F or hotter to start evaporating all the moisture in the crankcase. Water boils at 212F, but you don't have to hit that temp to get it to evaporate. But you have to give it time to cook off.

When your engine is warm and you shut it down, it pulls moisture back into the crankcase as it cools off. Hot air is much more susceptible to absorbing water than cold air.

This is why it's important to have some long runs with the engine to let it really get up to temp. Short trips are the worst since they let the moisture accumulate.

Oil temp gauges are most useful for me to know when the engine is too cold to shut down, but most people only think about using it to watch out for hot temps.

This becomes very evident when you have a windowed engine cover and can see the moisture in the crankcase and how long it takes to boil out.

This video shows the moisture well on the right side windowed clutch cover. The water is literally dripping down the window. After 25 minutes of riding it's gone: