[gene_stl]

All this talk about gasoline has gotten me excited. :dancenana:

In ancient times I bought a case of TCW 3 at Sam's club and it did last me for decades.(It was twelve quarts of two cycle oil) We used it up a couple of years ago and I have been using various little bottles of two cycle mix and I started doing a little research to find the best replacement, and the first thing I discovered to my rude surprise is that TCW 3 is an outboard/marine oil specification and using it in your leaf blower isn't maybe the best stuff you can use.

Like gas stabilizers there is a lot of information that looks iffy out there as well as claims from companies that make very expensive oils.

Back in the day we used regular oil at about 16 to 1. Now it seems that 40 to 1 is sufficient. Some are claiming 100:1. I am thinking maybe just try to find a deal on oil from Stihl or Echo. They ought to know what is good for their engines. There is lots of lore from two cycle motorcyclists, gokarters and even ultralight pilots. According to the motorcycle racers running a little rich with respect to amount of oil in the gas is a wise thing to do resulting in better compression and lubrication and cooler operating temps.

Anybody have any experiences or opinions to share or two cycle oil products they love?

 

[J_nick]

I have a Stihl chainsaw and Echo whipper snipper. My local Honda dealer is a also a dealer for the 2 mentioned. I just buy the Echo oil they sell and I haven't had any problems with it.

 

[Mightyquinn]

Since all my 2 cycle engines are Stihl, I use the Stihl Ultra oil in my fuel.

 

[Movingshrub]

Same as MQ

 

[MasterMech]

Oh boy, two-smoke oil! :lol:

These threads are the secret to eternal life, as they never die. Why? Because there is no one answer. Every engine is different. My hopped up chainsaws will not tolerate a 100:1 oil ratio for long. A stock high-performance saw likely wouldn't either. The lower connecting rod bearing is likely to be toast in no time. However, my (stock) leaf-blower or a hedge-trimmer would likely do just fine on the 100:1. In fact, the actual oil ratio really isn't all that important. I run a high-viscosity racing oil (for the benefit of said hopped-up saws) at 40:1 in ALL of my two cycle and 4-Mix equipment to no ill-effect, even though the OEM recommends a 50:1 mix. Pistons and plugs stay clean, so do the muffler screens.

To go the other way, there is no need to mix up a special batch of 16:1 SAE 30 non-detergent for most vintage equipment you may have either. Barring anything that makes extensive use of plain bearings or known to have rough machined surfaces, modern oil mixed at 32, 40, even 50:1 should do just fine. Again, I personally shy away from 50:1 just because of my tendency to run high-perf or vintage saws but 50:1 is certainly do-able in old iron.

The only real hard and fast rule is to make sure the oil you use is designed for use in air-cooled engines. The operating temperature range of your typical air-cooled OPE engine vs a bike/atv engine, sled, or outboard all vary significantly with specific oils blended to cater to each category's needs.

 

[ken-n-nancy]

For our Echo blower, I use the Echo-branded Power Blend oil; it is available relatively inexpensively at Home Depot in a 16-oz container for $8.97. I'd heard that the newer Echo blowers were a bit picky about having the thinner synthetic oil rather than traditional dino oils. I don't know if there's any truth to that; as the original poster said, there's a lot of misinformation, lore, and mythology out there about oil usage...

Another thing I like about the Echo-branded Power Blend oil is that it claims to have a fuel stabilizer so that it isn't necessary to separately add a separate fuel stabilizer sch as Sta-Bil.

For our older Toro snowblower, I've been using up various random leftover containers of 2-cycle oil we have from Walmart.

 

[gene_stl]

One of the motorcycle pages I read said that castor oil (which I used to use in model airplane engines) was the best but that it had a tendency to gum up and make rings stick. The notion that oils for outboards were very different from formulations for air cooled was the main rude shock (though I never really had any trouble with the TCW 3. I think it was Valvoline) I thought it was an API spec. The same article said that synthetics were also very good and caused less ring sticking. I have been mixing at 32 to one then a pour in a little more "to make sure". None of the equipment smokes when the choke is turned off.

I don't have any vintage equipment. The oldest is my John Deere (nee' Kioritz aka Echo) metal shell backpack blower purchased for the second house in 1982,. Still runs great. There is a Toro electric start snowblower with a Tecumseh Two cycle eletric start motor bought at the same time. I think they both specified 32 : 1 originally. I guess some folks might think of those as vintage. {;o)

When I think about it one of the things I want is at least quart bottles. I like that link for Echo. I like Echo stuff. The Deere blower is an Echo and when I couldn't get it started about ten years ago I bought a big Echo backpack. (then I fixed the Deere) and for the new place bought an Echo leaf vac/ blower. It is awesome. It is really handy.

 

[MasterMech]

Another thing I like about the Echo-branded Power Blend oil is that it claims to have a fuel stabilizer so that it isn't necessary to separately add a separate fuel stabilizer sch as Sta-Bil.

This is usually the case with most two-stroke oils labeled for use with OPE. Some advertise it clearly, others do not.

 

[gene_stl]

So I went by the mower store, and I noticed that Stihl Ultra is full synthetic. So I bough a little six pack of that which should last a while. Their HP and the Echo juice were synthetic blends. Probably all comes from the same horse.

 

[pennstater2005]

Stihl. It was a promotion if you bought a six pack of the oil it doubled the warranty. I still have 3 of them left. That was 4 years ago.