Nikasil plated cylinders (or Suzuki SCEM)

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Hi,

I have a question about engines that have nikasil plated cylinders, or cylinders that are made of Suzukis SCEM (Suzuki Composite Electrochemical Material)

Do these engines need a special oil?
I do have in the back of my head, i think it was KTM that they only specified their oil because of the nikasil plated cylinders ...


Thanks
 
I doubt........high end 2stroke racing cylinders are all nikasil plated....and they use/need just (high end) 2stroke oil.....
 
No special oil required. This just basically a chrome plated cylinder that most bikes come factory with. No different than any other cylinder.
When the plating wears off or is damaged in a detonation you have to sleeve the cylinder. They cannot be bored.
 
Nothing special is required. Although my bikes seem to run best on a diet of Motul 300V 4T.

I've been running an overbored block on my bored and stroked Hayabusa, for about 10 years now. They CAN be bored (assuming there's enough material to overbore) and replated. Often, damaged bores can be repaired, too.

Millenium Technologies

I periodically check how the cylinders are looking with a bore scope. So far, everything looks great.
 
Only caveat with Nikasil is can't tolerate high sulphur content in fuel or oil. High sulphur will destroy nikasil. This was a problem for certain Jaguar cars in the 80's and 90's before federal fuel regs cleaned up sulphur content in retail gasoline. If I remember right...
 
Originally Posted By: beanoil
Nothing special required.
BMW airheads have a similar Gilasil coating, and do very well on 20w50 conventional.
Airheads and 20W 50 are good friends.
 
My BMW K75C had Nikasil cylinders and went 142,000 miles on regular "car oil". It had new spec compression and burned no oil until I wrecked it two years ago...
 
Originally Posted By: Panzerman
No special oil required. This just basically a chrome plated cylinder that most bikes come factory with. No different than any other cylinder.
When the plating wears off or is damaged in a detonation you have to sleeve the cylinder. They cannot be bored.


Nikasil has nothing to do with chrome; chrome is for all intents and purposes, now obsolete as a cylinder coating. Nikasil is a matrix of silicon carbide in nickel. They may look the same (shiny and metallic) but are two totally different animals
 
Nikasil does not take well to beating and banging. So stay away from "ping" at all costs.

Buddies older Guzzi lost a lot of plating when he timed it for better fuel economy. In the end, was not worth it ...
 
Nikasil is actually very tough. Ive never seen Nikasil sustain damage without the piston being completely trashed. And Ive seen alot of trashed pistons with good Nikasil yet.

We have a sled engine pushing 240hp out of a 2 cylinder 795cc 2 stroke with Nikasil coated cylinders. We use Mystic 2 stroke oil at $9/gal on sale. The engine, including the Nikasil handles it all just fine.
 
Originally Posted By: Srt20
Nikasil is actually very tough. Ive never seen Nikasil sustain damage without the piston being completely trashed. And Ive seen alot of trashed pistons with good Nikasil yet.

We have a sled engine pushing 240hp out of a 2 cylinder 795cc 2 stroke with Nikasil coated cylinders. We use Mystic 2 stroke oil at $9/gal on sale. The engine, including the Nikasil handles it all just fine.


ah, two-strokes
smile.gif
 
Originally Posted By: BrocLuno
Nikasil does not take well to beating and banging. So stay away from "ping" at all costs.

Buddies older Guzzi lost a lot of plating when he timed it for better fuel economy. In the end, was not worth it ...


what about piston slap when the engine is cold?
My Suzuki has a pretty audible piston slap, front cylinder only, according to Suzuki perfectly normal?
 
Originally Posted By: BrocLuno
Nikasil does not take well to beating and banging. So stay away from "ping" at all costs.

Buddies older Guzzi lost a lot of plating when he timed it for better fuel economy. In the end, was not worth it ...

It's not a plating at all, I don't know how you can draw a sweeping generalization over one likely unrelated incident. Have you seen other problems with Nikasil? How do you even know the two were related?
 
Originally Posted By: alex_at
Originally Posted By: BrocLuno
Nikasil does not take well to beating and banging. So stay away from "ping" at all costs.

Buddies older Guzzi lost a lot of plating when he timed it for better fuel economy. In the end, was not worth it ...


what about piston slap when the engine is cold?
My Suzuki has a pretty audible piston slap, front cylinder only, according to Suzuki perfectly normal?


Wont hurt it.
 
"Not a plating at all"? Most people that perform the process all it a plating or coating.

One definition below.

Nikasil is a trademarked electrodeposited lipophilic nickel matrix silicon carbide coating for engine components, mainly piston engine cylinder liners.
 
Originally Posted By: ammolab
"Not a plating at all"? Most people that perform the process all it a plating or coating.

One definition below.

Nikasil is a trademarked electrodeposited lipophilic nickel matrix silicon carbide coating for engine components, mainly piston engine cylinder liners.

You are correct, I was flat wrong. I had it confused with the Alusil which replaced Nikasil on my BMW. My apologies to everyone including BrocLuno.
 
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