Lately, I tested the Ipone Snow Racing 2 oil for 2-stroke engine distributed by Kimpex, sponsor of our web magazine, who nicely offered it to us. For this 2016 season, I wanted to test synthesis lubricant in order to analyze its properties.
Context
Considering the rather changing weather during this winter, as everyone noticed, I ran the test only on a short period of time, over 500 km. I surely would have preferred a longer period to be able to give more details on the qualities of this product. For example, I would have checked its viscosity by pour point at low temperature or else, I would have checked the fouling level due to carbon deposits on power valves over 5 000 km. But due to conditions, I had to settle for more modest tests. The oil has been tested on a BRP 600 E-TEC motor, thus with direct injection and power valves. Even if the Ipone Snow Racing 2 oil is totally synthetic, it is also designed to work on models not equipped with these valves.
Our observations
Firstly, the Ipone Snow Racing 2 product meets competitors’ standards. There is no smoke at low throttle as well as in quick accelerations. Even if the injection system controls the injected oil, I noticed that oil of lower quality, semi-synthetic, produces more smoke. Concretely, this means that oil does not totally reach the flammability temperature. This explains that oil vapours cannot maintain auto-combustion. So, there is more smoke and carbon deposits at the exit.
Secondly, a light strawberry smell comes out when burning. This is a special feature of this Ipone product. After talking with other snowmobilers, it seems that some engines would release a more important strawberry smell that could sometimes become a little unpleasant. Finally, using synthetic oil is advantageous because it offers greater resistance to oxidation at extremely high temperature.
According to the manufacturer, the Ipone oil is designed to work at temperatures as low as 54 °C and it meets the high quality standards in matter of efficiency, being API TC approved. Moreover, this is a 100 % synthetic lubricant designed to be used when engine components are highly solicited, between 8 000 and 9 000 RPM and in a wide range of external temperature.
Conclusion
Personally, I think that the Ipone Snow Racing 2 oil distributed by Kimpex is a quality product that may very well be compared to competitors’ products on the market. As I said earlier, its API TC approval shows that it is of superior quality than the TC-W3 or the SSS, as the pour point of these ones is around -42 °C to -48 °C versus -54 °C for the Ipone.
