Oil For Portable Generator

SoundGuy wrote:
Shortly after I bought my first Honda EU2000i I tried starting the Coleman 13.5K BTU A/C I owned at the time but found the results were hit and miss, working one time but not another. Another forum contributor suggested that switching the dino oil to synth just might make a difference, citing his own success with it. I thought "Yeah right, like that will make a difference!" but I had little to lose by trying it so I dumped the dino oil change I had just done and put in Mobil 1. Without any other changes the A/C started right up every time ... couldn't believe it would make such a difference! We now have a different trailer with a Dometic Brisk II 13.5K BTU A/C and a different EU2000i so before even trying to start the A/C the first thing I did was dump the genset's dino oil in favour of Mobil 1 synth ... and again the A/C starts every time. I've since added a hard start cap to the A/C to further ease that initial load the genset has to deal with but there's little doubt that running synth oil really does help. :B

I know your experience proved to you that there is some property of synthetic oil that is superior to dino oil regarding engine start.

I'm going to guess that a laboratory would have a difficult time proving the same. Given that the engine parts are at the same ambient temperature and that the lubricating oils are at the same viscosity during that brief time event, what magic is there about synthetic?

I'm not doubting your results (makes little difference that I do or not). I'm just having a hard time seeing any magic in either oil product. Even if the synthetic oil had much less "shear", the small event time window of engine start and added starter torque would overcome the slight physical properties. That eliminates time and friction from the start event. What else am I missing?