I recently acquired a lightly used Briggs & Stratton 16-HP Vanguard V-Twin powered 10KW generator, of course, with no manual.

Fired it up once and all was fine. Decided it needed an oil and filter change. Looked online for oil capacity and found one place that stated 3 quarts for this horizontal shaft V-Twin..

Before I drained the old oil, I checked the dipstick and it read nearly to the full mark. When I drained the old oil, it sure looked to be a lot less than 3 quarts. More like one or one and a half quarts, at most.

After refilling about two and a half quarts, the dipstick seems to be reading about twice as high as the full mark. The new “clean” oil is very hard to see on the dipstick.

What is the true oil capacity of this thing?

Thanks for any help anyone can offer.

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The true capacity of any motor I know of is the dip stick gage if it's the original dip stick.

I don't trust all research that way. To many diff styles of engines.

Drain some oil out and go by dip stick or she will smoke like high heavens and do internal motor damage
The manuals don't take into account what's left in the engine.

My Back hoe manuals are off at times especially in oils and they are $300.00 manuals

I would have to agree with 21, and 3 quarts sounds way too much, most cars are only 4 quarts. My 20 hp v twin B&S takes 1.5 quarts

I found this page through a Google search, while I was looking up some unrelated information, so I thought I would throw in my 2 cents here.

The B&S vanguard 16 holds 1.5 quarts, and B&S highly recommends that you use full synthetic oil, with a viscosity of 5W-30 or 10W-30, I would recommend full synthetic in it as well, you'll have a lot happier motor, and it will provide you with a longer service life.

You want to use an oil that meets or exceeds the ILSAC GF-2 API certification mark and API service symbol with "SJ/CF ENERGY CONSERVING"

With these air cooled engines, the use of non synthetic oils will cause them to run hotter, which in turn causes the engine to burn more oil and shorten it's service life.

I hope this information is of use to someone.