gone fishing

bill67 wrote on 01/25/13 at 09:17:32:




On the other hand, I have noticed that in the past 25 or so years, that in the newer motors with tighter clearances and fuel injection(cleaner combustion), the oil stays cleaner longer.  

gone fishing

Digger wrote on 01/25/13 at 19:58:47:


Ah, but does Bill really want to get to the truth of the matter, or get us all riled up?

Cavi Mike wrote on 01/26/13 at 00:00:34:

Bill didn't say that.
He said the oil stayed cleaner a lot longer in engines that were built correctly. Years ago american engines were not built correctly, or should I say, not nearly as good as Jap and others,....and the oil did get dirty much sooner.

The Toyota example is a good one and they did it twice actually, the second time was on a Lexus.

IF the Japanese hadn't been so prideful about "designing for sludge" because by then they did understand the issue but knew they would lose face by taking the obvious short term solution that GM took when the Corvette began having sludge issues on a new small block super powerful engine during initial life tests.

What did GM do on the Corvette that the Japanese didn't/couldn't do because of company pride and their cultural face issues?

It was a very simple thing, and it would have fit in completely with the cost and the luxury nature of the Lexus.   I did it automatically when I bought my Acuras and it has worked FLAWLESSLY in 3 of them for over 200,000 miles a piece.

What did Corvette do that made the issue not an issue?   They required the use of full synthetic oil in the vehicle from the very beginning.

ANY car with a turbocharger should do this.    ANY car with an overstressed engine (and that includes a lot of trailer hauling large Ford trucks) should do this.

Face it, our short oil and filter change interval has more to do with collecting lumps of sludge in the oil filter than with oil, even dino oil.  If your oil filter is collecting solidified oil products, you darn well better be changing it every 3,000 miles.

But with a good synthetic, there ARE no sludge products.  I have been taking apart and collecting the very little bit of trash that actually is caught by my Suzuki oil filter system for a 3 year period when I do it this time.

My smagnet will be covered in ferrous trash, but my filter likely will be like it was last time, mostly clean.  We will see in the spring, anyway.

I have used Mobil 1 and nothing but in all my cars and trucks since it came out years ago,My 1st Japanese car was a 1985 Mazda 626.I couldn't believe how it didn't use oil and how clean it was compared the my American vehicles. The American cars have improved in the last 10 to 15 years.

You must not have ever played around much with 2.4L Subaru flat 4s. Oil leaking, sludge generating junk heaps. My 72 Super Beetle has cleaner oil than our 95 Subaru. My 94 2.3L Ranger keeps its oil amber for almost a year, and in essence it's nothing more than a fuel infested PINTO engine, with dual ignition.

Savage valve train is actually early 1960s Honda, except Soichiro's engineers were smart enough to run the cam in actual caged ball  bearings, not in the base metal of the head castings. I popped the top off my 63 Honda 250 twin engine last week, everything is flawless, it all looks factory fresh (until you look in the intake and exhaust ports).

If you really think your engine is sludged up, drain the oil, replace with Dex 3 ATF, run it for a couple minutes and change it again. If it is sludged or coked (carboned) up, that will clean it out. And it will be very obviously BLACK coming out if the engine was disgusting inside... There's enough actual oil in ATF that it won't cause any damage. It's basically 5 weight, red dye and soap.

Had to use it to deglaze my clutch plates back when Castrol GTX 20W50 was switched from good to energy conserving. Didn't hurt a thing in the engine, the clutch quit slipping, the head got decoked, and the engine has since run a lot cooler.

It isn't a close tolerance engine. The oil is going to get dark in a hurry. As long as it doesn't smell burnt, you're fine.