Re: Illicit Pleasures.

[Randy Wilson <randy@taylor.infi.net>]

>How brief is brief. On hard cornering my light has come on for fifteen
>seconds while the gauge hovers around zero (or what ever the low end
>markings are). I immediately pulled the car over and shut down the engine.
>Are you saying that even a few minutes of this condition is OK? Is there
>any empirical data for how long an engine could run without any oil
>pressure?


I do oil surge my street bomb with regularity. The car is capable, and often
sees, cornering at and over 1 Gee (Yoko A008/RS as street tires?). The
sump is well baffled, but nothing will keep the oil slosh controlled for
ever. 270 degree exit ramps will uncover the pickup.  It does make me nervous.
I've let it go on for mamy seconds (15 or so, but sees longer at the time).
If possible, I do what I can to get the revs down.

While the actual oil pressure is not what is supporting the bearing, I will
not agree that an engine can live for several minutes without any
pressure. The oil in the bearings needs to be constantly replenished.
The pressure behind the oil exists to get the oil supply to all needed 
places, overcoming centrifugal loads in some areas. when the light is on,
you are sucking air. You are replenishing the bearing lube with a big
slug of air.

You will often see snake oil salesmen demo-ing their miracles by running
a Briggs & Stratton engine for hours with no oil. They do this with no
load. I can attest to the fact (did it once) that a B&S will run for
4 hours under full load with no oil before seizing. It siezed due to
overheating. And that engine, once it cooled down and has oil added ran fine
with no noises, and was used for another two years.

I have also seen race engines that picked up a bit of oil surge during 
a race, and did not live to the flag. We're talking tenth's of seconds of
surge here.

It's all a matter of design and load.

If you're oil surging a Jag XK engine, especially in a sedan, I would suggest
checking the oil level and making sure the dip stick is reading correctly.

>
>While we're on the subject, what about oil additives and synthetics? What
>does everyone use?

Mobil 1 15w/50 with no snake oil.

>
>Mark Revels
>85 XJ6


   Randy K. Wilson
     randy@taylor.infi.net

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Follow-Ups:

• Re: Illicit Pleasures.
• From: Egil Kvaleberg <egilk@sn.no>

References:

• Re: Illicit Pleasures.
• From: "Mark Revels" <thoimre@ibm.net>

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