Double thread really - first one is to vent my spleen, second is a question for more mechanically minded readers.
One shopping channel wound me up again this weekend with their claims about fuel magnets and charged £25 for the privilege of owning a lump of iron which does nothing for your car! The presenter asked the 'salesman' why if the product could save you 10-30% on your fuel costs they aren't fitted as standard. Response - (i) the manufacturers are in denial about how well they work and choose to ignore them! (ii) the manufacturers are hand in glove with the petrol giants and do not want their engines to become more efficient than they already are!!
Then another channel was showing a US product which allegedly reduces friction. The test was two engines - one in a car the other on a bench. Both engines had the product put in, run for a while then the oil removed and left empty. The car was then taken on a very long run (over two hours) and it didn't seize. The second engine was a V8 on a test bed. This was running with no oil and then the water hose was cut - the engine continued running. Is the product so good, or would an engine run for hours without oil anyway?
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Please be sure to let us know the results when yours arrives.
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I rememebr being at a track where ESSO were running cars after draining the oil, they ran fine, and then when they drained the coolant, the cars didn't do a single lap.
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Every motor I`ve come across thats run out of oil. either wont start. or did but run really rough.I remember a Special edition Capri. Which ford released IIRC 1987.One came in for service oil drained/filter replaced. Tech forgot to fill with oil. Test drive carried out. broke down about 2 miles from garage..Result rebuild. Also know of one car that never(untill I`m asked)gets checked..when I do check its because this fiesta wont start ie run out of oil.Fill up and its fine
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Was mech1
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Try this one, which is big news in the motoring columns where I live. Stangely, or perhaps not, no definitive data supporting the claims has been published. Even the Government seems to have been sucked in (pun intentional!)
www.newsflash.org/2004/02/ht/ht004666.htm
Given that every Filipino's dream is to emigrate to the USA, (you would have to live here to understand just how powerfully ingrained in the national psyche that is) the inventor's protestations of patriotism also seem rather contrived.
As for passing Taiwanese emission standards, if you've ever been in a Taipei traffic jam on a muggy August day, you'd agree these aren't exactly over-demanding! Mind you these guys would bolt on/put in/add on anything to their cars if they thought they would have something someone else doesn't, regarding whether it's any use or not. Maybe this inventor is really clever after all..........
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>>would an engine run for hours without oil anyway?
I would think (im not an engineer) that an engine would run for a very short while without oil in, but not perhapse for hours.
I would imagine that it would depend upon how well the engine was made (design, material quality etc) as to how long the engine could continue to propell the car for. I would say that an engine could run for about 60 sec before it either seized up althogther or power output becomes so bad that you would just limp along.
Even then, as soon as the engine had run for longer than 20 seconds it would probably be in need of a rebuild.
Also it might depend upon how fast you would want to run the engine. At motorway speeds, it would expire in no time, but at idle, it may run for ages. I once read in a practical classics mag, that a car which had sat for some time was driven away. At some point on the journey, the car was ran on a motorway, when it spectacularly gave up. Upon investigation, what little 'oil' in the sump was like tar (effectivly running without oil) and the engine had managed to split one of its pistons clean in two!
Its an interestin question. What do other people think
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The killer of engines is heat first. So as long as the cooling system is effective and there is some lubrication an engine will run. If the bearings overheat due to lack of oil: bang.
But if lightly loaded they may run on for hours. Remember in the 1800s to around the 1940s steam trains ran for hours with no more lubrication on most bearings than that given when last manually oiled.. and early petrol engines used splash lubrication.
But if the cooling system goes, then everything overheats , tolerances disappear and wear accelerates.
madf
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What you would not have seen when an engine ran with no oil is what the fuel was. A dash of two stroke oil will lubricate the bores a treat and if if I was going to pull the wool in this repect that is what I'd do.
You don't actually need much oil for some bearings, especially off load, this coupled with the obvious question, how well has the oil been drained?
I'm not doing it to any engine of mine, but I would think for promise of enough dosh I could come up with a workable "demonstration".
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