<VV> Warm up

djtcz at comcast.net djtcz at comcast.net
Sat Oct 15 10:11:06 EDT 2005


-------------- Original message -------------- 

> Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I'm ruining my engine by having it warm up so slowly without the doors. I'm sure that's what has caused the dropped seats and the broken cam gear, the only problems I've had with the engine. At  240K miles the crank journals were still in spec, so I don't see that the  cold oil is killing me. 
> 

The oil additive suppliers are sure fond of reminding me that some high percentage of "engine wear" occurs at start up.  The best documented explanation of that I've found is in the 2 volume MIT Press published "Internal Engine" series by Taylor.  At some point Mr. Taylor describes corrosive combustion products condensing on the cool cylinder walls.  I think this explains the "wet" look that a hunk of steel take on when a propane torch is first played on it.  The condensation causes the cylinder wall to corrode on some macro scale each power cycle. While that is occuring the ring and cylinder gleefully rip each other apart.  He includes some charts showing  that when the cylinder wall gets above some temperature (maybe 160 F, from feeble memory) the condensation, and thus the corrosive/abrasive wear essentially ceases.  I'm not sure how any oil or oil additive could help combat that.


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