Engine Longevity Tips

General engine tech -- Drag Racing to Circle Track

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rfoll
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Re: Engine Longevity Tips

Post by rfoll »

A local race motor builder told me a story about engine heating systems. The fire dept. started using pre-heaters to solve the cold statups associated with emergency calls. It wasn't long before they started losing crankshafts, rods, etc. If left warm, all of the oil drips away from the bearings and you get a dry startup.
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Re: Engine Longevity Tips

Post by GuysMonteSS »

rfoll wrote:A local race motor builder told me a story about engine heating systems. The fire dept. started using pre-heaters to solve the cold statups associated with emergency calls. It wasn't long before they started losing crankshafts, rods, etc. If left warm, all of the oil drips away from the bearings and you get a dry startup.
Just curious,do you know how long they were leaving the pre-heaters on ???
Big trucks that I work around routinely have block or oil pan heaters plugged in overnight or longer and they have 20,000 + hours on them and the engine's have never been touched.
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Re: Engine Longevity Tips

Post by allencr267 »

Pre-fill filter & crank to prime system after every oil change.
rfoll
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Re: Engine Longevity Tips

Post by rfoll »

I believe the hearters were on when the fire engines were not in use. The city was at that time about the 40-50,000 population, so it's possible individual vehicles could have sat idle for a week or more. An investigation revealed dry crankshafts.
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Re: Engine Longevity Tips

Post by barnym17 »

That pretty much doesn't make sense, not only have we used block heaters on our trucks and busses forever with no problems a block heater generally only warms the engine into the 120 to 130 degree range.A truck after pumping at a fire will have oil temps well into the 200's as the oil is cooled by the engine coolant and it is in the 200to 225 degree range. I would think that since it may take several hours for that huge lump of iron to cool that all the oil that is going to run off will in that amount of time . A block heater warming the coolant doesn't really affect temp of oil in the pan or on the crank as it has no direct contact to the heated coolant.
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Re: Engine Longevity Tips

Post by rfoll »

I don't know what kind of heaters they were. The integrity of the man relating the information allows me to believe it to be accurate. Your results may vary.
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Re: Engine Longevity Tips

Post by barnym17 »

Oh, don't take it wrong I believe you just got me concerned as I sure don't want to start losing bottom ends on our fire trucks, if this has been an issue I will have the practice stopped.
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Re: Engine Longevity Tips

Post by Dodge Freak »

What weight oil was being used ? If 0--5w-30, it dip much more then 20w-50 or straight 30 weight oil would at 130 degrees.
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Re: Engine Longevity Tips

Post by peejay »

crock wrote:A solution to the fuel wash issue from overly rich mixtures is to use a fuel additive with excellent lubrication qualities like FP60.

Or a mild cam that doesn't require rich mixtures for stable combustion, heads that FLOW to get the power back, EFI and distributorless ignition so you can get fine fuel control and run ignition timing in the 50+ degree range under light load without worrying about crossfire.
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Re: Engine Longevity Tips

Post by crock »

Can anybody tell me what can be done to increase the life of cam and follower components? I have a cam and follower combination that I would like to use, but the lifespan is in the 30,000 mile range for a steel billet and chilled follower combination due the aggressive (cam grinder uses the word "modern") cam profile. Flat tappets are the only items sold for this engine.
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Re: Engine Longevity Tips

Post by Barbapapa »

About the fire truck heater issue,
I hesitate to get into oil but that would be my first suspect if an engine failed and seemed "dry". I've heard interesting stories that implied some oils are more prone to not staying on surfaces.
In that case, rust was seen on the inside of a race engine after using a certain race oil and by going to a common street oil the problem went away.

I think detergents and the interaction with contamanants such as fuel are key and that's why the story race team switching to a street oil noticed improvement.
I've also seen odd behaviour such as gelling when using a certain race oil after an initial tune that saw alot of fuel washdown.

In the case of the fire trucks, their life of short trips, driving aggresively right after being started could be a factor in fuel contamination of oil I suppose.
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Re: Engine Longevity Tips

Post by rfoll »

This fire truck thing was at least 15 years ago. Oils have chnged since then, for whatever that means.
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Re: Engine Longevity Tips

Post by Bob Hollinshead »

Is there anyway to use a knock sensor with just a warning light, maybe with a relay and no ECM/computer? I have no idea how they work.
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Lem Evans
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Re: Engine Longevity Tips

Post by Lem Evans »

What little I know about fire trucks is that they seem to live in heated buildings....cold start up should not be an issue.

The only issue I'd see would be that someone would need to deside how many days a truck should set idle before the engine is fired and brought to operating temp.
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Re: Engine Longevity Tips

Post by barnym17 »

Normally they are ran daily even the backups as part of the daily inspections. Unfortunately one of the nfpa reqired tests is for the air system to go from 0 psi to 100 in 90 seconds this is hell on a cold engine.
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