Do engines get fatigue wear?

[Revving2Redline]

IMO If anything is going to fail due to fatigue, with massive miles, it would be a connecting rod,

My R18 Civic had the wrist pins break at 382500 miles.

 

[Hohn]

So then which one are you saying is the better choice? Some times things are counter intuitive. The less stiffer maybe the better choice??
I suppose that really factors in with something like cast iron crankshafts.

Stiffer cranks are better.

 

[gfh77665]

If I was 89 years old I wouldn't try to run a 4 minute mile...

I want to begin my MMA career at age 85. I figure by then I will have done everything else I want to do. Lets rumble!

 

[brages]

This is why stiffness is often as important or more important than strength. You might have two crankshafts, for example, that have identical strength in terms of being made from the same material (say, AISI 4340), but they will have wildly different real world fatigue life if one is much stiffer than the other.

This paragraph is kind of nonsense

 

[Jetronic]

Preferably driving up a mountain at 80% load.

wouldn't that be flying up a mountain, with todays engines?

 

[John105]

If I was 89 years old I wouldn't try to run a 4 minute mile...

So each year that goes by for a vehicle is 3.18 human years....

 

[John105]

Doesn't matter how you drive it (within reason) when it's time to go- it will go. I've babied vehicles and they still fail. The only saving grace is a slow failure (oil burner) vs catrastrphic.

I don't think mechanical sympathy is taught anymore, but my dad did instill that in me with machines.

I babied my Nissan Maxima its entire life, and emissions was its downfall.

 

[ka9mnx]

When I was a young punk in the 60's there was three dragsters in my neighborhood. One, the famous "Guzzler", was owned by a friend of mine's dad. One day he brought home three clapped out Chrysler Imperial Hemi engines from the junk yard. It was our job to completely strip them down to the bare block. It was a dirty, greasy job that I hated. I was told he wanted a "well seasoned" block. Was popular among the engine builders of the day.

 

[fdcg27]

In the OP's case, common sense tells us that if any manufacturing defects existed in any of the highly loaded parts of the engine, it would have failed by now. That this engine makes only around 45 bhp/liter is no doubt a major factor in its having lived such a long life.
Will this engine eventually experience a mechanical failure?
Of course, but maybe not any time soon.