Oil Volume the key

[Pablo]

IMHO - anything (within reason) you can do to increase the volume of lubricant within a lubrication system for an engine or other device without adding significant risk or complexity, adds measurably to the life of the device. I just made this up. Larger oil filters, remote dual full flow, true bypass filters (huge dual), larger oil pans, oil coolers, massive dry sumps, etc spring to mind.

 

[Mitch Alsup]

Larger clearances between journal and bearing?

 

[Pablo]

I don't think I would say that, I mean volume of oil in reserve. I would let other design factors control bearing/journal fit besides designing for massive oil volume in journals! But if you could increase the feed volume while maintaining feed pressure, then OK, more oil is better!

 

[eljefino]

With all the short trips people take you'd have to have a "core wet sump" that warms up quickly then a bunch of thermostats and pumps to send a little bit of oil off to the "reserve tank" (eg dry sump), taking an equal amount of cool stuff in. I'd be disappointed if my car took five gallons or whatever then I had to dump it for the change of seasons or because I had a bad plug wire dump fuel into everything. Not to mention the weight of all this oil dragging down my fuel economy.

 

[JAG]

That sure does have many advantages but one disadvantage is in cold starts, it takes the oil longer to come up to full temperature. If use is mostly short trips this is a concern but if trips are mostly long it is not. It's much better to have more sump capacity than you need than not have enough (Passat/Audi 1.8T engines come to mind). Edit: guy above me made similar points before I finished mine!

 

[Pablo]

Well, again, within reason a smaller sump system could be designed with reserve quantity for cooling, diluting etc. Good point on "ruining" all your oil and dumping a larger quantity. I suppose going from 4-5 qts to 7 qts shouldn't be a heart breaker, though.

 

[Tosh]

If you changed oil at twice the frequency, wouldn't you effectively be doubling the capacity?

 

[Shannow]

Pablo, that's exactly what Nissan did on the Patrol down here. Piston failures were "cured" by an extra 2 quarts of oil.

 

[lewk]

A remote filter mount and a filter change from a ph3980 to a ph373 would add a ~1.5 quarts for my astro. what impact this would have on oci's, longevity or an increase/decrease in wear is anybody's guess. (fram example used to illustrate point) dont spam me, I dont use frams.any suggestions?

 

[TallPaul]

I am thinking just the opposite. Run a smaller sump so the oil gets to operating temperature quicker, then to compensate for the smaller sump, use an ester based oil like Redline. Overall, I think this would be a great setup. My Ford 300 cid inline six engine holds 6 quarts. Assuming the oil pickup remains submerged, I wonder if I could get away with 4 quarts Redline, or maybe even just 3?

 

[Black Thunder]

kinda reminds me of my Buddies old truck. The guy who previous had it, set it up for striclty toying. put in a hefty rebuilt straight six with a 9-quart capacity oil pan. Well when he got it, it burned oil and leaked oil. So when his 3,000 mile oci came around it was about 3 quarts low. so being that he put in 9 quarts to fill it, he didn't worry about adding oil inbetween changes