[Mgs] another oil question? really?

[Eric J Russell]

> Yes! Ok, I've had my 62 mga engine rebuilt 3 times by "experts". The 
> current
> iteration seems solid - put a couple thousand miles on her. But she sips 
> oil
> modestly. The guy who did the machine shop work for my 59 Land Rover told 
> me
> that most machine shops and rebuilders machine the cylinder walls wrong.
> They make the cylinders round instead of slightly oval toward the bottom 
> of
> the stroke which considers the pull and push rotation of the driveshaft 
> and
> connector arm. Seems reasonable to me.
>
> So the question. Should I increase the viscosity of the oil to allow less
> oil burn, and/or, go to synthetic which won't burn off?

How would a machine shop make part of the bore oval? Many years ago Honda 
did something like that with their motorcycle racing engines but it was 
extremely expensive (they also made oval pistons!). And it was likely not a 
good cost/benefit ratio.

Anyway, how did you break in the engine? There are two camps - the 'baby' it 
for many hundreds of miles and the 'run it hard right away to seat the 
rings'. See: http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

And I doubt that an engine that burns regular oil would burn less if 
switched to synthetic oil. A higher viscosity may help it burn a little 
less. Maybe.

Eric Russell
Mebane, NC