[Mgs] another oil question? really?

[Clayton Kirkwood]

Don't know how he supposedly did it; he may have canted it to one side and
then did the other. It may be something specific to VW engines as he is
widely known for his VW rebuilds.

I took it easly for the first 500 mile keeping it changing and under 4K then
I steped it up with harder accelerations and I will go up to 4500 rpm.

As to the synth oil, it was my understanding that synth doesn't burn.
Probably wrong about that.

Clayton

-----Original Message-----
From: Eric J Russell [mailto:ejrussell at mebtel.net] 
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2014 4:57 PM
To: mgs at autox.team.net
Cc: crk at godblessthe.us
Subject: Re: [Mgs] another oil question? really?

> 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