High speed glazing. I got that on a 454 engine when I used to like to hear the loud carburetor noise. If you turned the air cleaner top over, you had a deep whoa noise. I would take that cold engine and floor it, sometimes more than once. I quit doing that when I saw the glaze on my plugs. It’s not the best way to help the ignition work. We’re young, then we get smarter. Young has to come first.
Are you telling me that, when my wife goes out at 5:20am, starts the Explorer,then finally leaves at 6am…Thats wrong!!!
You go argue the point with her,she shoots straighter than me.
We were driving together when that show aired. It all went in one ear and out the other.
Yosemite
Have you thought of buying her a block heater?
Robert Sikorsky lives in Tucson, Ariz. and does a weekly column for the New York Times called “Drive it Forever”, also the name of one of his books. He swears by block heaters and even uses them when the weather is above freezing, since it speeds up warmup on his mid 70s Volvo with a zillion miles on it. We have used block heaters since 1965 and have never worn out an engine in our cars; the body always went first. Right now we are in a cold spell, way below zero, and both our cars start instantly and WARM UP REAL FAST!!
Yosemite, your post reminds me of a guy across the street from me who apparently had deliberately overset the cold idle RPMs on his Chevette. This was early 80’s. Every morning he’d start his car about a half hour before my alarm went off and let it idle about that long. Of course I had no need for an alarm clock then!
People like that need to be dealt with. Years ago when I lived in an apartment, the milkman would let his truck idle right under our bedroom window. These trucks were usually out of tune and smelled bad. These truck did not have door locks. After several tenants compliained in vain, I told him I would turn his truck off and drop the keys into the storm drain on the parking lot. He never idled again!
While warming up a vehicle when may not be to any advantage to the motor, once the thermometer is below freezing, let that car warm up! It has nothing to do with the motor; the windshield will not stay clear until warm air starts coming out of the defroster.
Of course! Safety should never play second role to the car or the environment for that matter. We had a number of past posts on this, and everyone agreed that you should be able to see out clearly before moving off.
I am only repeating what I read years ago in an old Chilton manual, in a photo feature entitled “Spark Plugs Tell a Story.” The high-speed glazing will coat the ceramic insulator that is supposed to isolate the core of the plug from the body, and thus the engine block. Coating this insulator with a partly conductive substance (glazing) will diminish the intensity of the spark by leaking some of the ignition current to ground (engine block/vehicle body).
“Well I have messed around with all types of car my whole life. I also went to collage to further my knowledge on them. And the way I was tought…”
An art major, I assume, given the specialization in collage.
;-))
I THINK EVEN INJECTED ENGINES SHOULD WARM FOR AT LET A MINUTE,WHEN YOU START THE ENGINE ALL THE OIL IS IN THE PAN AT THE BOTTOM.JUST START THE CAR.RELAX AND PUT ON YOUR SHADES,ADJUST YOUR RADIO,AND PUT ON YOUR SEAT BELT.THE ENGINE IS LUBED AND YOUR READY TO GO. : )
All the oil is in the drain pan? Don’t most modern oil filters prevent this from happening? Isn’t that why they have anti-backflow valves?
Some oil always stays in the filter. What stroker is saying that the oil drains from the head and valve gear into the sump; when you start up the car that oil has to be circulted up through the valve gear, and other bearings. If that takes too long, you have severe wear.
In fact, one cold start in the winter equals 500 miles of driving in terms of engine wear. Drivers who get 400,000 miles out of an engine without an overhaul are very careful about selecting the right viscosity oil and letting the oil circulate before putting a load on the engine.
one cold start in the winter equals 500 miles of driving in terms of engine wear.
How old is that statistic? Does it apply to today’s new cars?
Yes, it has been around for some time, but having no oil in your valve gear has nothing to do with whether you have fuel injection and platinum plugs, etc. Lack of initial lubrication affects every engine.
EXXON/Mobil has a video called The Cold War, where they start up a Ford 4 cyl engine at -30C with different thickness oils. With straight 40 at that temperature the valve gear starts smoking in about 4 minutes and it is soon toast. With a 0W30, there is no problem whatever, and the oil flows to the valve gear in 20 seconds.
With the end of the political cold war they did a sequal for trucking firms called The Cold War Continues. Oil company reps keep stressing the fact that cold starts cause most of the engine wear in stop and go short trip driving. This partly explains why some drivers get 400,000 miles out of an engine, and others only 150,000 miles before it starts using oil?
Personally, I have not done internal engine work since 1964, and have never disposed of a car because the engine was worn out. So, 40 plus years of using block heaters and the right viscosity oil is worth something.
It takes so little horsepower to cruise at about 30 mph or so that it is for all practical purposes the same as a fast idle except you are going somewhere instead of just sitting there. Most of us have to drive a few blocks to get out of a low speed limit neighborhood before we hit the highway and make the engine really work anyway.
Now, if your driveway happens to be right at the freeway onramp, you might want to stay on the access road for the first couple of miles instead of entering the freeway right after starting your engine.
About there being “no oil” in the moving parts of your engine at startup, I disagree. Take apart an engine that has not run for a long time and you will find that the bearing shells stick to the crank journals just like two wet plates of glass stick together. Surface tension (capillary effect) keeps oil in the bearings and the shaft is hydroplaning on an oil wedge almost as soon as the crank starts to turn, while the starter is still cranking the engine.
The real reason that a cold start allegedly was equall to 500 miles of driving is that the rich mixture of a choked engine tended to wash the oil film off the cylinder walls. Modern engines are designed to warm up super fast, engine blocks no longer hold two gallons of water that took forever to heat up, and EFI controls fuel mixture much better than carbs ever could.
I agree with you that some oil stays in the bearings and some on the cylinder walls. The big problem is the valve gear which is at the top of the engine and subject to extreme pressure. This area needs a constant flow of fresh oil and it is the area that does not get any on a very cold morning with the wrong viscosity oil.
So putting a low load on the engine intially gets the oil circulating, and ready for the higher loads later.
Cranshaft bearings rely on hydrodynamic lubrication at normal engine speed; the wedge of oil at the load area provides the lubrication. For that wedge to form it needs to be the right viscosity, which is very much influenced by temperature. For startup, we rely on the residual oil film, as you point out.
If we had metal-to-metal contact with main bearings, your car would only survive a few starts before burning out the bearings.
Have a beer with an oil company lube rep and he can explain you you all the fine points of static and dynamic lubrication.
I wasn’t thinking about fuel injection and platinum plugs. I was thinking about valves both in the engine and in the oil filters that keep all of the oil from draining down into the pan. When I do an oil change and start the engine, the oil light goes off after a few seconds of idleing. In this case, there was no oil in the system and I can see why this would equal 500 miles of driving in terms of engine wear. However, when I start the car under normal circumstnaces, the oil light goes off immediately, like the whole system is already full of oil. There is no delay waiting for the oil to be pumped from the pan to the moving parts. I find it hard to believe that even in cold temperatures this would cause that much wear with the recommended multi-viscosity oil. It isn’t just the oil that has improved. How our engines manage the oil to keep it all from draining out of the system back into the pan has also impacted engine wear.
When you have thick oil you will have good oil pressure; that does not mean it is getting to the most important part; the valve gear, or anywhere else for that matter. Try blowing up a very heavy balloon or your bicycle tires; you will put a lot of mouth pressure on it but it is not expanding.
The oil will find a path of least resistance and since you do not have a “positive displacement” oil pump, some slippage occurs initially with the pump is just heating up the oil. When you change oil, there is a temporary absence of oil in the line, and you will have no pressure, until the pump starts pumping oil instead of air.
The reason I mentioned the EXXON video is that at very low temperatures, NO COLD, HTICK OIL REACHES THE VALVE GEAR FOR QUITE SOME TIME. The cylinder walls have some splash lubrication and the crankshaft bearings already had a thin film and are not subject to high pressure shock loads.
There is a good reason to have an oil light on your car; if you lose your oil, it will come on, hopefully not too late. Also, if the oil pump fails, there will be no pressure either, another reason to stop. The reason so many engines fail when the oil light comes on is that drivers probably do not notice it initially, epcecially on a bright day, and drive until the engine is toast.
A guy down the block had his oil changed (Buick)at a department store auto center and they forgot to put the oil in. He went exactly 7 miles before the engine seized up completely. We assume he is color-blind and did not see the red oil light.