When I was playing around with Slick 50 folks at the race track, we had a small Briggs and Stratton engine mounte on a small board. It had a clear plastic side cover so that you could see that it had NO oil. The Petrolane rep woiuld fire it up and it would run 'around ' the pits at high idle all day. About an hour to each tank of fuel. It just vibrated all over the pits like a pet dog. Ran that way for a LONG time. Don't get me wrong, I do not reccommend doing that to a car! I used Slick 50 because it was free. Now that I have to buy it ----
Oil doesn't only reduce friction and lubricate, it also COOLS. No oil = reduced COOLING for the engine. An engine only needs 1-qt of oil to lubricate; the rest is for heat transfer.
Why would anyone want to run an engine without oil?
Now I know about oil-less air compressors (using Teflon rings), but why risk destroying a good engine?
Perhaps when they build a totally ceramic & composite engine we can eliminate oil as a cooling & lubricating friction-reducing fluid, but not yet....
I have some information on engines run in emergency situations without oil using one manufacturer's oil without damage, but that is NEVER a good thing to do on purpose.
Will
NOVA Engineering & Consulting
novaeng@tampabay.rr.com
Will writes: An engine only needs 1-qt of oil to lubricate; the rest is for heat transfer.
I'm not so sure I agree with you there Will on a long term change interval basis. In most automotive engines, it would be tough to reliably scavenge the oil from the pan with less than a quart of oil. With hills and curves, you could easily cavitate the pump risking oil starvation and loss of film strength through air entrainment. Minor point though.
Of much more importance is that one quart of oil wouldn't contain a sufficient additive package to maintain the oil viscosity over the change interval. The dispersants, buffers, extreme pressure wear agents, and, antioxidants would deplete too rapidly causing the oil to become contaminated and next to useless long before today’s accepted extended change intervals are reached. The oil would also be exhibit severe dilution if the vehicle were subject to lots of cold starts. There would be too little margin of safety should overheating or leaking problems exist.
Only quantity can overcome that! Long haul trucks and industrial engines measure oil capacity in gallons for that reason. 4 to 6 quarts seems to be about the right number for most average size automotive engines.
