So in a nutshell, the Elise is badass, one of the things that make it badass is either 1 or 2 oil coolers at the front of the engine, oil coolers are great, right? Well in my opin not when they make up 44% of the oil in the system, and there is no way to drain them. Who the hell designed that part of the car? So i have historically been SUPER anal about oil changes... I let the old oil drain out for hours, to make sure every last drop is out, then I run 1/2 of a quart of fresh, new, expensive oil through the system, some through the oil filler on the valve cover and some through the oil filter pickup reservoir (from my BMW days where there is a reservoir with a filter element, and not a metal canister filter) to get out the reamining driplets of the old. Once that has drained for at least 30 minutes, THEN I close everything up and put the new oil in. When you check the dipstick it looks like new oil, there is maybe 1% of the old stuff stuck in nooks and crannies, but I am ok with a 99% - 1% ratio of new to old. I also routineyl (maybe once a year or every other year) use Amsoil oil flush which completely breaks down your oil to make it the consistency of water, thus getting even MORE of the oil out of your motor.
Now I have been posting back and forth about this on LotusTalk, here is the whole thread.
If you want just the juicy bits, here it is;
"I would never do it every oil change, I tend to do it every 15k-25k miles or so, and what I am concerned with with this whole topic is motor longevity. You can take filthy, disgusting, gnarly oil and put it in an engine with 10k miles on it and then run it for 3k miles and it will most definitely be OK. Its a almost brand new engine, and is at the very beginning of its life. But I am thinking 100k down the line, 200 track days later, and while having old oil in a motor will seldom have an immediately negative impact its kind of like smoking. Eat 3 steaks in 1 day, or even do it for 6 months, it wont have any immediate affect, but do it every day for your whole life, and there is a pretty good chance you are going to have yourself some problems. That's how I see oil, its like eating healthy, but for your motor!
Its also not like the engine will suddenly seize up 1 mile past at 100k just because you only changed your oil every 15k or 20k miles. But as parts start to wear, and things start to break (which inevitably WILL happen) having old, dirty, broken down oil running through the system throughout its life will definitely have an impact. I am not an engineer, but I have a close friend who is a chemist, and he has always drilled into my head the importance of having 'fully functioning" (as he calls it) oil in an engine. I have to say, he gets an obscene amount of miles from his automobiles before they start having problems, so I tend to listen to what he says. I also think that engines under normal load conditions driven lightly (such as 99% of all drivers on the roads) will be affected far less from dirty oil. But in my opinion high performance cars where you are constantly bringing the engine to the peak of its efficiency, temp, and RPM range will be affected by not having clean and uncontaminated oil in the system.
I just did some research, and the manual states that our engine holds 4.4 liters of oil and the oil cooler and lines leading to it hold 3.5 liters. It also states that the oil from the lines/cooler/s isn't drained out on an oil change. That's 56% in the engine and 44% in the oil cooler/lines.
Again, maybe I am alone here, but that's like going to get an oil change at Jiffy lube, and if your car takes 7 quarts telling them to only drain out 4, and to leave 3 quarts of old, dirty, broken down oil in the engine. That's ludicrous, never in a million years would someone WANT to leave that much of their old oil in.
I did some comparative analysis today of my oil BEFORE the change, FRESH oil, and then 20 miles AFTER the change. See what each looks like in this pic;
I also plan on sending the BEFORE oil (which most likely was about 5k miles worth of use) and the AFTER oil to BlackStone Labratories to see what they say about the oil.
So while I understand that this is the way oil changes go on Elises/Exiges and that everyone simply goes with the flow and swaps out 56% of their oil per change, it definitely bothers me, and unless I can find some already existing method for draining the whole system, I want to look into engineering some part and/or process to get it all out. Now understandably there is always some oil left in the motor itself, there isnt much you can do about that, I am OK with leaving up to maybe 5% of the old oil in all the nooks and crannies in there, its the 44% PLUS the potential 5% stuck in the motor that scares me!"
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2 comments:
I read that whole thread and to me it defines the term " more money than sense" It seems that these guys are pretty cavalier about their cars. I get the impression that these guys are not concerned with the longevity of the motor because it is not really expensive to replace it. It seems to me that the 2zzfe motor was designed to go in a TOYOTA without an oil cooler, not in a lotus with one. I am sure the maintenance schedule is based on the specs from Toyota. I would call the guys at monkeywrench racing (where I got my tranny) and see if they could give you any info. I wonder if you could have a drain plug tapped into the cooler to remove the nasty stuff.
-craftsman
Dude,
You hit the nail on the frickin head! A) Less than 1% of all cars on the road have oil coolers. More like .0001% B) oil lasts a long time before breaking down, maybe so far as 15k even, but it gets dirty, and that contamination needs to be taken out, this is done by emptying ALL the oil and putting in my oil. C) How hard can it be to put a T-Tap in with a valve somewhere along the line so you can suck or push out the dirty oil from the cooler/lines?
The only concern is maybe that the oil cooler lines supposedly are preceded by a thermostat that only opens when the oil is a certain temp, which makes sense, but also makes it harder to fill, since brand new oil ain't that hot!
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