ENGINE OIL/ WINTER/ WARMING CAR (tirade, yet edumacational.. D'oh!)

[auditude at cox.net]

I would tend to think that rpm would be worse on the valve train in the head, and load would be worse for the bottom end.  The valve train needs protection from the cam lobes slapping the lifters, as well as the lifters needing flowing oil to pump up and keep things tight. 

Surely winding the car out to redline gradually on cold oil right after startup isn't good, right?  What about with no load at all, sitting in the driveway in neutral?  I've always thought that it's good to keep the rpms down until the engine is warmed up.  I know some people gun their motors when cold to warm them up, and it just seems wrong to me.

I totally agree that load is harder on a motor than rpm is, but I just think rpm is important too when the oil is cold, not based on anything specific.

It seems like Brady in that post was writing about what causes oil to warm up quicker, load or rpm, not which type of stress needs warm oil protection more, but of course it's fine to have more than one valid and different point in a thread.

Here in the Phoenix area, oil doesn't get all that cold compared some of y'all, so what do I know. =)

Ken

AudiBiTurbo at aol.com wrote:

In a message dated 12/23/2003 8:41:35 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
bradym at sympatico.ca writes:
Rightly or wrongly, I was under the impression that oil temperature was more
RPM-related than load-related. Just my personal experience in the 4kq while
watching the oil temp gauge.

Cheers,
Brady

I would suggest that there is no real relationship here, at least not 
anything worthwhile.  My point was that at 4000 RPMs while cruising on the highway in 
your 4KQ, there is little "loading" of the engine.  What that means (at least 
to me) is that the internal engine components are lightly stressed, and 
therefore don't require the same level of clean, hot oil flow as a loaded engine.  
This has been tested and documented for years.  A high load (say first gear, 
uphill, max throttle) on an engine has much more internal stresses than a 
lightly loaded engine (downhill, closed throttle), RPMs being equal. 
Since you can't change your gearing at top gear, at least have the engine as 
lightly loaded as possible (i.e. no hard acceleration) until the engine's oil 
is warmed up to temperature.

Best Holiday Wishes to All,
Mark Rosenkrantz
AudiBiTurbo at aol.com