[V8] oil usage

[dsaad at icehouse.net]

I have always been plauged with seemingly high oil consumption.
I have also tried lots of things to remedy it - some of which helped and some 
which did not.

The last thing I did was to hack 1 inch off the dipstick tube so I could better 
measure the oil in the motor. The results seem to be positive. I have not done 
a real test of how many miles per quart of oil I am using, but it sure seems 
like I am using far less. 
My situation was that when I put in the full 10 qts of oil (which I did for a 
long time) the dipstick read right at the full mark but pretty quickly dropped 
to the bottom of the stick where I could not tell if I was actually measuring 
anything. So I always added another qt to bring the level up between the two 
plastic markers, and it would drop again to the bottom of the stick quickly.

I now fill with only 8 qts of oil and the level seems to drop a little (maybe 
1/2 qt) and then stay there. This level was un-measurable with the old dipstick 
tube so I was always adding more oil.

If this is in fact true I don't know if I have a problem with the breather 
system (something I have always suspected) or this is just a quirk of my motor 
and not representative of all of them.

Anyway, food for thought.

Dave