No oil for 1 mile and it still runs??

[DJay]

Been wondering why i smelled burning oil when on the highway lately....

Looked under the hood a few times but never saw anything even slightly wet.

A couple days ago I found out what it was... the oil inlet on the top of my turbo was slowly leaking oil onto the turbo / downpipe. As a result I never saw anything wet, since the oil only leaked at higher PSI's and instantly burned off the downpipe / turbo.

How did I finally figure this out? Well the flange on that oil inlet line finally broke completely while I was on the expressway in the rain. Couldn't see any smoke (raining, remember?) didn't smell anything (70 MPH helped that) and ended up pumping 5.5 quarts of oil onto the expressway.

I heard a change in the exhaust tone like the timing was off so I started to worry. When I let off the gas the OIL light lit up! Past experience has taught me when an idiot light goes off; its usually too late!

When i pulled over, there were so many metal sounds comin from under the hood I nearly soiled myself. Figured for SURE the engine was deader than a door nail.

Well, my mechanic reflared the oil inlet line and filled her back up with oil ... would u believe she still runs?! I now have a slight lifter tick on the top of the engine, but nothing else is wrong!!! Not sure if I'm just the luckiest guy in the world, or if in time this will catch up wtih me ....

Any idea how an engine could survive runnin for a good 45 sec - 1 minute at 70 MPH with NO OIL?!?!

 

[TurboJim]

At work we had a car goin to the boneyard. I wanted to see how long it would take to lunch the motor so I drained the oil, removed the filter, drained the coolant and fired it up. It lasted for a good 20 minutes and despite making scary noises, never siezed.

Then on the opther side of the coin, I have seen cars a quart low lunch the motor. Guess it depends on how tight the motor is? I dunno.

Maybe you had some "Duralube" in there and didnt know it

 

[bruce]

Originally posted by DJay

Any idea how an engine could survive runnin for a good 45 sec - 1 minute at 70 MPH with NO OIL?

You may have dodged the bullet for the moment, but, you've taken some life out of the engine. In addition to bearing wear, the valve springs use the engine oil for cooling, and they do run really hot without any cooling. Same with taking the tension out of piston rings. Depending on a host of other factors you may be OK, or in 10K miles need some serious engine work.