Message
Rusty,
A friend of mine is building a Lancair with a
20B. He ran the engine on a test stand, gearbox, but no prop. He had
a problem with the oil flow, and the bearings were destroyed within a
few seconds of running.
He would have only had whatever assembly
lubrication was present, but it surprised me that the bearings would go
so fast.
In your case, and if you were running
synthetic oil.....who knows, they may be fine...maybe
Steve Brooks
Something I will ask is at what rpm and power
setting did the
engine seize at??
The
engine did NOT seize. As I stated before, it quit because I tried to
throttle up with the mixture set way lean. I have no reason to believe
the engine is damaged, aside from what feels like a bit less
compression than normal.
As
for the bearings, Bruce also said the bearings would be the first to
go, but I have to wonder now if that isn't a car vs airplane
experience. He sees car engines that have run for some time without
oil, but at very low power settings. In that case, the bearings may be
the first to go. In your case, you ran at high power, which would
probably generate enough heat to seize the engine, possibly before the
bearings got damaged.
I
still find it very hard to believe the engine ran without oil pressure
for more than about 30 seconds, and did so at very lean mixture, and
idle power. I can't see how this is any more damaging than cranking
the engine several times. Maybe I'll learn something from the oil
filter tomorrow.
Cheers,
Rusty