Could this be true: A temporary cure for bad ring lands or burning oil

[johnl]

The site won't load...

Again, try this:
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php

but I'm 99% sure I don't even need to read what that stuff is to tell you no it will not work

This is NO temporary fix...there is only the ONE solution. If your rings aren't holding compression nothing you put in will regain compression...NOTHING...read that again please...NOTHING

There is a procedure done during a compression check...I assume where this crap got its start...again the site won't load so I'm guessing here...

This procedure is where you do a dry check..then a "wet" check...yes the compression MAY boost up a little with the "wet" check. But once you run the engine the wetness goes away. It is just a test to see if the rings are the leak...if the wet compression bumps up...they are suspect. But that bump doesn't last. Hell after one or two revs it's burned out (usually add some odd ounces of tranny fluid in the comb chamber was what our inst. did)

think about it...if there was gunk on them causing the rings to not seal...you've either got
1. new rings and thus a shitty builder...or
2. you've got some serious issues that only a rebuild with new rings will fix.

also consider this....your engine spins on average during your drive 2500-3000 revolutions per minute! Do you think any "temporary" coating will last very long at 3000 revolutions per minute? That's 75,000 revolutions in 25 minutes.

and let's not forget the heat...that would diminish the life of any temporary fix even more.

So no...no it will not.

Please do not waste your money on snake oil...remember the rules of life

1. if it sounds too good to be true...it is
2. there is no such thing as a free lunch (tin stafl)
3. the fine print you don't see IS there...and it will bite you in the ass
4. there is SOOO much more than you realize you don't know

just threw in the last two for shit...there's more of course...but that's for later.

This reminds me of that oil crude you're supposed to put in your engine...it's as thick as molasses...no joke...yet people keep buying it...hell it's made by stp it has to be good..."I swear by this stuff"

The sells tactic MOST used is testimonials...and it's also the least accurate in the way of proof...most full of bullshit.

Just think...and realize...nothing temporary will work.

As to auto-rx...from what I can tell it's just a cleaner...it cleans the engine, oil flows better, doesn't stay in hot spots and burn out as much. But not...it won't help ringlands seal better. It may help in a small way by cleaning the crude and allowing newer/cleaner oil to lube parts but it won't restore compression as you are thinking.

I have no axe to grind with Auto-RX (never used it, can't personally vouch for it's effectiveness, don't own shares), but note that from my understanding it doesn't create a coating nor does it 'add' lubricity to the oil. As you correctly state it cleans deposits from engine components, and this can be very useful.

The issue with dirty rings and ring grooves (dirt = chemical deposits, from fuel and oil) is that this can cause the rings to become 'stuck' in the grooves. This causes the rings to lose the ability to push strongly enough against the bore walls and as a result the cylinder loses compression. This can occur even when the rings themselves are not damaged, merely not 'free' to do their job. This may be so bad that the rings can exert almost no pressure on the bore wall, or just a diminished pressure. I've seen plenty of pistons that when pulled from the engine had rings that were totally stuck in the grooves and did not spring out at all, but still had good 'ring tension' when the rings were removed from the piston.

Even if the ring is 'loose' enough to press against the bore wall as more or less intended, the bore wall / ring pressure created by the 'ring tension' (springiness) is required to create an initial seal that permits the initially low cylinder psi to get behind the piston ring, and (as the cylinder gas psi rises) to push the ring much more firmly against the bore wall than the ring tension alone can do.

If this didn't occur then the ring tension pressure alone would not be great enough to prevent high pressure gasses from lifting the ring off the bore wall and the all important gas pressure being lost. If the ring groove is clogged with crap then the gas pressure cannot get behind the ring and so cannot more firmly seat the ring against the bore wall (as it should). As a result the ring will seal much less effectively due to accreted crap in the ring grooves.

If the crap can be removed (physically or chemically), then the ring will again become free to move in the grooves and thus be able to create the initially required light pressure ring / bore contact, and compression / combustion gas psi will again be able to freely get behind the ring to firmly push the ring against the bore to create an effective ring seal.

I'm not saying that any particular chemical product can effectively achieve this ring / groove cleaning or not. What I am saying is that if it can then there is a plausible reason as to why it would / could be effective. The caveat is that even if it does work, if the ring has already lost it's ring tension due to having been overheated, then it's past help.

Do note that there seems to be a significant amount of apparently independant positive feedback (and some less than positive) concerning the effectiveness of Auto-RX (as well as 'Seafoam") on the Bobistheoilguy site. And do note that a number of people who post on this site appear to be qualified tribologists (i.e. lubrication engineers), at least they talk the talk well enough to have me fairly convinced they are what they say thay are. I doubt that BITOG is set up purely as a promotional tool for Auto-RX, but then I may be naive...

[L_U_D_I_AAccord]

Again, try this:
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php



I have no axe to grind with Auto-RX (never used it, can't personally vouch for it's effectiveness, don't own shares), but note that from my understanding it doesn't create a coating nor does it 'add' lubricity to the oil. As you correctly state it cleans deposits from engine components, and this can be very useful.

The issue with dirty rings and ring grooves (dirt = chemical deposits, from fuel and oil) is that this can cause the rings to become 'stuck' in the grooves. This causes the rings to lose the ability to push strongly enough against the bore walls and as a result the cylinder loses compression. This can occur even when the rings themselves are not damaged, merely not 'free' to do their job. This may be so bad that the rings can exert almost no pressure on the bore wall, or just a diminished pressure. I've seen plenty of pistons that when pulled from the engine had rings that were totally stuck in the grooves and did not spring out at all, but still had good 'ring tension' when the rings were removed from the piston.

Even if the ring is 'loose' enough to press against the bore wall as more or less intended, the bore wall / ring pressure created by the 'ring tension' (springiness) is required to create an initial seal that permits the initially low cylinder psi to get behind the piston ring, and (as the cylinder gas psi rises) to push the ring much more firmly against the bore wall than the ring tension alone can do.

If this didn't occur then the ring tension pressure alone would not be great enough to prevent high pressure gasses from lifting the ring off the bore wall and the all important gas pressure being lost. If the ring groove is clogged with crap then the gas pressure cannot get behind the ring and so cannot more firmly seat the ring against the bore wall (as it should). As a result the ring will seal much less effectively due to accreted crap in the ring grooves.

If the crap can be removed (physically or chemically), then the ring will again become free to move in the grooves and thus be able to create the initially required light pressure ring / bore contact, and compression / combustion gas psi will again be able to freely get behind the ring to firmly push the ring against the bore to create an effective ring seal.

I'm not saying that any particular chemical product can effectively achieve this ring / groove cleaning or not. What I am saying is that if it can then there is a plausible reason as to why it would / could be effective. The caveat is that even if it does work, if the ring has already lost it's ring tension due to having been overheated, then it's past help.

Do note that there seems to be a significant amount of apparently independant positive feedback (and some less than positive) concerning the effectiveness of Auto-RX (as well as 'Seafoam") on the Bobistheoilguy site. And do note that a number of people who post on this site appear to be qualified tribologists (i.e. lubrication engineers), at least they talk the talk well enough to have me fairly convinced they are what they say thay are. I doubt that BITOG is set up purely as a promotional tool for Auto-RX, but then I may be naive...

To be honest with you at this point i am willing to try everything, about the Seafoam, so far i have tried it many times at least 3 bottles for the past 25,000mile, my assumption is that it made it worse that what it was, so at this point do I want ot keep cleaning the engine or start adding something to fill in the gaps.

Don't get me wrong, I do understand that the best way will be a complete rebuilt, but simply at this point I don't have the time to do it, thats why i am kind of willing to try something temp. If it helps, it helps, if not then I only spend a few $$ and about 30sec.

Also I do have to say that probably I am one of the few people here that put over 500miles a week on the car, yes I travel a lot. I put close to 40,000 ever since I got the car about less than 2 years ago.

So anything temp that will work to reduce my oil consumption is welcome.

[johnl]

To effect an immediate reduction in oil consumption / smoking about the only thing you can do is to use a very thick engine oil, or a proprietary 'stop smoke' type of oil additive (basically a bottle of honey thick oil that increases the existing oils viscosity).

Personally I'd first try a properly formulated oil in a 20w-50 (or even 60). The idea is simple, the thicker oil flows more slowly than the fairly thin spec oil, so less oil volume passes through the source of the internal oil loss into the combustion chamber.

If you also have low compression (not unlikely) you may find that a thicker oil increases it to some degree, thus resulting in some improvement in power output and economy. Note that this only works (sometimes) if the compression is poor, if not then the thicker oil does require more power to pump through the engine and slide the pistone upon (higher 'film drag'), so in a healthy engine causes a power and economy loss.

From what I've read, Auto-RX does not work immediately (assuming it does work), but cleans the internal surfaces gradually over some thousands of km/miles and at least two oil changes.

To be honest with you at this point i am willing to try everything, about the Seafoam, so far i have tried it many times at least 3 bottles for the past 25,000mile, my assumption is that it made it worse that what it was, so at this point do I want ot keep cleaning the engine or start adding something to fill in the gaps.

Don't get me wrong, I do understand that the best way will be a complete rebuilt, but simply at this point I don't have the time to do it, thats why i am kind of willing to try something temp. If it helps, it helps, if not then I only spend a few $$ and about 30sec.

Also I do have to say that probably I am one of the few people here that put over 500miles a week on the car, yes I travel a lot. I put close to 40,000 ever since I got the car about less than 2 years ago.

So anything temp that will work to reduce my oil consumption is welcome.

[L_U_D_I_AAccord]

To effect an immediate reduction in oil consumption / smoking about the only thing you can do is to use a very thick engine oil, or a proprietary 'stop smoke' type of oil additive (basically a bottle of honey thick oil that increases the existing oils viscosity).

Personally I'd first try a properly formulated oil in a 20w-50 (or even 60). The idea is simple, the thicker oil flows more slowly than the fairly thin spec oil, so less oil volume passes through the source of the internal oil loss into the combustion chamber.

If you also have low compression (not unlikely) you may find that a thicker oil increases it to some degree, thus resulting in some improvement in power output and economy. Note that this only works (sometimes) if the compression is poor, if not then the thicker oil does require more power to pump through the engine and slide the pistone upon (higher 'film drag'), so in a healthy engine causes a power and economy loss.

From what I've read, Auto-RX does not work immediately (assuming it does work), but cleans the internal surfaces gradually over some thousands of km/miles and at least two oil changes.

so your idea is to use the Auto-RX first and hopefully free up the rings, see how it goes and then if nothing happens use a thick oil additive? The only reason why i am kind of afraid of using something to clean is because I just replaced all valve seals and I don't want to damage the new seals.

At this point i am using 15w-40,

[07BLKNINJA]

just do the rings, and reseal the engine while your in there u and a buddy its a weekend job. i could have knocked this out in a day but the hondas were all greek to me lol. just did mine a few weeks ago. 14 hrs later she doesnt smoke at all, and 400 miles on the new rings bearings and seals and its running like a champ.


"there no mechanic in a can"

[johnl]

so your idea is to use the Auto-RX first and hopefully free up the rings, see how it goes and then if nothing happens use a thick oil additive? The only reason why i am kind of afraid of using something to clean is because I just replaced all valve seals and I don't want to damage the new seals.

At this point i am using 15w-40,

I won't recommend or not recommend Auto-RX. If you want to try this product then I do suggest first reading the threads related to it on the BITOG site (lots of Auto-RX threads there, and there is a user discussion forum on the Auto-RX site as well). If you decide to use it, do so according to the product instructions.

If it works then there should be no need to use a thick oil. If it doesn't work then your down whatever the product costs you, but if it doesn't work or you don't give it a go then you also need a lot of work done on your motor (or a replacement), because a thick oil will at best only lessen your problem, not fix it.

From what I understand, don't expect an instant result from Auto-RX, if it works then it takes some time to do so. I doubt the valve seals are in danger from this product.

15w-40 is not a particularly thick oil and not what you would choose to lessen smoking / oil consumption. It is a good choice for an engine in fairly good condition (I use a 15w/40 diesel oil in my engine, but would also be happy to use a 10w/30, but then my near 300,000km engine doesn't burn any oil...).