How long will the average automobile engine run with no oil?

[user-612937456]

10,000 miles after a slick 50 treatment it lasted 2 45 minuit sessions of no load wot without oil or coolant before a rod bolt loosened and backed off. No visible damage to the bearings. The reason for 2 sessions was to prevent fire from cherry red exhaust manifolds.test was a 2.8 liter ford ranger 35 years ago. Its a shame we can't get resin oil addatives any more

[RCJ]

2 laps on a 1/2 mile track.

[BILL-C]

3/4 lap at watkins glen without a dry sump pump belt.

[pdq67]

MO has/had a repower diesel engine program before I retired from the State's Air Pollution Control Program funded by our Gov. The DERA Engine
program.

The old engines had to be destroyed so one method they used was to fill the empty engines up with water-glass and run them until they locked up. Seems some of them ran for several minutes before locking up!

You know, kinda like the old, "Cash for Clunkers", fiasco. Rich people turned in their kids junker's and bought new Prius's!!

The rich made out like bandits, but the poor people couldn't afford to do it...

pdq67

[Truckedup]

Salesmen used to walk into a fleet vehicle shop holding a running 2-1/2 HP Briggs and Stratton engine....It had a glass window in the crankcase to show there was zero oil in the engine...Then he went into his talk about how the product he was selling, Slick 50 or something similar, could extend the life of engines and so on.....A call to Briggs and Stratton engineering ...They said one of their engines could run for hours with no oil at idle , but just minutes if the engine was running at high power levels..If you intend to run engines with no oil ,the miracle product could make it last a bit longer...

[Newold1]

Kind of a fruitless question.

All of us know it can never be good for an engine to run with no oil or oil pressure.

Real obvious answer is "until their is so much internal damage that the engine destroys itself and quits doing what it was intended to do!"

I have built many engines with low oil pressure cutoff switches to the ignitions to minimize the damage when this condition rears its ugly head.
Saving a nice engine before it destroys itself is always a plus.

[engineguyBill]

Regardless of the snake oil advertisements that you see on late night television, an engine will not run very long at all without oil. As soon as the oil level is low enough to affect oil pressure, severe damage is being done to the engine. For instance, pressurized oil is necessary to form an oil "wedge" between the bearings and crankshaft journals. Without oil here, the bearing shells will get extremely hot and will soon burn out, taking the crank pins out in no time. It may take a minute or two for the engine to self-distruct and reduce itself to junk.

[goldmember63]

Memphis TN to Jasper Alabama@ 80 mph. No oil or oil pressure. Tightened oil filter added 5 qts oil and went on to Florida and back to Memphis.

[Zmechanic]

That's one of those hypotheticals with no one answer. Just like wondering the exact limits of how much HP or RPM components can tolerate. The only way to know is to try it. Sure there are defined good practice limits, but the only way to know the absolute limit is to find it (and suffer the consequences).

[user-612937456]

Regardless of the snake oil advertisements that you see on late night television, an engine will not run very long at all without oil. As soon as the oil level is low enough to affect oil pressure, severe damage is being done to the engine. For instance, pressurized oil is necessary to form an oil "wedge" between the bearings and crankshaft journals. Without oil here, the bearing shells will get extremely hot and will soon burn out, taking the crank pins out in no time. It may take a minute or two for the engine to self-distruct and reduce itself to junk.

PTFE resin's the snake oils that could back there claims with results. When they were still available they were a good safety net.

Does anyone know if there are any resin based addatives still available?

[Powertrip]

Knew a guy that would change his oil by going to the local K-mart to buy their cheapest oil filter. Dump the oil and change the filter right in the parking lot. Then drive 5 miles down the road with no oil to the gas station he worked at and fill the crankcase with free oil. Not sure how many times he got away with that cheap oil change.

At one time I had a Chrysler with a 400 big block, that burned oil. Took a road trip, full carload of people, 150 miles of 85+ mph driving. Checked oil at destination, nothing on the dip stick. Added 5 quarts of oil and it didn't miss a beat.

[peejay]

I drove my stepdad's Town & Country for two weeks with the oil pressure light glaring. '76 with the 400, maybe enough power production to peel the skin off of pudding. It had a really bad rear main seal leak. After it failed to die, I put four quarts of oil in it. The lifters all shut up and it went back to smoking heavily at stoplights from the leaky rear main seal drooling all over the exhaust crossover, which was the main reason why I wished the car's existence to end.

I'm not sure if B engines are just that tough, or an engine that big that only makes 120hp or so is too unstressed to need much.

[engineguyBill]

Knew a guy that would change his oil by going to the local K-mart to buy their cheapest oil filter. Dump the oil and change the filter right in the parking lot. Then drive 5 miles down the road with no oil to the gas station he worked at and fill the crankcase with free oil. Not sure how many times he got away with that cheap oil change.

Doesn't make any sense at all. Why didn't he just steal the filter from the gas station, to complete the oil change with the stolen oil??

[MadBill]

And maybe recycle the old oil instead of polluting the parking lot..

[GARY C]

Does anyone have any good stories?
On this one I guessed 20 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfipRXooCTM

I bet it will run until it dies!