Million mile car brainstorming (will explain how it's MPG related)

[War_Wagon]

Really? Neato, I've never seen that before. I guess my point is that barring any contamination or other internal weirdness, modern synthetic oils will last a long time, and the filter is the cheapest insurance to keep them that way. A filter for my Civic here is $4 or so. Synthetic is usually about $6 per liter at least, and my Civic holds 4.4 liters. So a filter swap at 3000 miles is cheap insurance, and saves wasting 4.4 liters of synthetic that still had a lot of life left in it.

[Frank Lee]

Have you or anyone ever, ever, ever seen a filter that was really dirty on the inside and if so, can you detail the nature of the contamination?

[Sean.Heihn]

Seeing as you live in MN, rust is your 1st concern... and your 2nd and 3rd concern. Buying a can of rubberized undercoating and hitting up any suspect areas on the underbody and in the wheel wells. Catch any dings before they can spread rust.

On cryo treatment, I know it's used on gun barrels to relieve residual stress in the metal from forging and machining, the stress can cause the barrel to warp when it heats up. Mind you, it's only a .001" or so, but that gets multiplied by distance.

[Frank Lee]

Rust is the ONLY reason that '84 is off the road for now.

[War_Wagon]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Have you or anyone ever, ever, ever seen a filter that was really dirty on the inside and if so, can you detail the nature of the contamination?

I haven't personally. Except on vehicles that have been totally abused and haven't had an oil change in forever, then you can actually feel how heavy the filter is as it's full of crud. But for $4 I won't worry about it. Friends with race cars always cut their old filters open to look for bits of bearing etc, but for normal use it's not something I ever bother with. If you have an older vehicle with high miles, maybe it's starting to lift a headgasket and coolant is getting into the oil etc. In fact I think that's what's up with my Civic CX. Runs fine, never overheats, no puddles of coolant under it. But it keeps losing coolant somewhere. I keep waiting for the oil on the dipstick to go milky, but so far nothing yet. It's quiet. Too quiet lol.

[Sean.Heihn]

Rust sends many a car here in the Midwest to the scrap heap prematurely. It happened to my parents '00 Venture, head gasket blew but it wasn't worth it to replace with the fenders, rocker panels and a spot above the driver's seat rusting out.

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by War_Wagon

I haven't personally.

I haven't either and I've been messing with this stuff for decades. So it's "cheap insurance".. against what? It's an imaginary issue, like flag burning.

[freebeard]

Rust? Start with a Land Rover for a base vehicle (aluminum body and galvanized steel frame). Or a Corvette or Studebaker Avanti (fiberglass).

I change my oil based on its color and opacity, not miles driven. Is that wrong?

[some_other_dave]

Freebeard, I would say "yes, that's wrong". Oil can change color very very quickly, especially in cars that run hot or are hard on their oils. (Like turbocharged cars, or *ahem* air-cooled ones.)


Back to the OP: If you're looking to race car technology, keep one very huge point in mind: Race cars are thoroughly inspected, to the point of disassembly, very very frequently. Top-tier teams will pull a car apart after every weekend event to inspect all of the parts, and anything that isn't perfect gets replaced. And many things get replaced after X number of hours regardless of condition.

Street cars are much more "set-and-forget". Even if you do a careful inspection every week, you're not likely to spend the whole weekend tearing the car (and engine) down to its individual pieces to mike everything. So what works for a race car may not work so well in a street car.

It might--but you may be breaking new ground. Something to keep in mind...

-soD

[Sean.Heihn]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Rust? Start with a Land Rover for a base vehicle (aluminum body and galvanized steel frame). Or a Corvette or Studebaker Avanti (fiberglass).

I change my oil based on its color and opacity, not miles driven. Is that wrong?

Aren't Land Rovers unreliable? I remember reading somewhere one year they were rated the lowest quality car brand sold in the US.

If you want something with a body that doesn't rust, get a Saturn S series. They're a favorite on here because they can get great FE, the 1.9L engine goes forever (as long as you don't let it run low on oil, they tend to consume quite a bit of oil) and they were/still are popular here in MN because the plastic body doesn't rust. You see quite a few 20+ year old ones chugging down the road here.