Thread: Oil usage/burn
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Unread 08-23-21, 05:27 PM
edasmus edasmus is offline
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"Is this normal?"

From my experience, the range on "normal" oil consumption is quite wide. I would guess, and this is truly a guess, that your oil consumption being as low as it is, is likely way lower than most engines out there. There is certainly nothing wrong with your engine in that regard. You could probably look up the maximum usage allowed by Continental for our engines. Off hand I do not know what that is but it is quite high. It might be on the order of a quart every two hours or so. I think that is what Lycoming recommends also. It might vary with the engine model also.

I just had both my engines overhauled in the last year at Poplar Grove Airmotive. My old front engine was consistent at a quart every 7 hours and the old rear was a quart every 9 hours. The overhauled front engine has settled on a quart every 10 hours and the overhauled rear engine was placed into service a week ago and has 6 whole hours on it so it's consumption is to be determined. In those 6 hours it appears to have used a half quart, most of that occurring on the first hour.

More important than the consumption of oil would be a CHANGE in the consumption of your oil. Whatever your number is, if that is remaining consistent, then it is a reasonable assumption that no dramatic changes have occurred on the innards of your engine.

Having said all this, my old front engine showed no sign of any change right up until the flight that a couple of rings broke and a chunk of the number 5 piston went out the tail pipe. That flight lasted about 30 minutes after the failure and my oil consumption in that 30 minutes jumped to 6 quarts per hour. Yes, it was down 3 quarts in the 30 minutes it took me to get down. The engine was running fine 99% of the time with occasional momentarily roughness.

If anyone is wondering why it took so long to get down, I was gathering data from my JPI so I could have something useful to say to my mechanic besides "every once in awhile, the engine starts shaking."
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