arrow k series engine

[rl71459]

"OU812"  ?? 

WTF

[Apogee]

Which puts us at approximately 526,500 miles at 15,000 hours.

That jives with recommended major rebuild intervals of 500,000 miles.

[JohnF]

O.K.;
From an entirely empirical standpoint - I have run 6/1 Listeroids for thousands of hours.  For me, a minor rebuild ( rings, big end bearings etc comes around 10,000 hours.  Before that, every 1,000 hours or so is a needed de-coking.  What is a major rebuild?   It is different for every owner.  For me, rings, big end bearings and even a idler gear change is minor stuff.  A major re-build for me is having to change the crankshaft, something that I have not had to do ever.  Having said that, I just had an engine go down with a cracked crankcase - now THAT is major!    

[vdubnut62]

Yall remember that 90% of engine wear is at cold start up, Not while hot and running doing it's job.
Ron

[sailawayrb]

The design books tell us that engine inertial forces and consequently engine life expectancy is more or less proportional to the square of engine RPM (all other things being equal...which is hardly ever the case..), so one might expect 600 RPM engines to last 36 times longer than 3600 RPM engines.  I would agree that a well setup Listeroid should have a similar life expectancy to an original Lister...maybe even more if you consider an old original Lister has already used up a good percentage of it's finite fatigue cycle life...whatever that is.

Bob B.

[vdubnut62]

Listen, a guy can still order a box of engine parts.  Power Anand will sell you a box full of a disassembled engine for the same price as one that is assembled. Or he will sell you a short block and the rest can be had from Central Maine diesel...
Or one can still go the Air Compressor route.
Things aren't shut completely down, you just have to be creative.
And I have personally had Caterpillars  to run in excess of 600,000 miles without being touched, other than  adjustments and oil changes.
I have also had Macks to go in excess of 20,000 hours, by the built in hour meter anyway, and still start cold, hold good oil pressure,
and use about a gallon of oil in  10,000 miles..
It's possible, but probably not the norm, I will accede that.
Ron

[mobile_bob]

bear in mind that a listeroid is no mack or cat

there is an enormous difference in design, materials, and those that make max hours have very good maintenance
and burn nothing but well filtered pump diesel.

as for what constitutes an overhaul

in trucks there are basically two kinds, an inframe and an out of frame overhaul

the inframe might take place at 500k miles or more, and generally is comprised of new cylinder kits, rod/main brgs, and exchange cylinder
heads, and a set of injectors, all work is done with the engine in situ, (in the truck frame)

the out of frame is basically where you take the engine completely out of the truck, tear it down to the last bolt, clean, inspect, remachine if needed
and replace all wear parts, however it is rare that a crank will be replaced or even reground undersize, but rather reused, and as often as not the cam will also
be reused.

i still think that 10k hours is a decent target for a lister or listeroid before overhaul, by overhaul i would define it to include at least a set of rings, big end brg
head rework, injector replacement and maybe a few other minor things like gskts and the like

at 20k hour i might expect to have to go for an out of frame complete take down and perhaps have to regrind the crank and replace mains, piston/liner maybe cam and lifters and all the other stuff that would have been done at 10khours.

i think that is realistic

btw, the longest lived truck engine that i know to be documented ran to 1.2 million miles, and had only regular maintenance and one set of injectors during that time,, and it was for sale in a still running condition, it was a factory derated 1693 cat set to 235hp (typical hp was 425hp)

bob g

[Crofter]

Some items in an engine can be heavily influenced by inertia forces and there exist some barriers where piston speed and g forces create definite ceilings. Bore to stroke ratio and the relative massiveness are a couple of the cases of things not being equal. Design dictates optimum rpm.

Since output energy is a product of rpm X torque, to keep the output work the same but at lower rpms, the piston and bearing loads must of necessity be higher. Bearing oil film is harder to maintain at slow speeds (start up wear?)  Low rpm is not a free lunch below what is optimum rpm for the particular engine and the load conditions applied.

I think oilfied natural gas might not be good for aluminum pistons and wonder if that arrow cum petteroid might have cast iron piston(re the caution about keeping rpm down) The horsepower produced relates to a pretty mild BMEP so exhaust gas temperature should be way down and better for valve life.

I have no experience with their rod bearing area and design compared to the listeroid. Compared to some engines that run a lot higher rpm, the listeroid does not seem to have be really long lived in this area. Of course some are running bigger bores on the same bearing setup by taking them up to 10 - 16 hp in some cases.

That petteroid on NG at that loading should stand up to more hours than it would on diesel.

[mobile_bob]

i think i would agree Frank

it should last longer on nat gas than it would on diesel, however
i am not sure it is the stresses of running at higher temps and pressures that is the life limiting factor but
rather one of cleanliness of construction (sand issues) sloppy assembly, poor machining and probably lower quality
parts (metallurgy) being more dominate.

and our need to burn alternate fuels, that might be not as clean as the ought to be, coupled with running at low or part
load so that the engine cannot attain a decent thermally stable temp,

on balance in my mind a listeroid making 10 hours is actually quite a feet, when you factor in all the issues from manufacture to end use.

i am not at all sure even a first world engine built with the finest materials, if asked to  burn what we want to feed it, maintained the way we generally
maintain,and ran at low and part load would fair any better?  and surely at a much higher cost?  definitely with more technical requirements too?

interesting discussion.

i go from hating listeroids to having a new appreciation for them?  lol who knew?

maybe i better go lay down until this feeling passes



bob g

[Henry W]

as i see it engine life is a series of components

1. excellent design, all aspects

2. excellent materials, especially in all wear related parts

3. careful attention to spec's from enigneering, in the machining processes

4. careful adherence to the spec's on assembly

5. very clean air, fuel and lubrication oils, of the proper quality and spec's

6. good quality maintenance

7. maintaining  proper loading, and engine temperatures that fit within the design spec's of the engine.

and probably a few i forgot to mention  

very few to none that exist with the typical listeroid or other indian product, and quite frankly are lacking in many aspects even
with the current production engine's from first world manufactures, because of cost/price constaints.

this idea that there was ever a lister that ran for 100k hours is on par with other mythological creatures like the fabled unicorn
or the bucket of gold at the end of the rainbow. just like mythical creatures the 100k lister never existed and there will never be a 25k listeroid much less
one that lasts 100k.

at least any such engine that went 25k (plus),  without some repairs and overhauls along the way.

10k hours is probably a pretty good number to shoot for with an indian engine, and even then it isn't going to happen out of the crate
burning oil with french fries floating in it, that is operated by some goon that has no clue as to what proper maintenance is.

present company excepted!

it would seem to me an indian engine that is taken down, cleaned, made right, reassembled to spec's, fed clean fuel, air and oil, and maintained
by someone that actually cares ought to average 10k hours between major overhauls, maybe a bit more but that would be just iceing on the cake.

i just don't see 40k hours as being within the realm of reality under any conditions, not with what we have to work with.

on the other hand, 10k hours is admirable and certainly a decent lifespan in my opinion, a lot of work can be done in that time, lots of kw/hrs, and btu's.
and when it comes time to overhaul it can be done fairly economically, so the tradeoff is a fair one in my opinion.

at least for most folks

imho, ymmv, ou812 and all that!



bob g

Ok guys,
I been reading some of the posts. Bob is right what he posted above. Some of you guys might think an engine running 1800 RPM's or more can't run long hours.

Well read this!!! http://www.examiner.com/classic-autos-in-national/world-s-record-high-miles-car-how-a-classic-volvo-changed-a-life I guess this is why I like the older Volvo's. Forget about the Petteroids and Listeroids competeing with the older Volvo's record. It will not and cannot happen.

But the listeroid or petteroid engine can be made to last longer if time is spent on getting better grade parts and getting the tolerances tighter.

And Frank made some excellent points. The Listeroids and Petteroids should last even longer if ran on natural gas. So I think it is possible to get much longer life out of one of these diesels converted to gas.

Henry

[BioHazard]

I was having this conversation with someone at the shop the other day...I think engine wear/life is directly related to torque output or to make something up "torque hours". The more torque a given engine has to put out, per cubic inch, the shorter it will live. As you put a bigger load, say a bigger gen head, on the same engine, life expectancy will go down...even if RPMs stay the same.

In other words, in theory, a 600 RPM lister should last twice as long producing 1500w as 3000w. Now, diesels are picky about engine loading, so you have to balance that too of course. If we are talking about spark ignition, generally the more cubic inches your engine has, the longer it's going to last in a given application. The vast majority of "industrial" engines are simply converted car engines, yet they don't usually put out even half the horsepower the same engine does in a car.

That is, of course, ignoring many other variables...

As for relating to "mileage", I've always used 35mph as an "average life speed" for my vehicles, I can't remember where I read that now? It's not unheard of for a car engine to last 500,000 miles with good maintainence. That's over 14k hours @ 35mph. If an engine can last that long on road service, I would think making it stationary and cutting the RPMs in half should at least double that. Imagine how many cold starts, and how much revving above 1800 RPMs takes place in 500,000 miles. Then again, most car engines aren't made in India...

[BioHazard]

i can't understand how some of these engine's are ok to import and sell (apparently epa approved) while we as diy'ers
can't get these engines.

Can't we? I think it's just a matter of cash. Most of us do not have an expense account like Arrow does. If I built a prototype natural gas lister, and submitted the proper fee and sample engines to the EPA, I could probably get approval too. No?

What I wonder, is how can we get listeroids "approved" by saying it's just a clone of one that already is? Or, why won't that work?

[BioHazard]

How much of an improvement on engine life would likely be obtainable by providing full pressure lubrication to the big end bearing on a Listeroid? If startup causes 90% of the engine wear, how much improvement could be obtained by running up the oil pump and establishing oil film on the crankshaft and camshaft prior to cranking over the engine. I am assuming this is where all the wear would be concentrated. How involved would it be to modify the crankshaft for full pressure lubrication ?

Just thinking outloud...don't they sell engine "pre lube" kits that shoot some pressurized oil into your engine before starting? If you can find a way to get the oil flowing before the engine starts, yeah, that should make a huge difference. And maybe try heating the oil before starting...even if it's not that cold.

[wiebe]

mmmm thinking on this side .
I have seen a german teardouwn on a 50.000km jamaha motorcicle.
They had 3 measurmants of whare ,1 within assemble specs 2 within whare spec 3 replacment spec.

There were parts that where in bilding spec from the factory.
If we pick parts at the factory at the begin of the bilding spec on all the parts i think thats a nother 3000 til 6000k

A normal car never uses al of its bhp at 120kmu only 13hp .we are working the engine,s hard .til rated hp .

Greetings Wiebe.

[BioHazard]

This is discontinued, but you could probably make one without too much trouble:
http://www.smartsynthetics.com/products/amsoil-prechargers-amk01-amk02.htm

I'm researching a six cylinder natural gas cogenerator for my shop, I plan on insulating the engine block so that it stays hot for at least a day. The engine will never see a "cold" start.

edit:
Another example:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Revolution-Marine-Engine-Pre-Oiler-Kit-Natural-Alum-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem334b24cb62QQitemZ220304034658QQptZBoatQ5fPartsQ5fAccessoriesQ5fGear
Seems like something you could make for <$30 with parts from Surplus Center...