Originally posted by NSXTech:
Well, you asked, so here I go.
Fact: Kent Sheply is an AHM employee called a model engineer. Honda has one for every car they sell. I personally kmow Kent, as well as the Legend model engineer Dennis Kawakami. Model engineers are hired by AHM and are sent to factory training schools and are "the" people who have the ear and the 'word' from the engineer in Japan who designs and builds these cars. If Kent says please leave the oil in its important, than its important.
Fact: Manufacturing and material processies have changed so much in the last twenty years, that the type of oil used in first fill today is nothing like first fill used twenty years ago.
Fact: When consumer agencies started compiling cost per year reports on all cars, engineers were instructed to keep this cost as low as possible, and Honda has reacted by changing their cars maintenance requirements so drastically, that most '01 models do not get a real tune up till 105k miles. The NSX gets one at 60k.
Fact: Honda has lowered the viscosity ratings on all its oils because of CAFE, not because of oil or engine changes.
Fact: When we had 25 or so NSX's show up at our dyno day 2 years ago, we recorded differences in *identical* cars of at least 25 hp, with clean, repeatable pulls, on 6 or 7 different cars.
Fact: I have rebuilt 5 NSX motors in the last 4 weeks, that range between 45 and 103k miles, and none of them, except the one that ingested the 69.00 SC, had ANY measurable wear in the cylinders or pistons. Bearing wear varied, but all would have ben reusable if I had chose to, except the one that had spun due to lack'o' lube.
Fact: I have a customer in Hunstville who flys me to his estate for service, who is a defense contractor. Among other things, he owns a plant that makes cylinders and liners for, among other companies, Harley, and AMGeneral. He showed me a cylinder liner
(he removed it from a protectice packaging in the trunk of one of his twin Bentleys as he had just been to a meeting where he was showing these off) that was made with a process that he has pateneted, that goes from the casting mold to the engine with NO machining at all. Zero. Zip. The surface was so unique, so perfect for piston ring wear. He claimed to me that he could coat it with grease and run it 10,000 miles at 3500 rpm with no oil in any crankcase. Its whats in the new Hummers and Harley 1200 motors. They are almost indestructable as far as bad oil control related problems go.
Opinion: Modern motors are made so well, especially Honda motors, that there is absolutely no need to dump oil erly. I left the oil in my '02 Highlander till 7k miles.
Opinion: The difference between the 225 and the 250 base hp pulls we did, was partly related to break in procedure, but not oil. While most people could not remember how they followed the break in instructions, they did remember the oil routine and there was absolutely NO correlation or pattern.
Opinion: If the AHM model engineer says leave it in, then whats the question??
Opinion: Did the person who started this thread do anything wrong by changing his oil early?? Only according to my dear Mother. She always says, that wasting money is a sin. And boy, is her son a sinner.
Bottom line for me- Leave it in, but don't loose any sleep over it.
Cheers,
Mark Basch
