Maintenance Questions..

[DWR]

One question about that crossed the vacant space that is my mind. If they install the bottom panel on the production model, as they have said they will. Will there still be (easy) access to the bottom of the engine?

Hello Jay3wheel. Where did you hear they plan to have a belly pan? Check out post #34 of this thread. http://www.elioowners.com/threads/belly-pan.952/page-4. I didn't think they were going to have one. If you've seen that in an article somewhere, please try to post a link to it.

 

[Lil4X]

1. My Opel had a steel belly pan that covered just the forward half of the engine bay, and it had a hole (with a nicely turned edge) through which you accessed the filter. Forward of that was a series of reverse louvers ("gills" said one manual) that drew air out from behind the radiator into the low pressure area under the car. It was all very (German) efficient. If you needed access to anything other than the filter, you could remove 8 screws and drop the pan.
2. I've used one of those "Dril Pumps" attached to a hand drill to pull oil out of the engine sump on boats. It works very well, and surprisingly, it gets everything out - if you are able to ballast down the bow so that everything runs to the front of the pan where the dipstick tube was.
   
3. For insurance, I'd want to pull an oil sample every year or two just to have it professionally analyzed. I've done a number of DIY inspections, borrowing a kit from work, and they've been very instructive as to what's going on down in the bowels of the engine. Today's synthetic oils don't require nearly so many changes, but still a check of what's in your oil is a good idea. See: http://www.blackstone-labs.com/
   
4. If you drain your oil conventionally from the sump, look into a "Fumoto valve". This gadget is installed in place of your drain plug and allows you to drain your oil without unscrewing the valve from the pan. Unfortunately too many plugs get cross-threaded in ordinary use, requiring the replacement of the pan itself. These pans are expensive (the one for my 2.4 Dodge is about $150) and if you can keep some pit monkey from screwing it up, you're money ahead. A friend who ran the Houston Police motor pool (where they used to change the dino oil in their patrol cars weekly) was replacing 6-7 pans a week on the fleet until he discovered these valves years ago. Saved the city a TON of maintenance cost. A lot of private owners have gone to this kind of valve too, usually because it's a lot easier to operate than removing/reinstalling a plug.

 

[BilgeRat]

Agree on the Futomo valves, I've used them in the past. I am currently using Fram SureDrain equipment on our "fleet" of three vehicles, they work very well and seem a bit less susceptible to road damage than the Futomos. Lately, I've only been able to find them on Amazon. Vacuum extraction and small pumps work well as long as the dipstick is aligned with the deep part of the pan. If the engine layout is like my wife's Toyota, the dipstick is in a shallow area of the pan, and you can't get the suction tube clear to the bottom...

FWIW, we rigged up "vacuum extraction" for oil changes on the John Deere 8.1L generator engines on the boat I work on. A 1/2" hard copper pipe with a cam lock fitting attached to the bilge suction hose and inserted through the oil filler removes 8 gallons of used oil to the dirty oil tank in about two minutes. Works WAY better than the gravity drain ever did...

 

[JEBar]

any comments about use of something like a K&N air filter .... they advertise that they allow more air into the motor but I've seen reports saying that comes with reduced filtration which allows larger particles to pass through .... it would seem to me that wouldn't be good with an Elio engine

Jim

 

[Bert]

I wonder as well Jim, but when I finally get my Elio I'll want the intake air to be as clean as possible, at least until I know just how well the engine will hold up.

 

[JEBar]

I wonder as well Jim, but when I finally get my Elio I'll want the intake air to be as clean as possible, at least until I know just how well the engine will hold up.

agree

Jim

 

[Jay3wheel]

Hello Jay3wheel. Where did you hear they plan to have a belly pan? Check out post #34 of this thread. http://www.elioowners.com/threads/belly-pan.952/page-4. I didn't think they were going to have one. If you've seen that in an article somewhere, please try to post a link to it.

I believe I read about a body panel, I don't know about a belly plate. Maybe there is no difference, if so my bad.

 

[Lil4X]

I remain unconvinced about K&N and similar filters. They may be as advertised, less restrictive, but they are designed for racing applications where survival of an engine is measured in hours or hundreds of miles. Running a racing engine for tens of thousands of miles just isn't in the design criteria. Considering the small power gain that the Elio engine might show for the potentially shortened life, for me, it's not worth it.

There's nothing wrong with that, providing you can accept more frequent filter service. Depending on your driving environment, you may need to flush and re-oil the filter on a monthly basis to keep grains of sand out of your cylinder bores. Again, oil sampling might be a good idea to monitor the grit in your engine.

 

[NSTG8R]

I remain unconvinced about K&N and similar filters. They may be as advertised, less restrictive, but they are designed for racing applications where survival of an engine is measured in hours or hundreds of miles. Running a racing engine for tens of thousands of miles just isn't in the design criteria. Considering the small power gain that the Elio engine might show for the potentially shortened life, for me, it's not worth it.

There's nothing wrong with that, providing you can accept more frequent filter service. Depending on your driving environment, you may need to flush and re-oil the filter on a monthly basis to keep grains of sand out of your cylinder bores. Again, oil sampling might be a good idea to monitor the grit in your engine.

Had a K&N on my '70 Baja Bug years ago. Not really impressed with them, hard to tell when they were in need of cleaning, PITA to clean and recoat with oil, but there wasn't many options for a Bug Spray carburetor back then ('83).

 

[skygazer6033]

I remember when you had to change the oil in your air cleaner.