[martinw]

Dear Geof,

That would be abysmal.

So is Italian engineering.

Great specification and style....

but utter cr@p delivery when it comes to reliability and quality.

Best wishes,

Martin

[TOTALLYRC]

That may have been true that the motor needed major maintenance every 5 weeks, but that was in 1980.

Today we have synthetic motor oils, and will be running on propane or natural gas which doesn't generate as much combustion by products to contaminate the oil. Also, in a stationary application, with a constant load, there is even less engine wear, as start up, accel and decel cause most of the wear in a car engine. I also think that 800-900hrs between maintenance is not at all that bad, especially if there is a significant reduction in the total energy bill.

It will also be possible to run an oversized oils sump to reduce total percentage of oil contaminents/unit volume. If with synthetic oils, the service interval can be stretched to 12 weeks, then it is ~4 times a year. A normal furnace should be serviced at least 1 time a year, so I don't think it is out of line.

Mike

[Geof]

That may have been true that the motor needed major maintenance every 5 weeks, but that was in 1980...
Mike

You are correct but I still think that was abysmal even for 1980.

Constant speed, constant load, clean environment, larger, finer filters on fuels and oil could result in multiples of the lifetime of a typical engine used in an automobile; especially if the engine is designed for 1800 or 900 rpm rather than 3600 which is often used on small gensets.

[TOTALLYRC]

You are correct but I still think that was abysmal even for 1980.

Constant speed, constant load, clean environment, larger, finer filters on fuels and oil could result in multiples of the lifetime of a typical engine used in an automobile; especially if the engine is designed for 1800 or 900 rpm rather than 3600 which is often used on small gensets.

Maintenance every 42,000 mi, what were they thinking????????????????:withstupi

Todays car motors need an oil change every 3-5k, how could they have gotten it so wrong in 1980?????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????