those of you with the AES 390
While there is no magic recipe or rules as to when we should change engine oil. I can share with you this, professionally we change the engine oil after just a couple(2) of dyno pulls.
In my personal car, that I would street drive/street beat/street race/drag race, I would change the engine oil very frequently. IE:Cruise night on Friday night with some street play, go to the track on Saturday and hose a few bottles through the motor, change oil on Sunday. Or do a Super Chevy event or an NMCA event; Test and tune and qualifying Friday/Saturday then change oil before going into eliminations. Or a couple(2) of weekends of cruise nights and car shows, which ALWAYS end up with some street beating and burnouts.
Some say that is excessive, until you see the 400+ timeslips, almost 20,000 hard street miles, and about 100 bottles of nitrous that has gone through the engine that was built in 1996, and has not been opened up since. Not so much as lifter replacement (although I do relax the valvesprings during the winter). Granted, it is only a 4000 pound carburetor car that runs low 10's on the gun, but, on a cold start she still has 80 lbs of oil pressure, and 35-40 pounds, hot idle in gear.
In my personal car, that I would street drive/street beat/street race/drag race, I would change the engine oil very frequently. IE:Cruise night on Friday night with some street play, go to the track on Saturday and hose a few bottles through the motor, change oil on Sunday. Or do a Super Chevy event or an NMCA event; Test and tune and qualifying Friday/Saturday then change oil before going into eliminations. Or a couple(2) of weekends of cruise nights and car shows, which ALWAYS end up with some street beating and burnouts.
Some say that is excessive, until you see the 400+ timeslips, almost 20,000 hard street miles, and about 100 bottles of nitrous that has gone through the engine that was built in 1996, and has not been opened up since. Not so much as lifter replacement (although I do relax the valvesprings during the winter). Granted, it is only a 4000 pound carburetor car that runs low 10's on the gun, but, on a cold start she still has 80 lbs of oil pressure, and 35-40 pounds, hot idle in gear.
you can buy a 55 gallon drum of Valvoline VR1 20w50 for $355. thats 36 oil changes at 6 quarts/change. and comes out to be $1.61/quart. This may be a good idea. 2 oil changes a month for a street car should b good. thats enough for 1.5 years.
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I just dyno tuned, about 12 pulls and 1000 street miles (900whp) and changed the oil. Track on sat and il run it out street cruising till the end of the year. I go about 1000 in between changes.
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Well, i just changed the oil, and cut the filter open and found alot of small fine particles, some black, some aluminum looking pieces. i guess i should drive it around and pull the new filter again in several days and cut that open to see if it continues to make metal
As we have not had the oil tested, our procedures come from stringent direction from one of the engineers at the manufacturer. When you are really "whipping" it, what is the cost of safety? As stated earlier, these are expensive toys, while I cannot speak for everybody, I personally like mine lasting as long as possible. (please see prior entry on my personal oil change program)
As with any engine/long block/short block that we build, we can only recommend our proven maintenance and care procedures. In the end, it is up to you (or the end user)how you actually care for your investment.
As with any engine/long block/short block that we build, we can only recommend our proven maintenance and care procedures. In the end, it is up to you (or the end user)how you actually care for your investment.
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Well here's an update: have changed oil every 500 miles/before and after dyno tuning. Engine had less than 2k miles miles on it and 3 passes at the track, it ate a main bearing (2nd main from the front). Thrust bearings, and all other bearings (mains/rod) are all in good condition. On to the heads that AES ported/polished, installed new stainless valves, springs and retainers. Per multiple phone conversations with Brian, he assured me that Manley valves would be installed in my heads. Well upon engine teardown, I noticed that the valve stems were different heights. I Had a machine shop Check the heads out and found that the intake valves have pulled into the head (tulipped) making them .060 taller. The valves were not Manleys, they were cheap Qualfast p/n 53-108202 intake valves, and Qualfast exh valves p/n 53-108157. The noisy valvetrain was from these shitty valves! Everyone with a AES 390 and AES ported heads should be worried about their cheap valvetrain parts! If it wasn't for the bearing, I would have had serious catastrophic failure!
Last edited by dmaxvaz; Nov 13, 2014 at 09:46 PM.
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Well here's an update: have changed oil every 500 miles/before and after dyno tuning. Engine had less than 2k miles miles on it and 3 passes at the track, it ate a main bearing (2nd main from the front). Thrust bearings, and all other bearings (mains/rod) are all in good condition. On to the heads that AES ported/polished, installed new stainless valves, springs and retainers. Per multiple phone conversations with Brian, he assured me that Manley valves would be installed in my heads. Well upon engine teardown, I noticed that the valve stems were different heights. I Had a machine shop Check the heads out and found that the intake valves have pulled into the head (tulipped) making them .060 taller. The valves were not Manleys, they were cheap Qualfast p/n 53-108202 intake valves, and Qualfast exh valves p/n 53-108157. The noisy valvetrain was from these shitty valves! Everyone with a AES 390 and AES ported heads should be worried about their cheap valvetrain parts! If it wasn't for the bearing, I would have had serious catastrophic failure!
Lol at every post they made about changing the oil after 3 pulls or in the middle of a track event. Or even after a weekend of cruising and racing.
I keep the same rotella 15-40 in my stock 110k mile ls1 all summer long. Burned up maybe 500-600 gallons of e85 in 3-4 months, I do multiple 0-150 mph pulls either by myself or racing another car per fri and sat night.
So maybe 3-4k hard *** miles, 6 passes at the track and 10 700whp pulls on the dyno without ever changing the oil.
Cam and ls1 lifters have 60k+ miles, last 10k miles/3 years has been at 600+whp.
Well here's an update: have changed oil every 500 miles/before and after dyno tuning. Engine had less than 2k miles miles on it and 3 passes at the track, it ate a main bearing (2nd main from the front). Thrust bearings, and all other bearings (mains/rod) are all in good condition. On to the heads that AES ported/polished, installed new stainless valves, springs and retainers. Per multiple phone conversations with Brian, he assured me that Manley valves would be installed in my heads. Well upon engine teardown, I noticed that the valve stems were different heights. I Had a machine shop Check the heads out and found that the intake valves have pulled into the head (tulipped) making them .060 taller. The valves were not Manleys, they were cheap Qualfast p/n 53-108202 intake valves, and Qualfast exh valves p/n 53-108157. The noisy valvetrain was from these shitty valves! Everyone with a AES 390 and AES ported heads should be worried about their cheap valvetrain parts! If it wasn't for the bearing, I would have had serious catastrophic failure!
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From: metro detroit, mi
It's a toy, took out on weekends, had it retuned around mother's day, installed a different cam and injectors this passed winter and had some trans issus. I was super paranoid with this engine, (got dicked around by AES a lot) so I would change the oil a lot and would cut the filters open every oil change, and found copper flakes in the filter and decided to pull the engine a few wks ago and tear it down.
Last edited by dmaxvaz; Nov 14, 2014 at 11:12 AM.
