Engine failures

[jjstecher]

Couldnt you build a pickup that was two headed and had a trap door in it that closed one way or another under braking or acceleration? Getting probably too complex but just a thought? I do like the idea of a scavenge system you have but what about a possible simple mechanism at the front of the pan that uses the natural force and velocity of the oil under braking and routes it back to the pickup chamber. Seems a simple set of tubes would do that you'd just have to figure out the flow rates and stuff to have it barf it back around through the tubes.

currently most people blow about 3-5 engines a year

That's not close to a true statement and if it is I don't think all of them are from oiling...most are from boneheaded mistakes or throttle input mechanism error.

But overall I get your point. If the cost is a wash then folks will migrate to dry sumps.

[RussMcB]

If it is a pickup problem I guess I am curious why we can't just build a two headed pickup <snip>

I think this would not work because the pump would suck air if one head was in oil and the other was not.

[Brandon Dixon]

Our wet oil pan is a bit different. We wanted the pan to be a structural component of the chassis, so we couldn't just purchase an off the shelf solution. I made an attempt at a wet pan and I think that some things worked and some didn't. Changing to the Rilltech oil pickup and baffle seemed to help us a bunch, and I think that right now we are arguably a bit better than the more widely used pan (If you look at the June Sprints Data our low pressure drop is to 37 psi)

I've included images of the solid model of our pan. One benefit may be the channel that brings the relief valve oil back to the pickup. Also we are trying to get gravity to bring the oil back to the pickup. The extra volume of oil in the other pan may allow oil to come back to the pan without getting to the pickup. This is only thoughts for discussion.

I also feel that I'd like to do drysump, but the right combination of pumps and time to implement a system for our car and pan haven't come to me yet.

Brandon

[LLoshak]

Jay, glad you chimed in as well. Seems as if people dont know someone or that we dont build engines for everyone, we are all talking gibberish. But i understand, its all good.

John, you're thinking is right BUT, look at the dimensions of the pan and picture the oil level when the car is sitting there. The oil level is 2-3" higher than the lid, easily flowing into the p/u box. When cornering oil goes to approx an 45* angle but since the distance from the pick up to the left or right side of pan is small, the p/u doesnt come uncovered (when stratigically overfilled above sight glass). Now under hard braking, the distance from the p/u to the front of pan is huge! Now picture that 45* angle and the p/u being 1-2" off the back of the pan. IF the p/u was in the center of pan that might even be the fix. And as Jesse explained, the broken straw at McDonalds, as soon as the tinyest hole or uncovered portion of the p/u happens it sucks air. Dipping wouldnt be an issue IF it was just oil pump slowing down, its not, its sucking air! And every dip slowly damages the bearings and thats why its always a rod bearing, they are last in the chain to get oil. P/u to pump. pump to filter, filter back to psi galley, galley to oil cooler, oil cooler back to galley, some goes up to head, most goes to main bearings in crank, then through crank and into the rod bearings, then threw rod bearings and slung out into crankcase and how it trickles back into pan.

Today/this weekend, I will be hacking up the pan, p/u and cover. I will post pics of what we did and report results of how it works at CAT. I guess if I dont blow up it works.

But, even if it does, I'm going Dry as soon as Jesse is done with testing. Real race engines need a real oiling systemEspecially when its allowed in the rules. So Jesse that means you only need to sell 99 more!!

[LLoshak]

John that 2 headed design would be very complex and not worth it. I had to do something like this for my fuel tank in my prelude, so I put 4 fuel pumps inside the tank, one in each corner, feeding the p/u box. But thats fuel, lets leave that alone.

John, between Jake and I, 3 motors this season alone. I blew 1 motor in 3 races. And the 1 was its first weekend, it cost over $8000!!! Not to mention I was in 1st place and WAS in contention for the triple crown. That dry sump sure seems like a bargain when you think of it that way.

And I could post screen shots, but you'll see exactly what you are sseing in yours and Jakes and what I described. I'd rather work on posting pics of a possible fix.

Jay, do you have any pics to post of your pan?

[LLoshak]

Easier way to visualize whats going on. At 1.5G's of braking oil is at a 45* angle. So picture your engine sitting there with oil filled above sight glass. Now while looking at the sight glass, tilt engine by lifting rear of engine until pan is at a 45* relative to the ground. Whats that sight glass gonna look like? Empty! Now picture your p/u, its got no oil and nothing refilling the p/u box. Theres the problem, 100%, no doubt in my mind.

Do the same by tilting it sideways and you'll see p/u would still be in oil, thats why its not an issue for cornering. The p/u is in center left to right but NOT front to back.

[Wright D]

To develop the wet sump pan that we built when I was in FSAE we bolted the pan to the bottom half of an engine case and then filled the case with water to the top of the sight glass. We then tilted the lower case and pan assembly in all directions (as sujested in the pervious post). We paied close attention to wich parts fo the oil pan remained under the water level line. This same thing could be done with the wet sump pan that is so popular now.

[Wren]

Our wet oil pan is a bit different...

It also has a trapdoor from the oil relief valve to keep the oil from running back to the oil relief valve.

I think that you could benefit from moving the pickup another inch forward and it would still clear the trapdoor. I think that would help even more with the oil pressure dips.

[urbanimports02]

new at attatching photos on this forum, so here it goes. here is the wetsump concept i had for improving the current wet sump. i abbandoned it as most were happy with there wet sumps, and i have a strong belief in dry sump. this pan has a bridge across it and trap doors toward the front of the box sides guiding oil into the box from the sides under braking. oil will hit those walls running width wise and be forced in to the center right at the pick up giving it that much more oil. the pick up is also located right about the center of the pan which is about 1" more forward then the current setup. the little trap doors at the back will guide oil in under acceleration and both side doors will guide oil in under lateral g's. it would use a similar baffle plate between pan and engine. please note this drawing is not finished, obviously, and would have my same quality look as my dry sumps. i can have one of these done within a couple weeks, maybe sooner if someone is interested.
Attachment 15107

[jjstecher]

Lawrence I wasn't talking about you posting data I was talking about others not running GSXRs or running Dry Sump or something else. Rather have more information than none. Jake ran his Yamaha in the Radical for 3 yeras without issue, my old DSR before it burned up had a motor in it for 3 years and ran 30 weekends with the previous owner without an issue. Curious if its a GSXR thing or if it exists in other makes. If it does or doesnt we can pretty much draw consolusions from that. Otherwise its just guessing at how to fix it.

All your examples make sense with tiltiing the engine and the length of the pan. Looking more at it and talking to more folks from the bike world they believe we have a oil return problem as much as a oil shift problem. Brandon's design delivers a lot more oil directly back to the pickup than we do with the other pan. Looking at a wide variety of workshop manuals for Porsches here all of their wetsump designs deliver oil via the oil return pipe back to the pan right by the pickup. Thus not spitting it out in the front of a pan like ours but putting it right where its needed. Can we do this in our engines?

You guys (Jake and you) have blown 3 engines...is that 3 out of 3, 10, 100, or 1000? No one can clarifiy how broad the problem is and I think that was the original purpose of Jake startin this thread we have the bonus that we're starting to debug and come up with solutions to a problem that exists. (I am knocking on wood all over the place now) I have two years on my motor...last year I ran it to 13750 every single race and test day. I've backed it off this year. I don't take it easy on the motor and had some pretty serious overheating issues early last year. The data traces I have are no differnet for every single session I have ever run OP wise from last year to this year. No issues for me at all...the motor just works. I wonder how many other folks are in my camp and have tons of time on motors without issues.

I wish I could be out playing with the car but I'm stuck in the office picking my nose theorizing.

[jjstecher]

new at attatching photos on this forum, so here it goes. here is the wetsump concept i had for improving the current wet sump. i abbandoned it as most were happy with there wet sumps, and i have a strong belief in dry sump. this pan has a bridge across it and trap doors toward the front of the box sides guiding oil into the box from the sides under braking. oil will hit those walls running width wise and be forced in to the center right at the pick up giving it that much more oil. the pick up is also located right about the center of the pan which is about 1" more forward then the current setup. the little trap doors at the back will guide oil in under acceleration and both side doors will guide oil in under lateral g's. it would use a similar baffle plate between pan and engine. please note this drawing is not finished, obviously, and would have my same quality look as my dry sumps. i can have one of these done within a couple weeks, maybe sooner if someone is interested.
Attachment 15107

I'm game to try it out at the end of August at Road America. Email me off line if you're interested and we can work something out (jjstecher at gmail.com). I still don't like the fact that there is no way for the OP return valve to drop oil back into the main area for the pickup. But I am sure you can iterate on this come up with something.

[LLoshak]

John, your input is also very important, everyones is. Just dont want to hear posts of how thier engine has lasted forever but isnt winning races. If youre not breaking engines, then I guess, dont worry about, look up this thread when you do, its a matter of time.

Yes, the Suzuki has the smallest oil pump of all, yami, kawi, etc. But regardless of size, air is the enemy.

Jesse, NICE LOOKIN PAN!!! Its almost exactly what I have scribbled here and might do to my pan. Can you have one done for me by next weekend? And your new pump? Afterall, going to need that pump anyway for DS.

Stay tunned, pics soon.

[Wright D]

The stock GSXR pan has the oil pressure relief valve return tangent to the side of the sump so that it generates a bit of a swirl to help de-aerate the oil draining back in from gear box and motor. We cannot do that in the short wet sump pans that we run that have trap doors and baffles.

[urbanimports02]

when you get on the brakes, and drop rpm, pressure drops enough that there should be no oil coming out of the pressure relief to guide back. someone already tried running the pressure relief right back into the pickup tube itself, and i am told, no change or improvement was detected, and that was on the current popular wet sump pan. i have built a test device to actually see what is going on with the pressure relief valve at different rpms, and george will be testing it this weekend. it is on a dry sump system and puts the relief valve in his dry sump tank which is open on top so he can see what it is doing. i did this on a zx10 and was shocked at how much it flowed, but they run a lot more pressure then the gsxr, and the theory is that the gsxr is not opening once up to opperating temp, but i believe that is bs. i like to prove theories instead of hash them out. we will see soon. i would be more then happy to do whatever is necassary with the pressure relief valve once i have that data. my current focus is on dry sump, but i will build whatever you guys want.

[JakeL]

John, your input is also very important, everyones is. Just dont want to hear posts of how thier engine has lasted forever but isnt winning races. If youre not breaking engines, then I guess, dont worry about, look up this thread when you do, its a matter of time.

Lawrence -

John isn't just driving around for giggles. Two thirds in a row at Sprints (I'm ignoring the .00000001 mm too-wide wing DQ) is pretty stout driving, IMO.

Punk needs to go buy a lottery ticket though

Jesse -

Any updates on your anticipated test with the higher volume pump, in terms of system pressure?

-J

[urbanimports02]

dustin, thats only on the 06 and older, 07-08 has the relief valve upside down right in the center of the pan pointing up with a little cast cover over it.

[Wright D]

Design by committee, this is great!

All the smartest guys in the class are working hard to get this problem figured out, how cool is that!

[Wright D]

dustin, thats only on the 06 and older, 07-08 has the relief valve upside down right in the center of the pan pointing up with a little cast cover over it.

Ok, I forgot how they had done it on those pans. They moved the valve to fit in a different exhaust. Thanks.

[LLoshak]

Jake and John, (again the dangers of forums and typing) by no means was that directed to John or really to anyone for that matter. Just trying to say post things that might help, dont want to read about how some engines have lasted for years, it just makes me jealous!

Lets brainstorm a fix!!!!

[jjstecher]

Jesse's pan looks good but I still struggle to see how under braking it channels oil back to the pickup. It captures it with the trap door on the middle section from leaving the pick up but if the braking event is prolonged the pump is going to clean the chamber out and thus have it drop pressure. Just not sure how to get it back to the back from the initial slosh. Almost like the front of the pan needs to be curved arcing the oil back to the rear and through the side trap doors.

Beyond that from a pretty detailed discussion I had this morning with an AMA guy the oil return from the engine not actually getting back into the pan under braking is the other concern. He said the bikes dont run baffles because with their 3 axis movement putting a baffle in prevents oil return and starves the motor...so is something similar happening in our case? Anything we can do to redesign the baffle to allow or easy oil return under braking with minimal chance of oil flowing up and out. Thinking like a raised series of levours facing backwards on the baffle that oil would slide into under braking but have a harder time coming out.

No offense taken Lawernce...just point me by at the Cat instead of holding me up. :P

[LLoshak]

UPDATE

UGH!!! This is going to be harder than I thought. P/U is already where I wanted to move it. The pic was misleading. The p/u is not at the rear of pan.

[sidney]

I think this is a very valid point. Hydraulics is just like me lazy, and oil will always take the path of least resistance. The pressure drop of sucking air through a line versus oil is much less (think of a straw sucking air or a milkshake). The critical point is the "T" connection between the two suction lines. As long as you could be certain that point is always flooded with oil, then you would be fine. As soon as you expose that connection to air, you loose the prime on the pump.

If the system is sucking air, it may explain why it takes longer to return to a correct pressure after starvation, as the air that is being pumped into the system now has to be purged. Air, of course, is a compressible fluid, while (technically) the oil is not.

I think this would not work because the pump would suck air if one head was in oil and the other was not.

[urbanimports02]

Hey lawrence. The testing has been interesting. The high volume oil pump made more pressure then stock until it got to 50 psi, then it flat lined around 50 psi. Something about it won't let it over 55 psi. We are pluging off the pressure relief and I made a rig to relocate a zx10 pressure relief into georges tank and a plug for the pressure port in the motor. That relief valve is really user friendly and easily adjusted. George should be receiving it any time now. Just trying to leave our testing off this thread until we come up with something.

[LLoshak]

That is interesting.

Did you notice that ridge when looking inside where p/u flange is bolted too? Cant be good for flow. What if we have a restrictor plate situation going on here? hmmmmm.

UPDATE:

Pan rotated around 180* will bolt up. Working on making a new p/u and modding lid. If this works, it would be EZ for everyone to do. New p/u, new lid and a pressure relief valve footy and whola! Same pan can be used.

Stay tuned.

[glenn cooper]

Hey crew, been following this whole deal.
One thing I've not seen mentioned is use of these engines in other types of car racing.
I bought a few engines from a guy that runs mini sprints or some such thing.
They run on asphalt and turn to the left.
He says the engines go for years, running a flat pan w/ baffle plate.
Obviously no braking (to speak of) and no right turns.
We know they survive real well under these conditions.
Just a little add'l info...

Test day at WGI is over and finally got in some hard laps in last of 3 sessions after having to replace a rear upper A arm that had stress cracks inside "V" at upright attachment. The WD40 I applied after the rain race 2 weeks ago at Mosport offered up a poor man's magnaflux, and the oil showed the cracks real well.
Whew, coulda been not-so-good...(!)

Back to the oiling, I have been thinking for awhile that airated oil was potentially an issue. Watching the oil come into the top of the tank and scooping some out w/ long needlenose pliers holding a bottle cap, maybe 5cc's worth. Not ultimate laboratory quality scientific method, but not overly shabby... The oil looks fairly airated. Not sure how much de-airation is occuring inside my oil tank.

In last session, car would not produce over 35-40 psi under full load. Not looking good for this 6 race old engine. As a last chance type deal I am going to install a can of VI improver in hopes that this might get psi #'s up. Fingers crossed!

GC

[jjstecher]

Lawrence doesn't the OP relief valve need to sit in the housing on the pan? I can't remember without having the engine apart in front of me but I swear its just press fit. I could be wrong but worth looking at.

If your idea works cool beans...lots of happy campers. If it doesn't then I like pursuring Jesse's pan with incremental updates along the way to address others concerns (like flow back ot the P/U chamber under braking etc).

Coop you're running a dry sump right?

[urbanimports02]

Coop, route your scavenge oil through the oil cooler and then to the tank. Then just loop a -8 line from the engines left cooler port to the right. This has been working for us for years now. It seems to de-aerate the oil a bit better. Aeration was one thing we have been looking at on dry sump but most believe that wet sump aerates oil way more with all the sloshing going on.

[Lee Stohr]

Different engines seem to behave differently. With the Yamaha wet sumps it was cornering oil pressure that was always the problem. Jeff at Loynings developed that pan every year until the pressure never went below 30. When Jeff built the first Suzuki pan which went on JR Osbornes DSR, I was there at the first test and downloaded the data. I was surprised that oil pressure dropped under braking, but not in cornering. Others then copied Jeff's pan and Loyning wasn't doing so many bike engines, so development on the wet sump Suzuki pan basically stopped. However, no one seemed to have any trouble with the 05/06 Suzukis, maybe the new engine is the culprit ?
I did make a bunch of changes to Jaremko's pan for last year's Runoffs, moving the pickup lower and further forward. Relocated the oil pressure relief. Results seemed only a few psi better, but we never did back-to-back at the same track. I never modified the baffle.
That's my recollection, anyway.

[glenn cooper]

Thanks Jesse, Yes, scavenge oil is to cooler and back to DS tank already.
The stock oil cooler ports are capped off w/ plates, and the left side/return port got drilled out prior to doing this.
Thanks, GC

[urbanimports02]

Sounds good.that's the correct way to mod the gallies. The amount of aeration you see is prÓbably normal. Put a sight tube on your tank top to bottom and you would notice it gets better the closer you get to the bottom. If you could look at the top of the oil in a wetsump motor you would also see heavily aerated oil.

[HastyHorn]

Here I am confused again. I've been gone on vacation the last couple of days and I come back to a myriad of posts, many of which are debating the merits of dry sumping vs. wet sumping. One of the observations (?) or questions is whether the pressure pump has sufficient "suction" to draw oil through a 2 foot hose or if the process causes a drop in the pumps capability. Or at least that is how I am reading the discussion.

Isn't one of the benefits of dry sumping the presentation of cooled, stored oil (from the tank) to the pressure pump with a certain level of "head" pressure. The tank and more importantly the average stored oil level height within the tank is meant (designed) to be physically higher than the pressure oil pump pickup. Thus the oil entering the pressure pump is presented (hopefully air free) with no energy demand put on the pressure pump.

One might question the efficacy of the scavenge pumps capability to suck the oil and push it UP some certain distance of hose (to cool it and get it to the tank) but the oil coming out (of the bottom of the swirl tank) shouldn't be of concern.

I must admit that when I ran Taggart's R1 dry sump system I was concerned about what would happen when the scavenge pumps began to suck mostly air, particularly since the scavenge pump(s) consisted of essentially two pressure georotors (we called them trocoid oil pumps at Yamaha) but I come from the background where one had to "prime" the old hand operated well pumps.

None of my concerns were justified. The scavenge pumps always kept the oil level in the tank constant (even, apparently while sucking some air) and I had oil pressure that was tied directly to engine rpm (braking, cornering, etc. not withstanding). Now, hot idle pressure always scared me but that appears to be fairly normal.


Hasty Horn

[LLoshak]

These moto engine should be very reliable. How many engines do you see going south in bike racing? I agree, our engines should be just as reliable as the circle track guys. But mini-sprint, motorcycle or sports racer, all will blow an engine if you starve it of constant supply of oil.

As for the yamaha vs suzuki thing. Havent seen the inside of the Yami, but the P/U in the suzuki is all the way in the rear of engine, is that the same for the yamaha?

John,

The OP relief valve is inserted into the same spot into motor with o-ring side into engine. Now rotating the pan 180 the machined area that would hold the bottom half of the relief will now be in rear of pan and unused. The distance of the relief valve sticking out of the engine is very close to the length to the bottom of pan. I'm going to make something here to protect pan from the relief valve vibrating/whatever, but no concern of it falling out because it just simply cant once pan is installed.

The other small issue is the pan rail bolt hole pattern is slightly not symetrical. But looks to me a couple holes enlarged will fix that problem.

Lid is already rotated 180*, trimmed and sitting nicely on the pan rails.

Next is making the P/U and then trimm the lid some more. I have to get some material to make the P/U so that is going to take a couple days, but not a problem as I dont even have my KWS motor yet. These vented/viewing window engines are great for mock-ups!!

Im really confident this is going to fix all issues EXCEPT having to run so overfilled, the only way to fix that is with a DS.

Im also going to make some sort of heat shield/oil deflector if the engine blows. Blowing an engine shouldnt automatically mean fire.

I'll update as soon as I have one, hopefully with pics.

[formulasuper]

Here I am confused again. I've been gone on vacation the last couple of days and I come back to a myriad of posts, many of which are debating the merits of dry sumping vs. wet sumping. One of the observations (?) or questions is whether the pressure pump has sufficient "suction" to draw oil through a 2 foot hose or if the process causes a drop in the pumps capability. Or at least that is how I am reading the discussion.

Isn't one of the benefits of dry sumping the presentation of cooled, stored oil (from the tank) to the pressure pump with a certain level of "head" pressure. The tank and more importantly the average stored oil level height within the tank is meant (designed) to be physically higher than the pressure oil pump pickup. Thus the oil entering the pressure pump is presented (hopefully air free) with no energy demand put on the pressure pump.......
Hasty Horn

Thanks for this post Hasty, I thought maybe I was losing my marbles when I read (see next paragraph posted by another member) that my -12 feed line from the bottom of the dry sump tank to the pressure pump inlet was a bad thing on my Busa dry sump system!

"This seems to be corroborated by the notion that a few folks have told me, that the currently available dry-sump systems developed for these engines have typically been somewhat hobbled since they can't generate more normal pressure (55+) when trying to suck from a tank that's 2 feet or so away. I would be interested to see if Coop's data shows that limitation as well?"

With the larger feed line there is more oil available to feed the pressure pump so it doesn't have to "suck it from a tank 2 ft away". Larger hose means less resistance to flow.

[JakeL]

Glenn:

1.) Does your data show any dip under braking with your Kropp dry sump?

2.) What is/was your "normal" max system PSI with the dry sump? Is it around that 45psi number we keep hearing? (vs approx 65psi with the stock pump wet-sumped)

3.) Are the roundy-round guys you speak of running 07-08 GSX-R's specifically, or all sorts of different makes? For example, the 01-06 Suzukis seemed to be tremendously reliable, the 99-03 Yamaha eventually got figured out, but it's seeming that the 07's, for whatever reason, are experiencing more trouble. Maybe that's just perception, and not reality, though.

Scott:

That was me, posting that. In regards to the strange observation that the dry-sump systems are experiencing (so I am told by George and Rilltech): Both suspected it had perhaps something to do with having draw oil from 2' or so away, instead of a few inches directly out of the pan. A -12 line (approx 3/4" ID) 24" long is more resistance to flow than a 2" line of the same diameter, and if memory serves, the pickup diameter on the GSX-R is at least that large. However, per what Hasty says (below), one would think there is some positive pressure working in the pump's favor since it's coming downhill from the tank...

Hopefully this weekend's testing will sort out what the real cause is behind the empirical observation that's already been noted.

Other notes:

-.) Hasty brings up a good point, shouldn't there actually be a bit of positive pressure due to the height of the oil in the tank helping the engine oil pump to send pressure up into the motor? This would perhaps point to detriments in the path of oil into the intake of the oil pump, perhaps? Jesse's and George's testing may shed some light on this.

-.) Regarding the baffle plate, is there any way to put gaps/holes/slats in the baffle that would encourage oil flow down in, but discourage oil flow up/out? Some sort of shaped cut, similar to the louvers on a sports racer's bodywork?

-.) Other than sucking a big gulp of air through the pickup, what other factors could be contributing to aerated oil? I'm sure the crank whips it up pretty good, and the clutch/gearbox/etc, but are there other factors we can control?

-.) Unrelated directly to the engine reliability, but more a commentary on F1000: Last weekend I had 3 FE drivers comment to me that they were getting ready to put their cars up for sale to move to FB until they started reading about the engine failures people are experiencing. If we can crack this nut, I think it will really help FB, and 2010 is go-time...

Cheers!

-Jake

[Lee Stohr]

Lawrence, The Suzuki wet sump pickup is not at the back of the pan, don't understand what you talking about?
Are you planning on moving the pickup all the way to the front of the pan?

[urbanimports02]

glenn cooper is only seeing 40ish psi with his kropp dry sump. i know the head pressure in the tank is supposed to make a dry sump work better, but it is a flow thing at this point. the gerotor pump doesnt seem to be able to draw the oil. george and i have played with this a ton. i have talked to a couple other dry sump manufactures/engineers, and they all point at this as being an issue when i tell them what is going on before i even say it is what we think is going on. one thing that has been weird is it makes great pressure when the oil is cooler. you would think that cooler thicker oil would have more flow trouble and hot oil, being almost water like, would flow great, but not the case. george is going to try to test a nova dry sump, as everyone that runs one says it works fine, but we want to define fine. the nova only uses a -10 line for the inlet and when it comes to getting oil in the motor, they are not doing anything differently then me. you can throw all the theories in the world at this one, but it wont fix it. we are testing everything thoroughly and will find the fix. believe me this is frusterating. when i built my zx10 system, it had no trouble with this, it justs works. the only other theory i have at this point is my recirculating pressure relief valve is opening around 50psi and then it just sucks the oil from there ballancing the pressure right at its opening point. we have blocked that off, and will test with relief valve in the tank so we can see when it opens, and what it does, and hopefully it rockets up to 65psi! if thats the case, then we were chasing the wrong thing this whole time. that would be bloody great.

[urbanimports02]

also, the only thing that made any improvement on my system was boring out the port in the pan leading into the pickup. before that all we could get was 40-44psi. after boring it out we were seeing 50-54psi with no other changes pointing directly at the flow into the pressure pump. it is currently bored slightly larger then a -12 fitting.

[Wren]

Im also going to make some sort of heat shield/oil deflector if the engine blows. Blowing an engine shouldnt automatically mean fire.

Brandon has some insulation that is an inconel/fiberglass/inconel sandwich as a heat shield between the exhaust and the engine. It does a lot to keep exhaust heat out of the engine/oil/oil filter and we both think that it should protect the car from fire as the oil should all be hitting the insulation which should be well under 200*. I think some oil might be able to get around the heat shield (maybe), but not enough to produce a car consuming fire. Hopefully we never have to find out.

I think Dustin also has something for his car to protect the engine from fire that he described to me at the sprints. He could probably say more about it.

[JakeL]

On that subject, it's become more common to use the "fire blankets" like Stohr and Rilltech sell. I have one on my car.

But, Lawrence, didn't you say that your engine ripped through *two* of these when it failed at Road America?

One fellow posted on the DSR forum that had a simple fabbed aluminum piece that served that purpose, and he actuall "tested" his, with good results.

Good for more discussion, perhaps move to another thread?

-J

[Wren]

I'd be impressed if the rods could punch through inconel,the insulation is a little bit off of the engine also. It was mostly about controlling under "hood" temps and has done amazing for that, but the safety part was important too.