Competition Oiling-Draft

[GHR630]

Right. I have a 6 pint Accusump on the way from the States (got it for $150 bnib) so as long as the dreaded VAT man doesn't get me I should be quids in. Having read up on it and reading about concerns that the electric valves can resist flow etc, I intend to fit it as a manual install. This gives me the best of both worlds, i.e. fast fill, fast discharge. I am thinking I will fit a 'T' between the oil pump outlet, and front of the oil gallery with a check valve between the Accusump and the oil pump take off. Thinking is quick fill from the oil pump but discharge all goes to front of gallery (it was #2 that got fried last time.

 

A further mod will be to mount it under the bonnet with a bowden cable set up so that I can operate the manual valve from the driving position. Racing, I'll open it before starting and shut before shutting off. Street I'll just leave it shut. What do you think?

[AndreGT6]

My setup came with the electrical control so I use it.

 

One thing a friend suggested is move the pressure gauge up to the dash.

 

I can't see mine with my hans device on.

 

You might as well run it for street start. It will help, but the issue is at shut down.

 

Can be very noisy if you come home from a late night drive tee hee.

 

A.

[Nick Jones]

Reading this again I'm rediscovering some real pearls of wisdom. Could really do with just a little sorting to pick up on some of the following comments and turning into a locked technical sticky.

As I've got a bare block on the stand with all gallery plugs out (hence the re-reading) and having got the hang of the way the oil ways go I think it's worth considering why the octopus, or something similar, is needed.

The pic shows the block side on. I believe the critical area to be the longitudinal oil gallery shown by the green line. It's 11mm diameter all the way along, except where the shaft bushing passes through, where it's actually bigger due to being able to go both ways round the bush. More specifically it is the shorter section of this, indicated by the white line, between the point where it is fed from the oil filter (other green line joining) and the shaft bushing which has to feed 3 main bearings, 5 big ends and 4 cam bearings through one 11mm gallery. While it's adequate for road service with decent bearing clearances, at high rpm and/or when bearing clearances are bigger I reckon this is the real bottleneck. What the octopus does is bypass this. In fact, I suspect that the octopus is probably overkill. I reckon that connecting a single external line (purple dotted line) from the feed gallery just above the oil filter to the front main feed giving a ring-main effect would be enough - if only you could get a big enough connection into the block at that point. The octopus still scores in that by taking oil to each main feed point, you don't need to worry about individual flows so much.

Another approach, and I seem to remember Steve that you did do quite a bit of work on this a while back, was to enlarge the longitudinal oil gallery by drilling it out a bit. Challenging due to the length. However, I'd say that you'd win a large part of the benefit simply by drilling the rear section up to the bush. If you could push that a bit further, just up to the next cam feed or even just chamfer the entrance to the next section, then you'd gain a little more. The front section doesn't matter nearly so much as it's feeding much less.

Now I'm basing this on 30 minutes poking around the oilways, vs. years of hard, real-world trial by racing, so feel free to shoot my theory full of holes.....

What I'm wondering now is whether I can be bothered (and be brave enough to risk hurting what is a pretty much fully prepared block) to drill that first section bigger. This is only a road engine and while it'll doubtless get a good ragging, the old one has withstood the same treatment for years.....

Nick

Now edited to put the picture the right way up.

Thanks to Andy for providing sanity in the interim.....

 

Edit 2: Doh! Andy's is still better than mine as I forgot to explain the orange ring on the revised pic - it shows the head feed point via the rear cam bearing......

[toofast2race]

For those of us who think the right way up - yes I can appreciate the irony coming from Oz

[GT6Steve]

I think Nick is Spot-on!

 

 

 

For those of us who think the right way up - yes I can appreciate the irony coming from Oz

 

 

 

[toofast2race]

Easy mod then to drill out the gallery - or even easier - although more obvious - do we just run an external line from the drilling above the filter to the fromt of the block?

[mark spit]

Isn't that what John D has done, sure he's posted a pic of his setup before.

 

Mark

[Nick Jones]

For those of us who think the right way up - yes I can appreciate the irony coming from Oz

 

 

Yeah..... I did try turning the picture upside down but the background was messing with my head. I could have physically turned the block up the right way easily enough - just didn't think of it at the critical moment I wouold use the embarassed smiley - if there was was one.....

 

Nick

[James]

1321416707[/url]' post='76477']

Easy mod then to drill out the gallery - or even easier - although more obvious - do we just run an external line from the drilling above the filter to the fromt of the block?

 

Seems a good way of doing it.

 

[Martin]

was this correct??

[Nick Jones]

was this correct??

 

 

It's not quite what I had in mind as I think you are picking up the feed from the rear main bearing/cam bearing/head feed point rather than the main oil gallery just above the oil filter. I'm not sure it makes much difference in practice as that end of the oil rail is short and only has to feed 1 main, 1 big-end, one cam bearing and the head.

 

Nick

[Martin]

my idea was that at the rear end of the engine or the "short end" of the oil gallery there is not much oil needed as there is only one main bearing and (my thinking) is that the rocker does not need so much oil. So give it to the front.

However, all the bearings from my engine look, beside the scratches from the parts that travelled through the engine for "sight seeing", very good. I used AE mains and King (lead copper) for the big ends.

I think to pick the oil up right above the oil filter is better. Has anybody already poked out the plug there to check what thread it may be?

 

Martin

[Nick Jones]

Yes, I did this recently. It's aluminium so quite often gets eaten when a block is chemically cleaned.

 

A 3/4" UNF bolt fits the thread nicely. Not sure what this equates to in proper pipe-fitting terms, but easy enough to make something from a bolt.

 

Cheers

 

Nick

[JohnD]

New, yet to be fitted, engine has same mod as Martin.

Great minds 'n' all that.

JOhn

[GT6Steve]

I always thread both ends of the galley to NPT cuz I want to remove them everytime for a good scrub.

 

Keep in mind this thread says Competition oiling. I know we all thrash our cars and every bit of improvement is welcomed but the stock system will work well for most cars if we ensure the factory did it right. Like drilling all the galleys to ensure they actually go thru!

 

New, yet to be fitted, engine has same mod as Martin.

Great minds 'n' all that.

JOhn

 

 

 

[Nick Jones]

I always thread both ends of the galley to NPT cuz I want to remove them everytime for a good scrub.

 

Keep in mind this thread says Competition oiling. I know we all thrash our cars and every bit of improvement is welcomed but the stock system will work well for most cars if we ensure the factory did it right. Like drilling all the galleys to ensure they actually go thru!

 

 

Agreed! For me this started out as a mission to make sure the oilways were completely clean, but once I pulled the oil pump shaft bush out and could see stuff I'd not seen before I started thinking..... too much probably!

 

Have you ever tried measuring oil pressure at the 4 different main bearing drillings so see if they were different and whether any went down with increasing rpm? I need more oil pressure gauges!

 

Nick

[Martin]

So finally got all plugs out of the block.

My thoughts yesterday were related to the square areas of the oil passages:

main passage diameter 11mm: 95 mm2

drilling from main passage to mains: diameter 7 mm: 38 mm2

my extermal feed to the front of the main passage diameter 3,2 mm: 8 mm2

 

That was disillusioning? for me. Does this external feed really help?

 

What about (for a trashed road engine) only drilling the passage from the main oil gallery to the front main journal to the max possible 8 mm diameter, would increase the square area to 50mm2. Means less "back-pressure" at the front, giving the oil more chance to reach the front main?

 

Martin

[spitfire6]

Greetings,

Is there really a need to enlarge or modify the mains oil galleries?

Is there really such a high volume of oil flowing? I would think that enlarging the passage to the main bearing would have no effect as at the bearing/ shell restricts the flow. Is there really a lot of flow through the shells?

 

I was looking at making an external oil feed kit for my car using Swagelokâ„¢ fittings and installing a low pressure transmitter to tell me the pressure at the front bearing passage. While deciding that it was possible to accurately measure down to 0.01 PSI here, I came to the question; “Is there really a need to enlarge or modify the mains oil galleries?â€

 

Cheers,

Iain

[spitfire6]

Greetings again,

Some nice pictures on here. I run a remote and bypass oil system and from the pictures I see, I could tap into the block instead of the filter housing.

 

The oil pressure relief is prior to the filter by design, would it not be better situated after the filter?

 

Does anybody have ideas on minimum flow rates at maximum temps and RMP for mains, Cam. head etc. for the 6 and 4 cylinder engine or is it all guess and PSI?

 

I think, and only think that oil pressure should be ignored if flow rate can be measured to the vital parts.

 

Cheers,

Iain.

[Nick Jones]

Hi Ian,

My opinions:

Road going engines turning briefly to 7000 rpm (2L) or 6000 rpm (2.5) don't really need any mods - just checking that oilways are fully drilled and clear.
As mentioned in one of my earlier posts, there is one particular short section of the main longitudinal gallery that carries nearly all the flow. That is the part most likely to benefit from enlargement or bypassing.

Actual flow through bearings will depend mainly on bearing clearances, oil viscosity and feed pressure. I think rpm has an influence in so far as at high rpm there will be a centrifuging effect increasing pressure at the big ends and increasing the draw from the mains. This would be the effect most likely to lead to high rpm oil starvation of bearings perhaps, but only if the outgoing flow exceeds the incoming. I also have my doubts that the standard drilling feeding each main is a bottleneck provided it has been drilled completely.

Measuring flow at various points would be very interesting, but measuring pressure is a lot easier and cheaper. Pressure remains interesting as it remains an indication of the restriction presented by the bearings which reflects their condition.

Having the relief valve right after the oil pump provides a degree of protection pump and drive should the filter block and the internal bypass (where fitted) fail to open. I can't see an advantage in placing it later. As a "pump professional" I always recommend putting the relief as soon after the pump as possible where it gives maximum protection.

These are all opinions based on observations and reading of others observations. They are no substitute for instrumentation. It would be very interesting to have a datalogger reading oil pressures (or even pressures and flows) at the head of each main bearing feed, with a completely standard oiling system and then with modifications. This could probably now be done without huge expense.

Nick

[Automobilist]

Steve, et al;

 

I'm assembling an octopus using the aluminum manifold Steve gave me. I'm plumbing it with Parker Push-Lok hose & fittings, which are rated to 350 psi and the hose bends easier than braided steel. I'll back the ends up with clamps too.

 

A lot of oil plumbing under my bonnet:

• oil cooler lines
  
• remote oil filter mounted on firewall
  
• oil pressure gauge line
  
• oil temp gauge line
  
• accusump feed line & anti-backflow valve
  
• main oil supply line
  

Fittings, adapters, tee's, etc...

 

Big VARA race weekend coming right up at Willow Springs. Kas featured all Triumph race, enduro, and a I hope good amount of madcap antics & wacky hijinx. We WILL see you, eh Mr. Smith?

 

Ed

[GT6Steve]

I'm planning to be there as of now.

 

Don't skimp on the hose size Ed, I'd say dash 10 at the minimum. I'm suspicious a lot of my problems came from using Dash 8 hose.

 

BTW, I've seen that Parker Push-lok hose blow off a TR4 dumping all of his oil onto the track. He wasn't using hose clamps.

[Automobilist]

You really think the -8 lines weren't sufficient? Considering the small holes in the block, I don't understand why it would have a big effect. With good oil pressure, wouldn't even relatively small lines benefit the front end oiling?

[GT6Steve]

I'm talking about the lines to the oil cooler and back. I ran -4 from the octopus whilst Kas ran -3. My premise is that the damned pump is inadequate for a racer and we must do everything else to compensate.

 

Not one word of this thread applies to grocery getters....

[Automobilist]

Ok, yep, I've got -10 on all the main lines. Only the octopus lines are small.