Dry Sumps

[docevi1]

How do Dry Sumps work/what are they?

I'm assuming that the sump doesn't have oil in it hence the term Dry?

[chris_n]

Instead of having the oil sitting in a sump pan under the engine it is located elsewhere is a remote tank. One or more pumps is then used to pump oil into the engine and pump it back out into the tank.

This gives several benefits including allowing the engine to sit lower for better handling due to reduced CoG and also does away with problems associated with oil sloshing around in the sump due to G-forces during corning/braking and the consequent risk to loss of pressure. Both of the above mean it is quite common on racecars.

[docevi1]

aha, so a Dry Sump engine doesn't actually have a "sump" then. There will be some form of pressure to the system as well one presumes?

It's just brought another question to light, why do wet-sumps exist? The parts needing lubrication don't enter the sump do they?

thanks for the reply answered one question

[gdr]

Wet sump is lighter, less complicated (dry sump has multi stage pumps, external pipework etc), more easily packaged and much cheaper, so norm for production cars. Dry sump is a race (or very fast road) thing.