Dry sump

[Bonnie and Clyde]

I haven't read this yet although i took a photo of one at the motorshow as i noticed the LS1-7 sign in the board. Has this anything to do with our cars or can it be useful and if so what would you do with it. Dont know what on earth it is. As i say haven't read it yet. I recall someone mentioning dry sumps a while ago.

www.drysump.com/

[stevieturbo]

If you have a race car, on slicks performing high-g turns or accel/braking then a dry sump will be neded.

otherwise, it isnt.

[Bonnie and Clyde]

Thanks, i'll get my coat

[robkarloff]

Bonnie and Clyde said:

I haven't read this yet although i took a photo of one at the motorshow as i noticed the LS1-7 sign in the board. Has this anything to do with our cars or can it be useful and if so what would you do with it. Dont know what on earth it is. As i say haven't read it yet. I recall someone mentioning dry sumps a while ago.

www.drysump.com/

Right, if you think about your engine, and the oilpan (sump) is on the bottom as a reservoir for the oil to flow into from the various places in the engine and for the oil pump to pick it back up and pump it around again. The crankshaft sits above that, and obviously most of the time it's spinning around at several thousand RPM. With a regular oilpan, the oil can slosh about and hit the spinning crank, acting like a brake (this is called windage). Manufacturers design their oil pans with baffles to restrict oil movement in the pan under acceleration, braking and hard cornering so this doesn't really happen.

On a racing car that can do all of these much harder, it becomes an issue and loses the car performance. So, the solution is to fit a drysump system. This has a very shallow oilpan to collect the oil and the scavenge section in the pump which empties the oil from there and pumps it into a separate oiltank somewhere in the engine bay. Another section of the pump provides oil delivery from the seperate tank to the engine oil galleries like a normal pump. Another advantage is that the oil is kept away from the hot engine so stays cooler, and if the engine goes BANG then a minimal amount of oil will leave the engine out onto the wheels of the car or racetrack. It also means that if it catches fire there will be a minimal amount of burning from it.

[essexhsv]

stevieturbo said:

If you have a race car, on slicks performing high-g turns or accel/braking then a dry sump will be neded.

otherwise, it isnt.

Thats how i drive everyday maybe i need one lol.

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Although loss off performance is one factor the biggest reason to fit a dry sump is when you get oil starvation.
Baffles only slow the movement of oil in the oil pan and continual high g acceleration will cause the oil to move away from the oil pump and then it'll start sucking in air. For a few moments there's no oil and this causes huge problems. It can cause catastophic failure very quickly and at best massive engine wear.

A dry sump is the ultimate solution but takes up a lot of room as you need a tall thin cylinder to store the oil thats collected by the scavenger pump. this can cause packaging problems in some cars (like my toy car) but another solution is to fit an oil resevoir like an Accusump. these work in much the same way as an electrical capacitor and store oil under pressure ready to be sent to the engine should oil pressure drop. As soon as oil pressure is restored they charge up again. An added bonus is that they keep the oil charge when then engine is off and just before cranking dump the oil into the engine to pre-lubricate the engine on startup.

Again only on serious performance cars really need this kind extra. Most modern oil pans are engineered for pretty much everything you could throw at it.