Topic: Anyone interested Engine protection/Development oil accumulator kit

[Graywolf]

Anyone that road races or does Autocross knows the extreme G's your engine is experiencing. Also the extreme trauma a engine undergoes in drag racing. At times your engine is literally and briefly out of oil even when the engine is at full on your dipstick. Racers for years have used Oil accumulators which inject oil when your oil pressure is low and prevent your engine from blowing. It also removes the extra oil  when your oil pressure normalizes. I am in the early process of developing and fabricating a kit that will allow a bolt in installation. Its to early to give cost estimates at this time. It will take me 6 to 8 weeks to develop the kit. It will also look cool in your engine compartment. Please let me know how many of you would be interested.

[SKY888]

this is very interesting Tom.   

good stuff!

Keep us updated!

[Va_Sky]

They also use to be called an accusump. They even use to make turbo accusumps so that when you turned off the motor the sump would continue to oil the turbo while it was hot and still possibly spinning. The turbo ones would usually hold enough oil so that it was still oiling the turbo long after the turbo had stopped spinning.

[SKY888]

They also use to be called an accusump. They even use to make turbo accusumps so that when you turned off the motor the sump would continue to oil the turbo while it was hot and still possibly spinning. The turbo ones would usually hold enough oil so that it was still oiling the turbo long after the turbo had stopped spinning.

This process was used before on top of a turbo timer?  thanks!

[shabby]

Aren't there baffles in the oil pan to prevent oil starvation during excessive gforces?

[Graywolf]

Correct, but the problem with our engines is that the all oil ports including the turbo line is to small of a diameter  to infuse oil fast enough to maintain pressure. That is why this will involve some fabrication plus it will involve mounting hardware fabrication. This accumulator would be for engine and turbo protection while engine is running ,not when it is turned off.

[Arabas]

That's interesting.
there were some engines of the VW group back in 2000 (the 1.8L Turbo) that had huge issues with oil pressure during aggressive cornering and acceleration resulting in engine kaboom!
is there a similar problem with the lnf?

Graywolf, if i may, how are you planning to resolve this? i mean, what does this kit involves?

[snaponbob]

Not being a wet blanket, but has this condition been verified in Ecotec engines?

[kennysabarese]

How is this different from a dry sump? There are dry sump kits available for the Ecotec but they ain't cheap.

[Brad Kenny]

SOB,

You have been racing a LONG time, have you ever had an issue of oil starvation in your engine?

Graywolf, I know you do racing also, so is this something that is a nice to have, or a must have for Road Racing?

This seems pretty extreme for general use, but if needed for hard racing I would think it would be in the ECOTEC build book, or some reference somewhere. Seems like an interesting project, and I am interested to se what it looks like and how it will work in the end. Will this replace the OCC also?

[scoobyless]

How is this different from a dry sump? There are dry sump kits available for the Ecotec but they ain't cheap.

Dry sumps involve moving the oil supply to an separate tank and involve lots of custom or expensive parts.  An accusump tries to offer the same type of protection at a much lower cost, it gets plumbed into the existing oiling system and only activates when there is a significant drop in oil pressure. 

Accusumps are often used in conjunction with belt driven dry sump setups to provide instant oil pressure while starting a car since belt driven pumps take a moment to get oil pressure up.

There shouldn't be any custom parts for this project, but maybe a package of the right parts?

I'm not sure if anyone has had any failures from oiling problems while racing, but I would consider building a higher capacity/better designed oil pan and baffle if there are issues since accusumps are more of a band-aid for a problem.

[Graywolf]

Sorry I have not answered posts on this subject.  I have been down in New Orleans havin one heck of a great time. In the Gm sport compact Performance build book they use a production oil pump with Bates billet gears and a two stage dry sump system in Drifting. So if GM thinks you need a sump for Drifting I suspect there is/or could a problem with oil pressure at times. So if no custom parts are needed, then tell me where do you plug into the Ecotec engine that the oil port is large enough to work. Also custom brackets need to be frabricated . My point of entry will be boring out and threading the cap over the oil filter for the oil line to the accumulator. I thought it might be nice to have all this put together  in a kit for those of you that don't have access to Race car Fabricators. I plan to order a oil filter cap just in case I screw it up. I would use a Morroso Accumulator

[scoobyless]

While I am much more familiar with ej series engines ( Subaru 4cyl), i would think there is some sort of galley plug that you can utilize?  I'll have to look into the lnf and le5 motors a bit more to be certain, but that'd be the only thing that needs to be addressed IMO.  Brakets are readily available unless you want something to mount like oe and even then depending on each persons car they may want the accumulator mounted somewhere different given all the other aftermarket parts in people's engine bays. 

Oil accumulators are a great idea but most people won't need them unless they are pulling serious g's and even then you should look at how many track cars with standard oiling systems have had failures. Subarus have more oiling difficulties than most motors and most track subies dont run accumulators fwiw.

Don't want to put the idea down but I don't believe it needs as much "fabrication" as you are implying.  Still a comprehensive group of parts is a nice idea, but like I said it all depends where the accumulator is mounted.

[Graywolf]

Yes ,the only parts would be the oil filter cap modification and a bracket fabrication to mount the accumulator. I race against one guy that has a Camaro and he noticed oil pressure drops secondary to G cornering force. He installed a accumulator and it solved his problem. True ,the Camaro is a different animal . When I saw the sump set up for a ecotec powered Drift car in the GM build book, it got my attention. I just installed a oil pressue gauge so I don't know if the pressue drops on the Lnf engine.

[Critterman]

I don't think we have much pressure to begin with, let us know what you find out, please

[Graywolf]

I will let you know what pressures I am running. I have to replace the new oil pressure sensor[faultyl,the tempory mechanical gauge read 40lbs at idle on a cold engine]

[Critterman]

Yeah that is low on a cold engine, my old Pontiac read 90 cold even at 120K, but I did use a straight weight 30 racing oil

[Graywolf]

Well my idea will not work. I inspected the oil cap for the filter and it is made out tin {thin metal] with a plastic thread and some type of spring to hold the filter down and not loosen. Totally cheap piece of crap which can not be threaded for a large oil line. Plug is pulled for now @#$!#$^@!

[kennysabarese]

Make a metal cap?

[scoobyless]

Look for a Galley plug rather than using the oil filter cap.  I don't know tons about this specific engine but that'd be better than having to worry about the accumulator line during each oil change.

[Critterman]

right side of the engine under the exhaust, 3 of them.

[Graywolf]

Making a metal cap sounds good until you look at complexity of the stock cap. Next time I have the car on a hoist I will look for the 3 Galley ports under the exhaust to see if they are big enough. Thanks for the input!