I have been doing some research regarding oil control. One way to gain horsepower is to install a deeper sump oil pan. The idea is to get the oil further away from the crankshaft. Question is how far away is good enough? If I were to install a 6 quart oil pan and the stock one holds 4 quarts would only putting in say 4 1/2 quarts in the 6 quart pan be good enough?

Is the crankshaft whipping up so much air turbulance that the oil is splashing all over the place? I would think that a good fitting windage tray would keep the pan oil away in of itself. I have also read the a crank wiper is really not neccesary until round 6200 rpm. Any truth to that?

Last question. I have read of anywhere from 10 to 20 or more horsepower can be had by a good designed oil pan and windage tray. Anyone have dyno numbers they can share? Thanks

 

You might want to look thru Circletrack.com they have a good article about oil pans and oil levels and how that changes power on the dyno.

Notice I said dyno... it's much harder to tell on the track.

Bret

 

Engine Masters had a good article on it as well.

 

Thanks guys. I will take a look.

 

I used to have a bunch of those oil control devices in my engine but found they were more problems than they were worth. I toasted too many bearings from lack of oil.

Windage tray, crank scraper, rear pan baffle to keep the oil from going up the back of the pan during a hard launch. All removed. My new block also doesn't have any lifter valley screens.

I use a 7 qt deep sump pan with about 7 quarts in it. I now use a 3 quart oil accumulator to make sure the oil galleries always have oil in them if the pump isn't picking up any oil. That means an oil change is 10 quarts. The accumulator oil stays in the accumulator until needed. With the engine spinning over 7000 rpm, there's a lot of oil in the top end of the engine. If the pan runs dry from not enough oil, the engine gets hurt.

The HP you lose from having oil dripping down onto the crank or being splashed up onto the crank isn't going to be big enough that you will notice.

 

So why didn't you had keep all those control measures in your pan if you had the accusump, or did you not have one at the time? Just wondering as I went w/ everything you mentioned in my Stef pan but I slapped a accusump on there as well. I RR vs 1/4 though so I don't know if that matters or not.

 

Funny, I've never had a issue with any of those things?

 

Could someone please tell me where the hell you put the accusump? I'm really interested, because i'm ready to tackle it, but if it's been done before on a 4th gen, I'm wide open to suggestions. Thanks.

 

If ya got the right size ya can put it on the frame right below the bat.

 

One more thing,use only steel braided lines and AN fittings.
I saw two cars burn to the ground last year and both were from rubber hose going to the oil cooler that broke/blew off and sprayed oil on the headers.

 

I use a Moroso oil accumulator. They all work the same way. I have mine mounted on a roll cage tube that goes from the top of the strut tower down to the front of the frame. I have the supplied manual valve and also installed an electric valve. I have a 3 way switch where I can use the accumulator to prime the engine then just leave it open as long as ignition power is on. When the power is turned off, the accumulator closes. The oil hose goes to a port above my oil filer. The aftermarket block provides a bunch of different ports. The port is after the filter and feeds the galleries.

As for the oil control devices, I just found they weren't worth it. I never had the accumulator then. The accumulator just makes sure the engine always has oil in the galleries as long as it's running. As I mentioned above, using all those different types of oil control devices will not see any big gains, if any, in power. I'd rather make sure everything has oil instead of trying to keep it off rotating parts. A lot of parts are only splash lubricated. Unless you're building a Comp Eliminator engine where you need every fraction of HP you can get, just build it with some good parts. The simplest is a deeper sump pan with baffles to keep the oil in the sump area. You can use a 7 quart pan with 4 quarts or less in it if you want. Just make sure the pan still has enough oil in it at high rpm when all the oil is in the top of the engine.

 

Depending on the size is where it hurts you. I bought the 3 qt and freaked out when I saw how huge it was. Note to self from now on....read the dimenstion 1st before buying! LOL.

That's where mine is going. I am putting mine on the frame where the horn use to sit some device is on that frame and I'm just relocation it w/ some zip ties. The bracket that holds the sump will be drilled there and then plumbed.


Funny I had a 7 qt morosso w/ nothing in it melling HV oil pump w/ the white spring and had nothing but problems. I do corners so I rather have some added protection and I'm not concerned about hp gains or losses.

 

FWIW-you can put 10 qts in a stock 5 qt pan before it reaches the crank throws on a standard 3.48 crank..likeI said, FWIW

I've only ever run a bolt on windage tray and sump block off plate, never once had an oil issue except when sending unit went bad and I only ever ran 6 qts total in the system and that was pre-filling oil filter and then 5 qts of earl in the 7 qt pan. 2 yrs 5-6K miles later and over 1800 passes rod/mains still had teflon on them and looked out of box factory fresh, nobody believed they were out of my engine with all the miles/passes on it. synthetcis baby

Your not going to see ANY gains/losses on an actual race track pertaining to this matter, even gains of 20hp will be overshadowed by air changes and/or driver screw up/track prep, etc...unless as stated your running a heads up class where just about eveybody is within a few hundreths of each other, then you may seea difference but I've heard of some stocker guys only running 2 qts of oil total to get the quick ET since typically the motors get rebuilt before the next race anyways.

 

Found out that it cost $200 to knife edge my crank using the "airplane" style. Hmmmm that is actually within my budget. Now to do it or not to do it. Or is the money better spent elsewhere?

 

Unless ya are running in Pro Stock ya don't see that much of a gain.
Ya will see a gain on the engine dyno but it should be an all out engine to justify spending the money.
Scat cranks come that way or the ones I use.