Dry sump oiling questions

[funcars]

I have not run a dry sump system before and had a couple questions:

1. I am trying to decide on how many scavenge stages I should run for a combo street track car. I have EDM oiling hole Carrillo rods to get oil to the piston pins but don't want to run squirters for the cylinder walls. Should I run a 5 stage pump and use a vacuum relief valve or a 4 stage without? What is a good level of vacuum that doesn't get me into trouble?

2. Which pumps have the least problems with longer term use?

3. Is there a good way to get a little bit of pressurized oil to needle bearing cam bearings?

Thanks

[Matt@RFR]

1) Call xxx dry sump pump manufacturer and get their recommendation. Noone knows better than they do. My personal favorite is BDG (http://www.bdgusa.com/). Get their recommendation on using a vacuum regulator and volume requirements (gear ratio) too.

2) As far as I know, they all use aluminum housings, one brass gear and one steel gear. The housings are what takes the everyday punishment, and the housings and brass gears are what takes the big hits. You will need to regularly maintain the pump, but the good news is that they are super easy to take apart and put back together.

3) Why? That's the beauty of needle cam bearings...they work on splash oil alone, thus creating less windage inside the crankcase. If you want to pressure feed the cam bearings, save yourself a lot of money and run a wet sump system.

There are a LOT of little tricks to a good dry sump oiling system, and they are found in every component in the system. I'd recommend doing some serious reading and start making friends with some dry sump manufacturer's tech line dudes. You can get into some big time trouble not knowing what you're doing here.

[rocketman]

I have run dry sumps on the street,a drag race set up is what I prefer.
A 3 stage pump,will be fine on the street,and you most liely get away with out a vac pump,but I would a 3 vain pump.You will want to run the vac pump line straight out of the valve cover it helps lube the pump.

You will want to run a -16 line to the oil pump from the tank with a -14 return.

I run needle cam bearings in my 710 with a wet sump and no problems.

There's are a lot of tricks to a dry sump as Matt said,and more than I can think of at 12.45 am

[SStrokerAce]

10-12" is all you need to work effectively. Over that you can have pin issues.

Bret

[ProStreet R/T]

Are you building the motor specifically to run with a substantial amount of crank case vac?

What block mods do you have planned to help with oil control? Going to enclose the cam tunnel? Run restrictors to the heads? External drain lines?

Almost every aspect of the motor build comes into play when you step up to a serious dry sump.


As was previously mentioned, you REALLY need to talk directly with the guys building/selling them.


Here is a link to one i've been looking at for a future project.
www.daileyengineering.com





On another note, how many of you guys run dry sumps on the street? I know a couple cars are coming with them OE, but I wonder how specialized they are. Every DS setup i've used was not terribly street friendly. We spent a good deal of time priming everything before startup, uses 4-5 GALLONS of oil, etc. Granted they were pretty hard core motors, but thats kind of a given if you're even considering a $3-5k oil system upgrade :woot:

[SStrokerAce]

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif

#808-032 - This vacuum regulator is generally mounted to a weld-in bung in the valve cover. The spring loaded check ball inside only opens to bleed off excess vacuum when the set point is reached. Simply rotate the knurled piece at the top until the desired relief point is reached and then lock setting in place with the lock nut below.
#808-033 - This is the slickest vacuum regulator we have seen to date. This unit mounts directly to the
-12AN inlet fitting on the vacuum pump. Benefits are several: No need to weld a bung into the valve cover, mounts directly to the pump and rotates 360º for ease of fit, draws cooler ambient air into the pump instead of hot engine air (pump runs cooler), pulls less engine oil the from valve cover into the pump, simple to adjust (rotate top screen piece to desired setting and lock with nut below)!

#808-034 - Same as #808-033 except instead on mounting directly to the vacuum pump, it mounts in-line between the valve cover and the pump. -12AN male fitting on one side and -12AN female fitting on the other side.

http://www.rehermorrison.com/items/VacuumPumpKit.htm

Bret

[rocketman]

On another note, how many of you guys run dry sumps on the street? I know a couple cars are coming with them OE, but I wonder how specialized they are. Every DS setup i've used was not terribly street friendly. We spent a good deal of time priming everything before startup, uses 4-5 GALLONS of oil, etc. Granted they were pretty hard core motors, but thats kind of a given if you're even considering a $3-5k oil system upgrade :woot:


Yeah it does require priming before starting,I just crank it before I lite candle's.you can get a dry sump tank as small as 1gal.

I have run dry sump on the street,but todays wet sumps aren't like they were,I run a 710 that makes 1100 wet sumped.

[funcars]

I've talked with a couple of manufacturers and found the two I've talked to both have different set-up's, recommended bearing clearances, pressure/flow levels, etc. So it makes it a little tougher to decide how to set it up. My shortblock is already set-up for a dry sump, but I stilll need to add plumbing, a tank, and a pump. It's a ford SVO. I'm kind of leaning to Johnson since they seemed to be the most willing to help me with my set-up, but I'll call a few others. Anybody ever use a Johnson pump?

Oil restrictors, etc. are already in place since the block has needle bearing cam journals and was run with a dry sump before I bought it and had it bored. It doesn't need any large amount of vacuum because I ordered pistons with reasonable width rings and no gas porting or ultra low tension oil rings.



Thanks for the help.

[SStrokerAce]

Johnson does good work, nice pumps too.

Bret