Dry SUmps

[Maadmike]

So far i've worked out that the advantages of one are decreasing the chance of oil pressure dropping/screwing up when doing high sped cornering etc and i've seen it bee ndone for clearance on racing cars etc.

Are there are other advantages/disadvantages with running a dry sump, and are there other things that need to be considered when doing this??

Just something i've been wondering about :)

[GTSBoy]

It's not at all justified for a road car.

Having said that, you need a modified sump with much smaller volume and proper internal design to route the return oil to the pickup of the scavenge pump. Scavenge pumps are happy sucking in a mixture of air and oil. Scavenge pumps are not cheap. The scavange pump then shoves the oil at your main oil reservior, which typically will have much more capacity than a normal wet sump. The ALFA Montreal had dry sump from the factory and it's engine bay mounted reservior was about 11L.

From the reservoir you suck with your pressure pump, through whatever filtration and cooling system you need/want and then back into the main gallery of the engine, usually via a fitting on the engine mounted oil filter location.

cheers

[hotgemini]

But god are they sexy....

[Billzilla]

You can do it very effectively & cheap as well. On my racing car, the scavenge pump is made up from a chunk of alloy and two sets of Holden 308 oil pump gears. The cost of the parts is maybe $100 or so.
We drive it off the front of the alternator, like this -

http://www.billzilla.org/drysumppump.jpg

Yes, the maching cost a bit but we did all that at home anyway.

The catch tank doesn't have to be all that large, in fact you can make them quite small indeed as the oil level is controlled far better than a wet sump system. I've seen a road-going Westfield Clubman with the factory dry-sump system - The tank sits inside the bell housing! FWIW, this is how the good Formula cars of many tyre have the oil tank as well.

Also FWIW, the new system that we're going to be building for the new race engine will be somewhat more advanced than the current system - It'll have only two external pipes, one to the pressure pump in the engine and the other the scavenge return.

[hamish]

You would'nt have any more pictures of your setup Bill? I've always wondered if there was a cheaper way out of dry sumping an engine.

Maadmike, other advantage of dry sump is more HP, because it keeps the oil off the crank and reduces windage losses.

[Maadmike]

Thanx for the help guys im still considering doing it i just gotta do some research and see how it goes...i'll keep u informed with pics etc if i do it..

[sir5.7]

i have a dry sump on my 383 holden engine. the advantages of that is that you get constant oil supply, a vacumn in the engine creating more power, the crank not splashing in oil-more power again and lower friction than a wet sump setup. less friction means more power again. basically u get MORE POWER. down side is the set up costs around 6 grand.

[Billzilla]

I don't have any specific pics of the dry sump gear, but if you look at the ones of my racing car you might get some ideas.
Yes, you can do it for a lot less than $6000. ;)

[biteme]

We ended up using a very baffled wet sump, but using a dry sump pump to feed the setup. Originally it was a dry setup, but various space issues for the reservoir tank prevent us from making it all fit. The cost of the moroso dry sump pump, custom sump/filter etc wouldn't be much more than $2-$3k depending on
how much work you do. Doing anything custom takes time and that costs, if you can do the design of the sump and everything then that will save a lot of money.

Byron

[hamish]

Thanks Bill.